Mat and Cat have often bemoaned the fact that their home town of Ryde has not a single delicatessen to its name.

Eating-out places jostle for attention, but if you want to buy artisan cheeses or gawp at the trotter of a Serrano ham you're out of luck.

Not so in Ventnor, where the little High Street boasts not one but two charmingly bourgeois delis. Having visited the Island Deli not that long ago, M&C thought it best to redress the balance, and made a foray southwards to see what Goodman's Deli had to offer.

Read more »

Visit the website: http://www.goodmansdeli.co.uk/

Hippies, eh, with their free love and beads. Ventnor's bloody full of them. In the 1960s they say all the beardy-weirdy sandal wearers ended up in this most southerly town because it had the perfect climate for growing cannabis. Whether or not that was the reason, it seems that some of them never left. So today their children, the second-generation Ventnorians, might not look quite so Bohemian but still carry the ideals of the Summer of Love.

The heart of this nest of peaceniks is the Community Café, open every Saturday morning in a well-used space on the corner of Albert Street and Pound Lane. Here one imagines well-intentioned comrades can eat gluten-free cakes and stroke their tufty chins earnestly whilst decrying the state of the planet. But, as is often the case with Ventnor, appearances can be deceptive. The Community Café's reality is not the tediously worthy hippy Elysium one might assume - it's actually pretty good.

Read more »

Aren't humans lucky? We somehow find this lovely planet awash with things conveniently at a manageable scale: buttons, houses, cutlery. Also, being omnivores, we can eat pretty much anything. It's as if it was all designed for our use! Imagine how dull life would be if you were a koala. Sure, you'd live in a nice country and look pretty cute, but what good are a pair of unfeasibly fluffy ears if you can't manipulate a mirror to admire them? And who'd want a monovorous diet of eucalyptus leaves? Not Matt and Cat, who are out and proud as omnivores.

Not all people embrace their ability to chew and digest most of what Mother Nature provides for them. Some people live in places where their diet is not always a matter of choice; others have objections to eating animals that others simply think of as food with a face. Some choose to restrict their diet on a whim or principle: as a child, Cat was a very fussy eater and it's a surprise that she grew up at all, living as she did on salad cream sandwiches and milk. Matthew was less discerning; tea time at the vicarage was a meal without waste.

As she got older, Cat's diet broadened and she was a vegetarian for many years. However, eventually the lure of tuna was too much even for her steely will. This Damascene conversion suited Cat well. These days she has a penchant for fillet steak and, of course, bacon - the vegetarian's temptress.

Both Matt and Cat are happy to eat hay for pay, so were delighted and flattered to be invited to The 'V' Word at The Royal Hotel, a vegetarian tasting evening where they could mingle with the Island's eminent vegetarians. Could they spend an entire evening in such august company and not mention bacon? The only thing to do was to brush off the posh togs and find out.

Read more »

Fish and chips, unlike revenge, is not a dish best served cold. In fact, cold chips, unlike cold pizza, is a meal fit only for seagulls. For this reason, Matt rarely gets to sample fish and chip takeaways unless they are quite close to his home town of Ryde, and he can take the food home to eat before it congeals.

So die-hard Matt and Cat aficionados will be interested to note that this time he's ventured beyond the Island's north-east quarter, as far as southerly Ventnor. And if you think that's surprising enough, you haven't heard the half of it. This time, his trusty fish-and-chip-eating companions Bill and Jack were not accompanying him, nor was he alone. Yes, friends, it's finally happened, Cat has been into a fish and chip shop.

M & C were staying in Ventnor and, in need of a quick meal, decided to make for the nearest takeaway. When this turned out to be the popular and highly-recommended Ocean View, perched high above the town on the edge of Lowtherville, Cat - normally reluctant to consider chip shops as a source of food - showed no sign of wavering in her determination to get a hot dinner, and so into the bright little shop the duo went.

Read more »

Oh Keith, can you ever forgive Matt and Cat? Just a few weeks after this website was celebrated in the Isle of Wight County Press for offering "no high-falutin’ kitchen-speak intended to impress rather than inform", this entry appears, which might cause straight-eatin' columnist Keith Newbery to shake his head in dismay.

Once every couple of years, Matt and Cat rummage down the sides of the sofa for enough spare change to push the boat out for one night. Not just a posh meal out, but also a bed in a hotel afterwards. A luxury which means that a leisurely evening can be passed, safe in the knowledge that nobody needs to drive home; and with luck, a splendid breakfast awaits.

For this year's treat, M & C booked a room at Ventnor's Royal Hotel and soon enough found themselves holding an overnight bag on the threshold of one of the Island's oldest and grandest hotels. Long a watering-hole for the well-heeled, the Royal is also renowned for good food.

Read more »

Visit the website: http://www.royalhoteliow.co.uk/