Kikujiro

Sorry, yes, I did of course mean Kebab House. Didn't know about its recent problems though. I hope the pun in your misspelling of my own nick is unintentional :)

RPerlow: well, neither of us had stopped drinking entirely. I was drinking at a reasonable pace; my companion rather less so. The point was not the waiter's failure to notice that we'd stopped drinking, the point was that he kept refilling our glasses to higher and higher levels, without any regard for what we were doing. As I say, over the first two courses the wine went from properly-poured to horribly overfull. If the glasses had stayed at the same level throughout, that would have been good service. I think I did drop a few (increasingly bad-tempered) hints to the waiter, but they were missed in his urgency to finish the (not wholly inexpensive) bottle.

As a Londoner, I've only been to GT once, a couple of months ago, but I was disappointed enough to want to sound a less enthusiastic note. The restaurant seemed to me (and I say this as a big fan of NYC and its food) to have pretentions above its abilities. As far as I can remember, I had tuna tartare (with some kind of meat jelly) and then rabbit. The rabbit was good and the tartare was no better than okay. Dessert (something chocolate involving a mini malted shake) was the best course. However, what really left me with a bad taste in my mouth was the service. It was all incredibly welcoming and friendly, but the waiter did that thing of refilling, and overfilling, our wine glasses every two minutes. What made this particularly noticeable was that my companion was not really drinking -- most times he hadn't taken a sip between top-ups. When we were first served our wine it was poured up to roughly the right level. Every time the waiter walked past, it went up a quarter of an inch or so. By the last refill, there was almost no air left in the glass. This haste to shift product is enough to put one off otherwise good service, and what would probably have been an enjoyable meal.

If your City-tethered leash extends as far as Moro, there's always the Quality Chop House round the corner, which has a kind of mockney-cum-brasserie thing going -- jellied eels, but also oysters, steak tartare, confit of duck, and suchlike.

If you're really looking for fairly standard and simple stuff, you're pretty close there to Bar Zaika Bazaar (2A Pond Place / 020 7584 6655), which is related to the high-end and successful (Michelin starred I think) contemporary Indian restaurant Zaika, but with a more trad menu and lower prices. I understood it was meant to do a sort of tapas, but when I went it had a starter-and-main-course kind of menu. In the West End, there's Masala Zone off Carnaby Street (9 Marshall Street / 020 7287 9966), an 'Indian Wagamama' from the Chutney Mary people. Food is okay; depends on your standards, which depends where you live ; but it's accessible, fast, friendly and good value. And I remember there's butter chicken on the menu. Otherwise, you could go in two directions -- either out of the centre, to some of the restaurants based in local communities like Sri Krishna and Kastoori in Tooting (the latter good East African/Gujarati vegetarian food); or upmarket, to some of the newer, finer-dining places that are winning a lot of plaudits recently (like Zaika, Cinnamon Club, the revamped Red Fort), but this may indeed be getting 'fancy'. Just steer clear of Brick Lane, with the possible exception of the Lahore Curry House.

Flaneur: agree with your confusion about how they stay in business. It must be particularly difficult to shift enough product when the design mandates it be piled up to the (distant) ceiling. But here's hoping they think of something, and preferably keep selling groceries, as otherwise I'll have to walk 15 mins for organic milk in the morning. Patisserie: I think Comptoir Gascon's few items are pretty good, and its viennoiserie pips the &Clarke's product at Flaneur, but it's closed on Sunday, which is fairly pointless if you sell croissants. Baker & Spice can be great; about to be booted out of its Knightsbridge home apparently, with a second, large branch bizarrely out in Queens Park. Used to rate Bagatelle in South Ken; not been there for ages. Pont de la Tour/Kensinton Place -- thanks for the suggestions. I think we may be getting a bit upmarket considering the intended group (hacks 'n' such), but it's all good to know. To be honest, g/f Smiths would have done fine if it took bookings, or wasn't overflowing on weekend brunch with booze-absorbing clubbers. Having said which, I checked Flaneur's brunch prices today and to my surprise they were fairly comparable. Certainly like the idea of the KP private room -- will find out more.

Thanks for the suggestion. Being also in the 'hood, I've never eaten at Flaneur, but I do buy groceries there all the time. And let me share something with you -- more than once I've bought an item only to get it home and realise it's beyond its best-before date; and one time when I was after some butter, I looked on the shelves to discover that a serious proportion (nearly 50%?) of their various butters were out of date. I pointed this out and they did admittedly look mortified and begin taking it off, but still ... the only thing that puts me off eating there, especially the table windows, is having people like me constantly banging past you (not much space at the front), trying not to knock over the zillion bottles of apple juice, and giving you funny looks while they poke through the milk. But it's definitely worth a try.

A friend of mine has the rather utopian plan of starting a regular monthly Sunday brunch meeting for a large and presumably changing group (to catch up, discuss literature, swap witticisms ... you can imagine the kind of thing). He's looking for somewhere in Central London (which to me means W1/WC/EC/some of SE1). I assume atmosphere and tolerance of large, potentially many-hour groups are as important as the food; certainly nowhere too formal or vastly expensive would be appropriate. Having thought about this for a while, I don't really have any ideas; can anyone here help? thanks