Mariners. Haverfordwest.

In the Early 20th Century, the then Proprietor Mr Mortimer Thomas found it necessary to cement render the frontage of the Hotel. He decided to add "Establish in 1625" to the Hotel Mariners facelift, thus making it the oldest Hotel in town. This he did on the assumption his friends and customers could not prove him wrong, as no date is recorded of building the Mariners.

I fell for it. The windows were a touch rattly during the night but I made the generous assumption they were nearly 400 years old.

Once checked in it was bar food which sounded fast and fingerfood but in fact it was a real menu just served in the bar. I opted for Cawl which I was told was a local soup folowed by roast of the day which was beef. Oh and a pint of Old Phoenix bitter.

Cawl was good. Welsh lamb and vegetable soup supplied with bread, butter and a slice of cheese. Not quite sure what to do with the cheese (like first time I met fish soup in France and had to take a masterclass from the teenage waitress about what to do with the garlic, the mayonnaise, the bread etc etc). So I chopped up the cheese and added it to the cawl.

Roast beef was also good. Nice chunky slices with lots of different potatoes & veg. Horse radish supplied without needing to ask (top marks).

You can always tell the quality of a breakfast by the sausages and unfortunately here we were towards the cardboard end of the scale.

Overall bed, breakfast & evening meal with unlimited wifi was just over £90 which you can't grumble at.

The Union Tavern, Mount Pleasant

Another good London pub with gastro ambitions. Two pints of cornish Doom Bar bitter followed by the special of the day which was Belly pork honey roasted served with savoy cabbage, turnip, pancetta and onions plus dauphinoise potatoes. Son (eldest this time) was not feeling on top of the world so we didn't go for starters or puds. Instead we had a second pint of Doom bar bitter.

Nice steady meal. I like London pubs. They serve quality food at simple prices. None of yer fancy £6-95. They call it 7 quid.

Bad point they added an optional service charge of 10%. If they hadn't I would have tipped but all data protection nerds know that pre-tipping is bad and annoys customers.

Restaurant at the end of the Universe, Calais

After a short trip to France we arrived, son and I, at Calais Ferry terminal early evening and hungry. Went through check-in and parked in a queue and looked around for food. Didn't see a lot. About 100 yards away was a light so we went towards it. Above the door was the international symbol for food (a knife and fork or couteau et fourchette as the locals say). Inside there were a few toilets and a machine that dispensed coca cola and bags of crisps. So much for the international sign.

After some mooching and grumbling we were just about to buy some fast food when we noticed a small advert on top of the food dispensing machine. It was in french and was advertising a restaurant. It gave directions to the restaurant so we set off to find it. We walked under an overpass and over a car park. We came to a building that didn't look like anything except offices but there was a sign at one of the doors saying restaurant. We went past an armed guard who asked to see our passports and boarding cards then finally up 3 flights of stairs we found a 150 cover restaurant which was..... empty.

A lady was cleaning forlornly in the corner and there was counter where we found a good range of food and settled on roast confit of duck, french beans, some interesting potatoes plus wine and a cheese course. €7-50 each. I engaged the serveuse in french saying "Bet you don't get many english in here - it's hard to find". Charmingly she replied " Actually we don't get many french in here either".

Nice meal but hard to find.