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While HS chows down on tasty Burgers in LA, here in London it remains a problematical quest. Actually, I’m not that surprised. It’s just one of those things we’ll never get right in the UK. Much like the Fish and Chips you find in the States. Sure, they can probably make a good job of it but, it will never taste quite the same. Ditto Spanish bars, which lose all their identity when reproduced outside the Iberian Peninsula. All I ask for, then, is that a bit of care goes into the making of the facsimile and that I enjoy the end result.

Ground in London’s Wild West (that’s Chiswick) is one of those nuevo burger joints that have proliferated across London over the past few years. They all seem to come out with the same shtick: Grass-fed Beef, Artisanal Buns (yada yada) which seems like it’s telling you lots but on closer inspection means squat. It’s also one of those places that offers up multitudinous variations on the burger theme - most of which you’d never consider eating – when the only choice that’s necessary is with/without cheese.

Resisting the temptation to try and finesse the menu and double up my meat ration I went for a Classic Cheese Burger. When it came the burger was cooked a little over for my tastes and it fell apart too easily but the taste was ok. This was only after removing a large wet, flavourless piece of Lollo Rosso that came with it, though. The bun didn’t taste of much either, had a cotton wool texture and overwhelmed the petit patty.

Shoestring fries weren’t really and the homemade Coleslaw wasn’t very nice at all having far too much gloopy sauce in the mix. It the sort of stuff that kids would probably love. Which is basically what Ground seems to be about. Nothing here to offend any of the natives and their sprogs and all a bit, well, underwhelming. Even the beer list – surely a chance to do something interesting – looked liked it was sourced from a Costcutter. A very small one.

Not a meal then that will live long in the memory but I can always get my foodie kicks vicariously via HS’s heroic eating for England posts from the City of Angels.

At some point in my life I morphed from a grumpy young man to a grumpy middle aged man. I’m not sure exactly when that was. Maybe when I started staying in on a Saturday Night with some nice food and a good bottle of wine secretly hoping that no one would call or maybe the constant urge to write a stiff letter to the chairman of John Lewis bemoaning their decreasing standards of service.

Prime candidate might be the other night at Boundary restaurant when my increasingly iffy eyesight caused me to mistake Venison for Veal on the menu. It made for an embarrassing moment when the chef came up to apologise and find out why I hadn’t enjoyed the dish and had sent it back. “We don’t have any Veal” he said confused. I bowed my head in shame and vowed to get some reading glasses the next day.

To be honest it wasn’t a good piece of meat: tough, gristly and lacking the gamey flavour that had been evident in a similar cut I’d eaten at The Harwood Arms. It came with an over-pungent Juniper sauce that I could smell from several feet away and which smothered a poached quince. Some Braised Endive on the side was an Exxon Valdez in miniature.

Which is a bit of a shame really as DH had enjoyed a meal at the Albion, the caff upstairs, just before Christmas. Boundary is located two floors below and offers up the sort of Franglish menu that would be familiar from any of the old Conran gaffs. And like those places it flatters to deceive.

A pleasant basement room with exposed brickwork, sympathetic lighting and a view of the kitchen that is more intimate than is probably necessary, is manned by lots of amiable staff who do their job well and without fuss; belying the fact this was their first service.

Feeling pretty positive about the place, ordering a dozen oysters seemed like the right thing to do. Half a dozen each of French and English Natives were good although the ones from the Gironde slammed those from Perfidious Albion 6-0: briny, so very briny.

An underseasoned dish of Cuisses de Grenouilles was a bit of an oil bomb and could have done with a crisper coating. I’m not sure though that this classic preparation was an improvement over the tempura-like version at Le Bouchon Breton ten minutes away.

As a replacement for my Veal, sorry Venison, my Onglet aux échalotes (although I think it was actually Bavette) was a small but decent piece of beef with exemplary chips. But then they had to go and spoil it by smothering it in a demi-glace. Ho Hum.

They need to work a bit on the Ice Cream as well. The taste wasn’t too bad but the texture was odd. I don’t think a larger scoop would hurt their bottom lines too much either. But hey, there’s a recession on. For me, Albion remains the better, cheaper bet.

Alongside a large normal menu, including some appealing looking BBQ dishes, Bi-Won offers a bargain selection of lunchtime plates from which we chose my own particular favourite, Bi Bim Bap and a Chigae (spicy bean curd) soup for William. We supplemented them with a plate of kim chi, upon the quality of which every Korean restaurant must be judged and Mandu, their own take on the gyoza.

The Kimchi struck me as a little muted as if it had been toned down so not to scare whitey. But, the mandu were excellent, moist filling inside light dumpling crust with a slight crunch from a brief moment in the frying pan.

Likewise the Bi Bim Bap was a very decent example of the art of stuff in a hot bowl. Hot enough in fact that the rice in touch with the base, as it should, scorched to form a pleasing crunchy crust that had William looking over with slightly green eyes as he enjoyed his spicy soup about as much as anyone can enjoy a dish made with bean curd.

As we finished our meal and paid our bill, a paltry £22 including a cup of ginseng tea, we noticed a procession of staggeringly gorgeous women wandering by each with a map in their hand. We decided from their blank looks that they were obviously models looking for a nearby casting call. That parade of lovelies alone might have been a reason to return to Bi-Won, but in the current climate, I think a decent £11 lunch is even an more attractive proposition.