Recently I was looking for a new house to live in Jericho. One place really took my fancy -- a flat in Walton Street above a vacant shop - which was going to become a sausage and mash restaurant.

Now for some this might not sound exactly like heaven on earth. All those lingering cooking smells and crowds of nightly diners. Yet for me, it couldn't have been more tempting.

In the end, after much deliberation, I declined the flat - it wasn't exactly what I was after size-wise, and I would have been living on a licensed premises. So it wasn't to be -- however tempting the mouth-watering menu sounded.

Yet after the rental deal fell through I couldn't stop thinking about those sausages because nothing warms the heart quite so much on a cold winter's night as a plate of freshly prepared sausage and mash.

So, when the Big Bang finally opened for business in Jericho, I decided to try it out to see if those sausages I'd been dreaming about lived up to expectation.

We arrived, without booking, at 7.30pm, and the place was already packed. A bit of a surprise for a wet Wednesday night. The main floor has cosy tables and a bar at the back, with extra seating on the floor below, ideal for private parties.

The Big Bang uses local produce -- and as a particular treat for me, it stocks the whole range of bottled Hook Norton beers all cool, but not chilled, of course. Forgot your Pinot Noirs here -- nothing goes as well with this type of feel-good fayre as a couple of Hook Norton Best Bitters at £2.85 a bottle.

Also on offer are Haymaker, Old Hooky -- and Budvar for those of a lager-drinking persuasion.

The gourmet sausages are from The Covered Market butcher, and you can choose from a selection: traditional Oxford sausages, Lincolnshire, Cumberland, Welsh pork and leek or basil & vine tomato sausages.

And the mash wasn't exactly out of a packet, either. It's freshly homemade, of course, and includes rose mash, Dijon mash or garlic & rosemary mash and comes served with stilton jus, red wine jus or orange jus. Each meal is served with peas, red cabbage and fried onions, the whole deal costing from £6-£9 per head.

It was nice to note that OAPs, students, and those lucky people at OUP get a cheap deal -- just £4.99 for the Bargain banger. And if you don't fancy sausages, there's also homemade chicken, broccoli and stilton pie or steak and ale pie, each served with vegetables and chips. I could only find the one meal for vegetarians, so there's not much choice there but as my companion remarked -- it is a sausage shop!

I had the duck and orange sausages with pink mash, red cabbage and onions, while my companion, who was feeling in a gamey kind of a mood, plumped for the venison sausages.

The sausages were cooked to perfection. They are indeed the real deal. In true gourmet sausage style, they were big, juicy and bursting with flavour. No "reconstituted" mince here -- just hunks of meat, bound together using fine herbs and a hint of spices, perfectly complemented by the jus. And there was plenty of it too.

The service was good, if not the briskest, and I suspect the place could do with another member of staff as Max the proprietor was rushed off his feet. In fact, just before we left, I think he actually had to turn people without bookings away because they were so full. So a cautionary note here-- arrive early to avoid disappointment, especially if you're going at weekends.

It's nice to see such straight forward cuisine in a place like cosmopolitan Jericho, especially when it tastes so good and not for a bad price. Not to mention excellent beer. It's a sizzlingly good night out and I'm sure business will continue to go with a bang.

The Big Bang, 124 Walton Street, Jericho, Oxford. Telephone: 01865 511441