A lot of people must have passed Cuisine be Bar since they opened in November and never realised there was something to eat inside. This is because their French bakery owners Poilâne have ignored all the usual marketing tricks, like a wall of cake or breads by the window, and instead just placed a discreet name in the front door and a small sign over a plain building in a quiet side street off the King's Road.

The lack of commercial atitude extends inside where no one is assigned to greeting duties, you have to ask for a menu and there's certainly no attempt to do anything as vulgar as upsell dessert. Despite this lack of effort to gain business, or perhaps because of it, the place was packed for lunch with what seemed like a mostly local and female crowd, many of whom had dragged their prams up the inaccessible steps outside.

Part of the attraction is a pleasant and calm space with seating options to suit every occasion, nice design touches like the single chairs on the side and no noisy out-of-towners who might disturb the civilised atmosphere.

The menu is all about tartines which are an open toasted sandwich with most over £10 and this looked steep on paper but the £11.50 artichoke with anchovy and lentil pate was very nice, filling and thoughtfully sliced so you can eat with fingers. A salad or soup is included and judging by a bowl of leaves the soup is probably the more rewarding choice.

Coffee and pastries were well priced, with a freshly baked plain croissant worth the 40p extra to Pret. So an interesting concept that could be popular in many areas. Maybe they can open some more if that's not too tacky.

Cuisine de Bar by Poilâne, 39 Cadogan Gardens, SW3

The recently opened Walla Walla opposite Liverpool Street station is described as an Indian Street Cafe but strictly speaking it's just a takeaway as there's only enough room for the counter and a queue that can double back on itself to the door.

The food menu looks straight forward, a selection of rice and lentil bases are available with meat or veg 'mains' plus salad and chutneys on top but there's a big choice of unlabelled containers in the hot food section and it may take a few visits to find the optimum combinations.

A beginners selection of a green lentil base with a mildy hot methi chicken and salad looked like a feast of colour but could have done with some rice to help glue it all together. A half rice/half lentil base could be best and staff suggestions for the perfect combinations would be welcome.

The box was well filled, seemed healthy and would make a filling meal on its own, but with 2 fresh rotis added you get the added fun of creating your own wraps and at £4.95 for the whole package with plenty of meat included, that's rather good.

Walla Walla, 27 Liverpool Street, EC2M

Velo is the new Vietnamese place on Tooley Street in SE1 and judging by the blurb, it has already achieved self awareness and wants to be friends. Communication with Velo is through touch screen computer terminals and some helpful members of staff are on hand to encourage hesitant visitors towards the screens and also bring orders to the table.

This all works smoothly, although completing the deal electronically does mean missing out on those pleasant moments of human interaction at the counter where more staff are stood waiting to hand out takeaways and they might appreciate a chat.

The usual menu of Vietnamese street food includes banh mi, pho and a well proportioned chicken vermicelli for £6.50 (top) which lived up to their "light, tasty and healthy" description and went down very well. Neighbouring diners seemed to be equally appreciative of their meals.

A nice spring roll is cleverly included in the vermicelli bowl, but this could be where the I.T. gets in the way. Instead of popping to the counter to grab a few more, you have to go to the machine, find the menu, pay with a card and hope your order is promptly dealt with before your meal has gone cold.

Business was brisk and Velo looks like the most chain ready of the numerous Vietnamese openings in recent times.

Velo, 104 Tooley Street, SE1

You can pass some places a thousand times and never quite feel enough temptation to step inside. Maybe it looks too posh, too dodgy, or as with the long established Nuvo on Cannon Street, the branding outside is a tad dated. There's no fancy lighting, no trendy bare brick walls, no Twitter account and no clear signs about what's going on in there.

But such a blinkered attitude means not discovering that along with the regular salads and soups, they also have a woodstone oven that's used to make a Peri peri chicken kebab/wrap with mature chedder, vine tomato, cucumber, Cholulu hot sauce, paprika mayo & fresh lemon juice for £5.25. It's a long walk to find anything vaguely similar and it was rather good, original, great value and bigger than the photo might suggest. Who knew?
Nuvo's oven also does a Pulled beef with paprika wild rice, mature cheddar and roquito peppers drizzled with Cholulu hot sauce, which will be the next order, plus a range of pizzas.

Nuvo, Cannon Street, EC4N