Doing lunch

I don’t know what everyone does in East Oxford at noon, but most of the restaurants there remain closed.

Elsewhere in the country the population continues to thrive, eat and venture on, but not here.

Is it because the student population doesn’t rise until way past this traditional eating time, when the skies have darkened and they can scavenge around in their bare fridges before slinking out to succumb to another night of Bacchanalian glory?

Or is it because, like a scene out of High Noon, the entire population disappears indoors at midday to avoid the terror lurking in the streets? Or even because eating before 6pm is considered terribly bourgeois darling?

Anyway, to cut a long story short, one man’s loss is another man’s gain, because it meant I had to forego my usual favourites and try somewhere new, namely G&D’s new premises, where for £3 you can also book an Etiquette session while slurping your milkshake.

A bit of harmless fun organised by the Oxford Playhouse, Etiquette is a half hour of interactive theatre where you sit at opposite sides of the cafe’s tables wearing headphones, and are led through an abstract ritual of stage directions and lines, to emerge feeling slightly uncomfortable but with a new respect for actors. Well worth a go!

G&Ds was packed at 11am with our unknowing audience, laptops open on every table, consuming coffee and bagels. I’m sure they do a roaring trade at lunchtime too, but having performed our piece, we wanted a more substantial and less hectic lunch so sloped off to The Cape Of Good Hope on The Plain, inset.

I hadn’t been there since my student days when it was a dive and you wouldn’t have eaten there if they’d paid you – and that’s saying something as a student.

These days it’s much more grown-up, with dark chocolate walls, thick wooden tables and blackboards with specials such as enchiladas and steak pie.

There is a two meal, two drinks offer for £15 which includes fish and chips, sausage and mash, burger, risotto and pies or a more substantial main menu that would be fitting in an American diner – sandwiches, burgers, nachos.

But the attention has been put into the details. And without meaning to sound like that softly spoken seductress on the M&S advert, the burgers are award-winning West Country farmed Casterbridge, with cheese from the Brue Valley, the speciality pies are made specially for The Cape and include fillings such as beef bourguignon, and there is a smattering of Mediterranean with falafel, Moroccan spiced chicken breasts and Moroccan lamb meatballs.

You can also have the big platters to share with everything from halloumi and calamari to lamb kofte and doughballs.

In short, The Cape Of Good Hope is covering all its bases, which in the current climate is probably a good thing.

We stuck to the specials menu and the three of us managed fish and chips with mushy peas, the vegetarian burger (which was meant to come with cheese and BBQ sauce but managed only a nasty salsa and sour cream addition) and the risotto.

The fish was all batter and no fish, but good chips and mushy peas. The risotto was nice enough but too creamy and the burger came with the wrong accompaniments.

But all-in-all for pub food it was good value and a vast improvement on the old days. Plus, it’s open at lunchtime. So for those of you still stuck inside at 1pm – it’s safe to come out now.

l Etiquette is at George & Delila’s Café on Cowley Road until Sunday. Call the Cape Of Good Hope on 01865 262291.