Travel with Angela Lansbury: London's RSJ Restaurant With Loire Valley Wines By The Glass

RSJ Restaurant is a short walk from the station, by a corner, with ground floor entrance. Three dining areas, the main room at the top upstairs, a small private room mid-level, a larger character basement for conference meetings, AGMs, Xmas parties and so on.

Small round or oblong tables. Jolly, friendly staff. Set meal was pork, vegetarian or mackerel, which suited one of our three diners but the other two chose off the main menu, duck and venison.

Bottle of wine, Vouvray demo-sec, was about £40, (would have been £25 bought outside a restaurant - our wine buff has found this place because he wanted Loire wines, which include demo-sec and sweet wines, and he thought the mark-up was reasonable.

The pink organic wine which is bottled we had also seen sold at Borough Market. You could also order a kir royale which I missed - it must have been on the main wine menu as I did not see it on the one sheet wine by the glass menu.

I was a bit perturbed by the way the jug was handled. Please everybody, remember to keep thumbs out of jugs even if they are heavy and carry them with one hand on the handle and if too heavy use another hand at the base for support.

Our starter of poultry and cashew nuts and citrus fruit pleased the birthday boy, though I found the cashews a bit tasteless - same goes for the ones at home from the supermarket - is it the wrong time of year for cashews or is it just me?

Main courses kept everybody happy. The high point was the desserts. We had told them we had two birthdays and they brought up the dessert with a candle. Five star enthusiasm for the toffee pudding.

Other diners included those early diners dashing off to the Young or Old Vic theatres. Yes, We'll go back. We had corresponded with two people who must be office staff. In the evening those visible were Nigel, waiter Bob, and another.

A brief flurry when the bill had not registered that one of the diners had the set menu. But soon sorted.

We were shown the multi-arched basement with pillars where the grooms used to sleep, then the yard next door where horses were kept. A fine finish to a satisfying evening.