Joe's Bar, Covent Garden

(Sue the bastard!)

Covent Garden Piazza? AVOID! AVOID! Too many resting actors playing living statues, dead-eyed tourists in sawn-off shorts and Union flag velvet jester hats from its shite souvenir shacks. No tables at Balthazar? Whatever! And as for my initial samplings at Shake Shack and Five Guys, I'm burgered if I'll by queuing up any time...ever. For a fiver more, I'd rather shag Hawksmoor Seven Dials' buns (http://tinyurl.com/p6jypt7). Away from the fray, Joe's - a dive bar that should not be confused with the Joe Allen, to which I am forever drawn for nostalgic reasons (I held  my 21st birthday B-List party there) - is worth a butcher's at the thinly disguised reboot of what was formerly Navajo Joe's on rapidly improving King Street. Set to a pre-Motown r’n’b soundtrack, lit brothel-red, this Tabasco-tone joint comes on like a downbeat off-Route 66 dive circa early Mad Men. Rocking rum and bourbon rinses spell danger for dipso Don Drapers de nos jours. Try red or dead or 1 night in jail, the sort of butch bastards I imagine Johnny Cash downing in one before knocking ten bells out of the man that called him "Sue." (re-live that pearl at  http://tinyurl.com/5crveq ) With an impressive range of range over 100 suave agaves to choose from, tequila cocktails are worth making out with. I'm halfway through smokin’ sazerac-alike, Mexican put-down,  shooting the breeze with the bar's mile-a-minute Scouse-mouth manager, when tonight's sidekick, Mr. Attention-Span-of-a-Gnat, demands that I drink up and we take the evening on to Rules. Now if ever there is a reason to hit Covent G, Rules is it (earlier love letter here: http://tinyurl.com/p6d6fql ) but as with other bars Joe's reminds me of - Slim Jim's and Aces and Eights for example - I'd have been perfectly happy to linger here. Looks like I'll have to negotiate the Garden's freaky fruits again 'ere long.

34 King Street WC2E 8JD 7240 4008 www.joessouthernkitchen.co.uk 

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Q at Quilon, Westminster

At 20, I’d drink my age in pints; then, all swirly-eyed, park the dozen pakoras and fiery phaal curry that had seemed like a good idea at the local Traj Mahal on some poor hopeful lumber’s swirl-patterned Brentford Nylons sheets. Attractive. At Q at Quilon, Scottish Ceilidh lager or Indian Mongoose might appeal were I still a beer Hoover. As it is, sipping cocktails (two, max) such as tonight’s fine £8 tamarind margarita and cardamom martini better suits the Don Draper-debonair pose I like to think I’ve perfected over the years. Talking of Draper, couldn’t this bijou new lounge - all 1960s Madison Ave muted luxe with a hint of Hindu temple - be a set from Mad Men?  But in deepest SW1, you’re more likely to spot wadded American tourists and a Westminster bigwig (a stiff Whygras - that’s Indian single malt and grappa - might loosen up Baroness Warsi) than blue-sky thinker Shoreditch ad-lads. We pick at refreshingly un-starry Michelin-starred chef Sriram Aylur’s elegant tiffin - crispy fried silver fish, spiced shrimps and chilli yogurt chicken goujons - a seductive calling card for Kerala whose lighter style of Asian cooking he favours. I’ve never visited that Indian state but, give me a tenner for every time I’ve ended up in a right state at an Indian and I’ll fly there...first class.

41 Buckingham Gate SW1E 6AF www.quilon.co.uk