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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.

Blimey, the lasses of Notting Hill can’t half gab and on a Friday night in The Commander Porterhouse and Oyster Bar they were in full voice. As more and more bottles of Italian White Wine were ordered and consumed the volume level rose higher and higher resulting in a Battle Royal against the Sound System. There was only ever going to be one winner as the PA wheezily pushed out some music of the noodly jazz sort.

Still, they do say that when you’ve got a pain in one part of your body you should distract yourself by causing pain in another part. Ah, that’ll be food then. Or perhaps the service. At least the latter had the benefit of a chirpy friendliness although there was a lot of headless chickenry about as well.

Given the name of the place you immediately think of an American Steakhouse and sure enough as you start to scan the menu there’s plenty of Crustacea on offer. But there’s only three steaks and all weigh in at a puny 8oz. Of the mighty Porterhouse there’s no sign. Bizarrely, there’s also a small section of Nigiri and Sashimi. Much of the stuff (even the Chacuterie Board) is marked with that ominous phrase “MARKET PRICE”. A more suspicious soul than myself would think it was a ruse by the owners to upsell.

It certainly caught me out. My six oysters were over twenty quid which is up there with J Sheeky’s and Bentley’s. Unlike those places these were pretty poor specimens. They’d either been opened earlier or when they were opened the precious juices inside - which is one of the pleasures of eating them – had been poured away or used in stock. The result was a sad, dehydrated appearance instead of the nice plump bivalves they should have been.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen a menu with Foie Gras on it. Probably because restaurants which sell it don’t really want their places firebombed. Mind you, with a misconceived preparation like I had here it would seem PETA’s job is being done for them. The foie was all right - a bit more searing would have improved it – but it was totally overwhelmed by the Cherry Pancake which would have been ok in an American, sugar rush, breakfast kind of way but had no right being married to the delicate, buttery taste of engorged duck liver.

You don’t see Gurnard on the menu too often either. A shame as it’s really quite tasty. Here it came simply grilled. The kitchen hadn’t overcooked it but it was still a bit dry – maybe it had sat on the pass for too long. There was some saffron mash which didn’t taste of saffron and some pats of garlic and lemon butter which didn’t taste of garlic or lemon and which were propped up against the fish in the hope they might melt. I reckon the half-life of plutonium would be shorter.

There would have been some chips on the side too but the description “SKIN ON FAT CHIPS” should have come with the warning “DOS HERMANOS - LOOK AWAY NOW”. Luckily their homemade Ice Cream was pretty good.

Even with the opening week 25% discount, the meal including a decent pichet of Picpoul and a very nasty one of oaky South African Chardonnay was still north of £60. Another nasty taste was that their card machine is programmed to prompt for a gratuity even though the bill already had a hefty 12.5% added. Classy.

Obviously, cutting back on the market priced items and foie gras will bring the total down to a more reasonable level but for the moment the cooking doesn’t really cut it. That and the fact you’re a couple of minutes away from the far superior Hereford Road really makes the choice of eating in this vicinity a no-brainer.