As Matt and Cat never tire of pointing out, this website started as a hobby, is independent and takes no money from restaurants.

This gives them the freedom to air their honest opinions, and the liberty to please themselves without anyone pulling their strings.

Having written a fairly enthusiastic review of what was then the new Phileas Foggs back in 2009, they didn't see any need to write another one in any hurry. Not because they didn't want to go back to this very nice venue - on the contrary, they’d had some good food in a lively atmosphere. However, as each review involves a modicum of preparation, usually an evening spent in a restaurant and then several more hours crafting their opinions and processing photographs, M&C tend to target their revisits for mercurial places where the review might no longer be accurate, or which elicit polarised opinions from commenters to this website. The new owners of Phileas Foggs implored Matt and Cat to "visit us soon, we need an up-to-date review" - but, as the word was that all was still rosy in the house of Fogg, it took a bit of time for them to do so.

Eventually, of course, it happened. Matt and Cat made no mention of their impending meal to the new owners, who naturally enough got the anonymous review treatment. The big question is, has Phileas Foggs lost its way or does the earlier positive review still hold muster?

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Matt was once described by his university professor as having a Rolls Royce brain with Morris Minor engine. Cat, who used to be pretty punctual and organised, has adopted Matt's languorous attitude over the years they've been together. This lackadaisical leaning means that they have never quite managed to book a table for dinner at the award-winning Hillside Hotel, of which they've heard many good things. This is because a degree of premeditation is required to eat at the hotel's illustrious restaurant; admittedly just the minimum of a day's notice but, for slackers M&C, even that has so far proven to require too much foresight. So they were delighted to be able to swing by Hillside's newest venture - Ventnor's Hillside Bistro - without giving any notice whatsoever.

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This is a Matt and Cat special event report

Hands up who’s ever heard it said that the Isle of Wight is stuck in the past. Quite a few of you - you can put your hands down now.

The sneerers have missed the point; it’s actually a compliment to this slow-paced, temperate county. As The Future might not be all it was cracked up to be, who wouldn’t want to live somewhere with a steadfastly local paper, long-standing businesses and time-capsule restaurants? As ever, the Island is on-trend: vintage is the new cupcakes and The Royal Hotel, a positive Methuselah of the Isle of Wight’s hospitality industry, hosted an event to underline the Island’s leading role in the retro revival.

Scheduled to coincide with the Michelin Guide’s centenary, The Royal courted vintage fans to help it mark the rare distinction of being one of only thirty hotels to be listed in every Michelin Guide Great Britain and Ireland since it was first published in 1911. With a programme of entertainment and - of course - food, Matt and Cat were delighted to receive an invitation to join the festival.

Regular readers will know that M&C love the Royal Hotel and held one of their Dining Club events there. Always pleased to be eating the cuisine of executive chef Alan Staley, they were particularly excited about the weekend’s menu. Phil Baldock, head of communications at Michelin UK was also going to be in attendance on the Saturday: the kitchen staff would surely pull out all the stops.

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There are few places that are truly off the beaten track. The Boathouse seafood restaurant at Steephill Cove is not one of them.

It's one of the Island's worst-kept secrets, a place that all the travel writers love to imagine they discovered. And well they might. It's probably not somewhere that you would come across en passant, not least because of the horrifyingly old-school fact that you can't actually drive there, you have to walk. Yes, walk! The disabled access is probably under-compliant, the restaurant is not particularly well-signposted and its popularity means it is notoriously hard to get a seat in. Nevertheless, the Boathouse manages to attract customers keen to try its famous seafood dishes.

Fortunately for Matt and Cat - who have had the Boathouse suggested to them on a yearly basis but have hitherto been too indolent to book a table - a friend arranged a lunch date.

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Visit the website: http://www.theboathouse-steephillcove.co.uk/seafood_restaurant.php

Living in the green and pleasant land that is the Isle of Wight, Matt and Cat can't help but wonder how concrete-dwelling urbanites know when summer's arrived.

Surely they don't have the same pastoral indicators that a rural county can boast? No wildflower verges, shrieking swallows or the tedium of crawling through Sandown behind a mid-summer turkey and tinsel coach. Matt and Cat list these plus other key performance indicators, such as the sublime mid-summer pleasure of eating fish and chips out of their wrappers in a rainy and windswept coastal town. Following some enthusiastic recommendations, Matt and Cat headed to the Ventnor Haven Fishery to partake in this traditional seaside dinner ritual.

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