Fish! Kitchen, Borough Market London, 03.03.12

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, especially when you leave it until eleven o'clock and have a handful of hungry relatives in tow. The March drizzle melted into insignificance as we stumbled upon Fish! Kitchen, a buzzing, glass-surrounded eaterie in the heart of Borough Market. After a couple of stolen glances through the window at plates piled with black pudding and sausages, our minds were made, and we secured our table quicker than you can whisper full-English-and-a-black-coffee.

With the benefit of hindsight, I can now tell you that the anticipation of this breakfast was the most enjoyable part of proceedings. Our first stumbling block was a thoroughly luke-warm cappuccino, which was attractively (and perhaps coffee-chillingly) decorated with the lettering F.I.S.H. A replacement was requested, along with some milk to accompany the tea, and we placed our food orders. A piping hot cappuccino arrived shortly afterwards, along with a forgotten orange juice, but still no milk. We sat a little while longer, resisting the temptation to revisit contentious family conversation topics, but slowly autodigesting. The milk finally arrived, beautifully steamed and hot. We let the error slip past us, conscious of our parched and shrivelled kidneys, but all the same muttering "hot milk, heart of England, blah blah..."

25 minutes pass and we had still not received any food. A distracted waiter informed us they were a little snowed under in the kitchen, and that our food would be with us soon. When? Dunno. Now I am not a management consultant, but common sense would tell me that Saturday at 11am would be a predictably busy time for the breakfast service. The restaurant was half full.

Eventually the food arrived, and the full breakfast plates were bulging with produce. The sausages were firm and herby, but the scrambled eggs lacked seasoning and the poached eggs were hard. There are smaller dishes for the safety conscious client, including tomatoes or mushrooms on toast, but the former were drizzled in garlic. It was a unnerving position for any breakfast tomato. The kippers were dry and arrived drenched in butter, despite a request to arrive without. We ate. Solemnly. Desperately. And then we did the very British thing of kicking up a (bit of) a fuss. A couple of dishes were refunded and we marched out, to the tune of the waiter apologising to the table next to us, and offering a refund.

Rockfish, Dartmouth, Devon, 24.06.10

"Fish so fresh, tomorrow's are still in the sea." This fantastic sentiment comes from restauranteur and seafood expert Mitch Tonks as he opens his second Rockfish restaurant on Dartmouth's harbour frontage. The first Rockfish rose from the Fishworks ashes on Bristol's Whiteladies Road and quickly established itself as a reliable favourite. However, this new Dartmouth venture is "Seafood and Chips" to Bristol's "Grill and Seafood Market", perhaps suitably reflecting the its proximity to the English Riviera and pleasure cruises galore.

We joined Rockfish in its first week and were disappointed to just miss service at five minutes past nine on a busy June evening despite closing time advertised as nine-thirty. Undeterred by this, and by not being able to book a table (a beautifully casual but un-British "just turn up and you should be fine"), we made it in the following night.

There is a buzz in the air- a full restaurant with pastel shades, wooden tables covered in paper table-cloths, and dozens of fascinating if not slightly voyeuristic family holiday snaps posted casually across the walls. The buzz soon turns to chaos but an air of forgiveness lingers- the wrong wine is brought, orders are pimped round the tables as the fresh-faced waiting staff desperately try to account for a stray battered haddock.

The principle is simple- fairly posh fish (from cod to lemon sole) which is battered (or breadcrumbed) with a choice of accompaniments to include the obligatory chips, mushy peas, bread and butter, a glass of sauvignon or a even a cuppa. Half a dozen oysters start proceedings brilliantly without breaking the bank. After a quick reminder to the waiter, the cockles are nostalgic but suspiciously a bit vinegary. Much of the fish is landed just along the coast at Brixham, but a request for breadcrumbs instead of batter is ignored and the batter is a little overbrowned . Luckily the fish survives and remains moist and flakey. Each component arrives in a cardboard tray with paper liner- a nice "fish n chips" touch but very much out of touch with the apparent recycling culture. Dozens of them are later spied spilling over the kitchen bin. Let's hope they were later salvaged, after all, the paper table cloths did advertise "100% good for planet earth". The "adult" knickerbocker glory has a hint of booze and is delightfully camp, but as the detritus from the main course has not been cleared it becomes a cramped affair and another gentle reminder to the waiter.

This place has great potential and a really positive vibe, but we met it during some serious teething. The service needs extending beyond 9pm; the waiting staff need to pay more attention to simple detail; and the tables need uncramping. With a bit less chaos and a bit less litter, Rockfish will almost certainly have great success as Dartmouth's summer season approaches.