Platform Tavern
Not only does this boho blues bar brew its own Dancing Man beers (try the floridly hoppy, aggressively bitter Big Casino IPA; pint from £3.20), but it is also well-known for its honest, homemade pub grub. It's familiar stuff: beer-battered fish'n'chips, a 6oz beef burger, sausage'n'mash, deli platters, sandwiches and jacket potatoes, but done with love. A plate of fishcakes were, for once, more fish than potato and had been generously seasoned with herbs. They came with a simple but effective mustard-dressed salad. If only for a pint, the Tavern is worth a look. It's quirky interior is decorated with African and Asian masks, guitars and Jack Daniel's bottles drowning under ancient canopies of melted candle wax.
• Sandwiches and light meals, £3.50-£6.50, mains from £8.50. Town Quay, 023 8033 7232, platformtavern.com
Indian Melody
The website talks of this vegetarian curry restaurant evoking, "the days of the British Raj". With its heavy, ornately carved furniture and napkins fanned out with almost military precision at the neat table settings, there is a distinct whiff of the colonial club house to the room. If this rather glib treatment of British imperial history makes you uneasy, rest assured that the walls are lined with portraits of Ghandi, Nehru and other heroes of the Indian independence movement. They would surely approve of the food here. A dosa offered that perfect mix of lacy crispness at its edges, a thin, fresh pancake flexibility in the middle and a nice lactic sourness at the end of each mouthful. The sensitively spiced masala potato filling was spot on, mustard seeds and curry leaves visible in the mix. The real star, however, was the sambhar side dish: a slow-cooked, tamarind-twisted broth of such fulsome depth of flavour you will be amazed there isn't meat in there.
Talking of meat, if you wouldn't dream of eating a curry without it, then the Good Food Guide-listed, Nemaste Kerala (4a Civic Centre Road, 023 8022 4422, namaste-kerala.co.uk) is a decent bet. Like Indian Melody, it offers numerous lunch deals and plenty of under-£10 mains, with a particular focus on lightly-spiced south Indian cooking.
• Lunch buffet, £6.50, lunch set meals £5.99. Otherwise, thalis £7.50-£9.95, main course with rice, £6-£8. 25 High Street, 023 8063 8998, indianmelody.net
Fat Fig
Known for its cut-above cooking and its keen prices, this simple Greek restaurant is a great affordable lunch option. In the evening, while you could eat in for less than a tenner – if you're happy with a main course and tap water – it is more useful as somewhere to grab an upmarket takeaway. Its specialities include charcoal-grilled souvlaki kebabs and classics such as moussaka and kleftiko. At lunch, as well as daily specials such as BBQ trout, the menu includes various falafel and hummus wraps. I opted for homemade, chargrilled sheftalia, stubby sausages, loosely wrapped with caul fat and laden with onion and herbs. Moist and fatty, they were very moreish, stuffed in a pitta, although, for £6.95, the rather prosaic chunky salad of tomato, cucumber and peppers, dressed in garlic sauce, could have been jazzed up a little. Still, tasty, filling and interesting stuff.
• Lunch menu, dishes £3.50-£9.50, takeaway, wraps and salads, £4-£5.50, kebabs and mains, £5.95-£10.95. 3 Bedford Place, 023 8021 2111, fatfig.co.uk
Mango Thai
There isn't the space, here, to debate the wisdom of rendering Thai food as tapas. Nor to ask what that iconic east Asian superstar, Van Morrison, is doing soundtracking the experience. The crucial point is that this faux Ko Samui beach bar: all raffia, bamboo, carved goddesses and screens, delivers on the plate. I swerved the tapas: dishes such as mango corn cakes, spicy, crispy squid and Thai steamed mussels which, at £5.75 each, seemed pricey. Instead, various sub-£10 mains offer better value. A slow-cooked beef and vegetable stew came in a rich, aromatic gravy, with a hint of mint at its edges and a deceptive heat in reserve. Second branch in Portswood (27 Portswood Road, Southampton, 023 8067 8877).
• Tapas £5.75, salads and soups, £5.75-£7.95, mains £6.95-£13.95. 180-182 Above Bar Street, 023 8033 6540, mangothai.co.uk
The Soul Bowl Cafe
This is the upstairs cafe-bar of veteran underground club, the Cellar. It prides itself on good beer (it has a decent Belgian and European range and also local bottled ales from Bowman's), good music and good scratch-cooked food. The day's substantial Soul Bowl (£5.75) was a "mish mash" English stew, given an Asian twist with a splash of coconut milk. It wasn't going to win any culinary prizes for precise refinement, but it was full of flavour and ram-jammed with big hunks of chicken, new potatoes and a cornucopia of vegetables and beans. Washed down with a bottle of supreme Friesland pils, Jever (£3.90), it was £10 well-spent. Elsewhere on the menu, you'll find baked-to-order filled ciabatta; the cafe's "legendary" burgers; various other bowl-options and salads. The Platcho's (£9.95, for four people), a sharing platter of beef and vegetarian chillies surrounded by cheese-topped nachos, jalapenos, sour cream and salsa, sounds like a properly filthy pig-out. On a sunny day, sit outside on the pedestrianised street opposite Southampton's Guildhall.
• Light bites and ciabatta, £2.50-£4.95, bowls, burgers and salads, £3.50-£5.95. 78 West Marlands Road, 023 8071 0648, southamptoncellar.com
White Star Tavern
This handsome, gussied-up gastropub (all smart black-clad staff and boutique bedrooms) is, arguably, Southampton's best known and most highly regarded restaurant. Despite all that, it is an affordable option at breakfast and lunch, when the menu includes a posh fish finger sandwich, deli boards and mains such as potato and spinach gnocchi and home-cooked ham, egg and chips, for under £10. I tried the steak. For £9, you don't get a massive piece. In fact, the section of skirt or hanger was almost hidden under a mound of unusually tasty skin-on fries. But it was served rare as advertised, fiercely charred without, a perfect purple'n'pink in the middle, and it had reasonable flavour. The accompanying roasted garlic mayonnaise was nicely modulated, too. Be warned, though, you have to eat while listening to a quite dire chart-pop soundtrack.
• Breakfast £1.50-£8, lunch sandwiches £5-£6.50, lunch salads, deli boards and mains, £7-£11. 28 Oxford Street, 023 8082 1990, whitestartavern.co.uk
Mozzo Store
Southampton-based roasters, Mozzo, have recently opened this generically cool coffee shop. You can probably picture the scene: a minimalist off-white space, a rough hewn timber counter, mix'n'match second-hand furniture, folk tapping at MacBooks. As well as serving a top flat white – silky smooth, fruity but still robust (£2) – Mozzo also sells pies and sausage rolls from renowned local butcher, Uptons of Bassett, gourmet sandwiches and cakes. Flavours were bright, items accurately cooked and the cumin seed seasoning clever in a sample salad of chickpea and butternut squash, laced with soft, lemony goat's cheese. The pastry on a pastel de nata wasn't quite as crisp and thinly-layered as it might have been in Lisbon, but, for £1, who's complaining? It tasted great.
It's not open on Saturdays, but the nearby Room For Food (81 Bedford Place, 023 8023 3523, roomforfood.co.uk) is another good lunch option. They knock out an eclectic mix of dressed crab salads, Brockwurst hotdogs, hand-raised pork pies, topped Roman-style flatbreads and interesting (hot) sandwiches, all for under a fiver.
• Snacks and sandwiches, £1-£4.50. 66 Bedford Place, 07826 542929, mozzocoffee.com
Ennio's
Just down the road, cruise liners depart from Southampton's Western Docks. With its plum colours and thick carpets, chandeliers and table linens, this Italian has clearly been designed to mimic dining at the captain's table – complete with a soundtrack of smooth crooners on a Sinatra/Bennett axis. At night, Ennio's is expensive and it has a good reputation. But, at lunch, it offers a short two-course £10 menu and a clutch of pasta dishes at £5.95. My plate of rigatoni and ragu was a steal. The pasta had been cooked to a T and the laboriously finely chopped, slow-cooked meat sauce, a shade tomato-heavy perhaps, had a good rich flavour. The service was professional and affable, Ennio's had a real warmth to it.
• Lunch, two-courses, £10, pasta dishes, £5.95. Town Quay Road, 023 8022 1159, ennios.co.uk
Fusion Noodle Bar
A couple of streets from St Mary's Stadium, this groovy noodle bar – all retro 1960s geometric wallpaper, black-clad tables and primary coloured serviettes – turns out creditable, competitively priced Chinese and east Asian classics: crispy duck, satay skewers, Malaysian curries, kung po chicken. A bowl of toothsome soba noodles came with a sound stock, plenty of chilli beef marinated in a smoky sauce and a wealth of vibrant, freshly wok-tossed veg. It wasn't a classic, but, for £7, it tasted like good value.
• Takeaway prices, soups and starters, £2-£6.50, mains with rice, £6-£8.80. 15 St Mary Street, 023 8063 2221, fusionnoodlebar.co.uk
The Art House Gallery Cafe
Belle & Sebastian are playing on the stereo and there's a mushroom and coconut tart on the menu. Welcome to the Art House, a volunteer-run ("...for love, not for a profit", as a sign announces) vegetarian cafe, vintage clothing boutique and gallery. Not to mention arts space, where you can catch a band or join a crochet group, in between your African drumming lessons. You might get stuck behind an indecisive hippy-type in the queue at the counter, but, hey, just go with the flow. This isn't McDonald's. The food's much better for a start. The specials include a daily soup, say carrot and coriander (fresh, wholesome, served with sweet, nicely rustic wholemeal bread), a daily one-pot and dishes such as quiche and organic salad or Mediterranean pizza. The regular menu ranges from burritos and Greek snack plates (vine leaves, hummus etc) to a ploughman's lunch that includes Lyburn's award-winning Winchester cheese. The cakes have a good rep, but unfortunately my lemon and ginger wedge (£2.75) ended up splat, face-down on Southampton Central Station. Bah!
• Light bites, £1.95-£5.75, sandwiches and meals, £4.45-£7.25. 178 Above Bar Street, 023 8023 8582, thearthousesouthampton.co.uk
• Rail from Manchester to Southampton was provided by Cross Country Trains
