Itsu, London SW3, restaurant review Itsu 118 Draycott Avenue, London SW3 3AW Contact: 020 7590 2400 itsu.com Price: Three courses: £16.96 In Brompton Cross, Chelsea, timeless social hot spot for women in fur boots who can't move their foreheads, sits the original Itsu. I shouldn't think the food differs from any of the others, but it is certainly the one that feels most restauranty. B arrived before me and sat in a booth that I took 10 minutes to find. Not because the restaurant is large - it's actually teeny - but because it's extremely discombobulating, with high-shine mirrors everywhere, walled booths that are impossible to see over, and a strange service area in the middle of the right-hand room, where a normal place would put its favourite table. Once I'd overcome my disorientation and sat down, I rather loved it; the privacy of the tables makes everything feel like a giant conspiracy, and then there's the conveyor belt of food, which never gets stale (the idea, I mean; the food would decompose in the regular way). We darted our hands in, no method at all, just sheer excitement. A healthier way to eat is actually to think about what you're eating, I believe. Spicy salmon sushi (£3.85) was good. It didn't blow our minds, but some dishes - oysters with Tabasco, fish and chips, sushi with wasabi - are so perfect in their conception that there is very little you can do to spoil them. We fell upon a chilli-crab crystal roll (£4.95), which promptly fell apart, and was rather a mild, backdrop experience, something you could eat with something completely different in your mouth if the need arose. It did have a lovely mouth-feel, that gluey rice skin stretched over crunchy lettuce, chewy crab and slippery noodles. Salmon appeared again in my miso soup (£2.85), which was excellent, with yet more in the teriyaki maki (£4.95), which was pretty tasty but very sweet and, in this austere month, something you could only justify if you'd just been to hot yoga. B had the chicken and coconut soup (£4.95), which was moreish, but not in a good way, more because it was extremely sharp and limey, which for some reason makes you want to keep eating it, the palate equivalent of scratching an itch. At some point, you'll start thinking, 'How much did these monsters eat?' Perhaps you've started thinking that already. I discovered in Itsu that, just as sake drunkenness creeps up on you, so too does the fullness of sushi. Still famished after five small plates, we ordered crispy chilli squid (£6.50) and tiger-prawn tempura (£7.50). These really sang out, in a devil-made harmony of fresh fish and fabulous batter. The squid was the thinnest, youngest baby variety, dainty and exquisite, with chilli rounds mild enough to eat whole, but fiery enough to remember. The prawns were wrapped in an oba leaf, whose perplexing heritage takes in both mint and sesame, but whose abiding taste was a pleasing, bitter freshness that was hard to pin down. They were encased in tempura, to create what I think was my favourite dish (although it isn't the most nutritious thing I've eaten all week). A tuna seaweed wrap with avocado and cucumber (£5.25) was good, though the seaweed element was almost wholly resistant to both teeth and human enzymes. Flinty Red, Bristol, restaurant review Bibigo, London W1, restaurant review Machiavelli, London WC2, restaurant review Luke's Dining Room, Cookham Dean, restaurant review Pizarro, London SE1, restaurant review The waitress approached, wondering about pudding. Sheepishly, we admitted that we were still a bit hungry. She made a nice, sympathetic, 'I wonder if you've got a tapeworm' face, and suggested the hot edamame beans in ginger, chilli, garlic and soy (£4.25). This was lovely; then, halfway through, wham. We were overwhelmed with satiation. When you can't even finish an edamame bean, you've overdone it. In sum, the cuisine itself is healthy, delicious in parts, in other parts a bit neutral, but for a wide variety of reasons, impossible to stop eating. Infinity Foods Cafe 50 Gardner Street, Brighton (01273 670743) The meze platter served at this bustling co-operative will banish any post-Christmas blues. Piled high with salads (think lentil and spinach, or brown rice, butternut squash and cherry tomato), vibrant vegetable dips and pitta, it costs £8. Archie Browns Bread Street, Penzance, Cornwall (01736 362828) This health-food shop is home to a colourful café that specialises in vegetarian and vegan cooking. More wholesome than slimming, the menu is awash with seeds and pulses. Try the red-pepper and squash pie (£8.50) Fit Food Bistro Tiso Outdoor Experience, 50 Couper Street, Glasgow (0141 552 9449) Visitors to this outdoor-equipment emporium can refuel on fruit-topped porridge, energising smoothies and salads at the café, just beyond the camping aisle. Try a baked potato with chicken, rocket and tomato salsa (£5.25)