Where shall we meet?: Pelican, St Martin's Lane

Unusually for this end of town, the Pelican is a reasonably cheap place to eat the sort of snack foods your more highly coiffed girlfriends like - upmarket lowish-fat salads and sandwiches for under a fiver, and served on a plate, too. Two doors down from the Lumiere cinema (they like French names in theatreland), this bar is open until midnight and has stacks of tables on the pavement so that you can amuse the passing tourists. The waiters contrive not only to look unselfconscious in their black and white uniforms, but also to be harmlessly flirtatious in a professional sort of way. Bucket-sized glasses of wine are pounds 2.50.

Pelican, 45 St Martin's lane WC2 (071-379 0309).

Tomorrow: Daquise, SW7.

(Photograph omitted)