"I still can't believe I found a piece of string in my steak,"

Mr Greedy said. "And I paid £17 for the privilege."

As you will have gathered, our visit to the Old Chapel (The Old Chapel, Chapel Street, Bicester 01869 328777) wasn't an unmitigated success. Mr Greedy rarely complains where food is concerned. In fact, he'll eat almost anything, but he drew the line at twine.

What's it like?

The place is an opulent contemporary restaurant, where a lot of money and thinking has gone into converting what was a dingy snooker hall into Bicester's first 'tablecloth' restaurant.

And despite the rumour-mongers going into overdrive, we had arrived determined to give it the benefit of the doubt.

Had they spent less money on the dragons breath' paint and more on a decent chef, then I'm sure the clientele would come pouring through the door - the surrounding villages are hugely affluent and Bicester residents need somewhere special to wine and dine.

The Old Chapel is divided into a vast dining room at the back and a sexy bar with plenty of squashy sofas to recline on at the front, but all the leather in the world can't hide appalling food and looking back there really was no excuse for either the prices or the mistakes.

What did you have?

The menu was succinct - seven starters and nine mains - but looked interesting. Four of us ordered the tomato and wild garlic soup, the bubble and squeak with black pudding, smoked bacon, poached egg and hollandaise sauce, the crab and red pepper risotto and the moules mariniere with shallots, double cream and chopped parsley.

The soup was so overpowered by the garlic it was undrinkable; the bubble and squeak "all right", and the mussels arrived in a creamy sauce that was so insipid that Mr Greedy gave up in disgust. The risotto was bland.

Next was said steak complete with string; a roasted cornfed breast of chicken with a pesto dressing, sauté potatoes and chorizo (price tag an amazing £17.95); warm pastry case of red onion confit with melted goat's cheese and balsamic dressing; Cornish lamb chump with red wine jus served with crushed new potatoes, savoy cabbage, smoked bacon and baby carrots. We also ordered the Jenga chips for fun.

Was it all bad?

No. The lamb and chicken were a success, the lamb beautifully served with whole baby veg and the pastry on the vegetarian dish tough but the filling tasty. The Jenga chips were a fantastic idea. But the steak was a disaster.

The final nail was well and truly hammered into the coffin when the dessert arrived. The sticky toffee pudding was so hard and dry you could have bounced it on the floor, so we sent it back, and the cheese plate, which was beautifully presented on an oblong plate with celery and grapes, was unforgivable.

We could have done better at the pick-n-mix at Tesco's. Five small cubes faced us, including one with apricots.

As for the port, it was so rough we left it untouched - the manager admitted he had nipped down to the corner shop. Maybe he got the cheese at the same time. We made a fuss and got it taken off the bill.

Verdict: There is no way you can charge these sort of prices, let alone in Bicester. They should be offering a three courses for £15' menu to get the locals in. But maybe they've already been in, and if our meal was anything to go by, they won't be back.

The bill (for four) Aperitifs £16.20 Soup £3.95 Risotto £7 Moules £6.95 Bubble and squeak £5.50 Veggie pastry £11.50 Chicken £17.95 Rib-eye steak £17 Lamb £19.50 Jenga chips £3 Wine (two bottles of red, two white) £65 Desserts (they took the sticky toffee pudding off the bill) £18 Tea and coffee £7.40 Total: £164.30