The Rickety Press, Cranham Street

Another week, another visit to a local restaurant I've been meaning to try for ages. This time I ventured into Jericho's back streets to visit the Rickety Press, one of Oxford's holy trinity of new and popular gastropubs (the others being the Rusty Bicycle, which is under the same management, and the Magdalen Arms).

The Jam Factory, Hollybush Row

Anyone who arrives in Oxford for the first time by train must be unimpressed by the bleakness of Frideswide Square just outside the station. But it is enlivened by the Jam Factory, a splendid brick building where Cooper's Oxford Marmalade was originally produced. It's now made elsewhere, which is rather sad, as a delicious smell of boiling oranges must once have wafted over the city.

Combibos, Gloucester Green

I've been busy recently so I thought I'd do a quick review of somewhere well known to me and to many other people who regularly pass through Gloucester Green. With its crumpled newspapers, genuinely friendly staff, and the lowest and squashiest sofas in Oxford (from which you have to peer up at the person opposite you), Combibos always has a pleasingly familiar feel.

Byron Burgers, George Street

I'm not sure when burgers got so popular in the UK. When I was younger they were cheap, squashy but strangely delicious things you had in McDonald's as an end-of-term treat (until BSE happened, anyway). At some point they must have started turning up on pub menus and now there are whole websites devoted to them and several chains claiming to produce the 'best burger in town' at a price that would have bought at least half a dozen Happy Meals in the early 90s.

Rick's Café, Cowley Road

Rick's Café is apparently named after the bar in Casablanca where profiteers and refugees desperate to reach America meet under the doleful eye of Humphrey Bogart, but with its cartoonish signage and wooden floors the Cowley Road version looks like any other modish coffee shop. Still, what it lacks in authentic gin joint qualities it makes up for with a few specialities of its own.

[Out of Oxford] St Andrews round-up

When I visited St Andrews recently, I didn't plan to do any blogging. I was there to relax, after all. But this Scottish town, despite its small size, turned out to offer a great range of good food so I decided to do a summary of what I ate where and illustrate it with a few photos that show Scotland basking in the sun of the third warmest March on record.

Crisis Skylight cafe at the OFS, George Street

A few days ago Starbucks had a special gimmick for a morning - you got a free coffee if you introduced yourself to the staff. This was advertising the fact that from now on they'll be taking customers' names, so that each hot drink can be matched more easily to the person who ordered it. Being a privacy-loving, sporadically misanthropic kind of person, that was enough to make me resolve to avoid buying coffee in Starbucks in future (which will save me all of about £3 a year). Still, this post won't debate the respective merits of big chains and small coffee shops, but will focus on a new(ish) Oxford establishment which is definitely worthy of your custom.

East Oxford Market, Cowley Road

Once you reach double figures, and if you don't become a teacher or parent of small children, opportunities to visit a primary school, let alone eat your lunch in one, are few. So on Saturday morning it felt slightly odd to find myself sitting in a classroom at East Oxford Primary School, home of the East Oxford Farmers' and Community Market, admiring the pirate artwork that adorned the walls.

[Out of Oxford] Bluebells Café, Wootton, Isle of Wight

Normally, if you arrive at a restaurant and the first thing you notice is a noxious smell, you might want to change your plans and jump straight back in the car. However, if you've just parked in a farmyard with a huge pile of manure and a cowshed at one end, different standards apply. Another Christmas holiday excursion means another non-Oxonian review, this time of Bluebells Café, near Wootton on the Isle of Wight, which is attached to a working dairy farm.

(n.b. the giant mass of manure just visible behind the sign)

The Ashmolean Café, Beaumont Street

The Ashmolean is looking pretty good at the moment, after its recent refurbishment. The interior sparkles and many of the dividing walls between rooms have disappeared, so that you can wander from one cluster of exhibits to the next and eventually come out into one of several light-filled stairwells.

Zappi's Bike Café, St Michael's Street

I've watched the Tour de France every July for the last twenty years, enjoying the blood and sweat, the shots of the French countryside, and the bone-dry humour of Gary Imlach, but it hasn't as yet inspired me to go very far on a bike. When I was younger I learnt to ride one in a straight line but I never mastered important things like hand signals. It's probably fair to say that I don't belong in a cycle shop.

 (This was the Tour de Picardie - I would have been very lucky to get this close to the finish of a Tour de France stage)