Guest columnist Peter Palmer laments the passing of a good breakfast at English bed and breakfast establishments.

Remember the days when a stay at an English Bed and Breakfast meant a morning feast that would leave you patting your belly with satisfaction, a smile on your face and thoughts of how to work it off in time for the next morning's binge? It's a treat that seems to have largely been consigned to faded memory. Maybe I am just a tired old git with nothing better to do than moan about how the World's going to pot and nothing is as it was in the glorious days of my own youth. But I think I've got a point. I'm now in Cornwall - a wonderful place in almost all respects. But the breakfast has been a bitter disappoint, and brought to my mind other similar experiences of breakfast bliss denied in recent years. Plastic sausages from the bottom of the deepest freezer in cut-price supermarket hell; bacon that tastes of nothing much except salt; eggs that taste of hardly anything at all; and extra-value orange juice at 17 pence a litre (is it really orange juice?). And this is one of the things foreigners once thought we did well. The numerous Germans here in Cornwall will perhaps be thinking that the English breakfast has gone the same way as the British motor industry. Or maybe they are thinking it was a fantasy all along. Anyway, Cornwall is great and well worth visiting. But if you want a good breakfast, opt for self-catering.

You can always try something new. In the fridge we had Serrano ham and in the freezer hash browns. I wrapped the hash browns in the ham and deep-fried them.

The ham went very crispy and tasted a tiny bit burnt. If I am ever so bored and stuck with the same ingredients again I might do them for less time. This is not sub-interest as it is very funny.

After a heavy afternoon's tasting we fancied going for a nice meal. Our choice of the one-star le Jardin des Remparts in Beaune was inspired. Not only did it have a very good, and reasonably priced, wine list but also the food was very high quality.

I was highly amused by the first course, melon with pepper. The melon had been made into a little egg yolk and was liquid in the centre; quite delicious and a lovely texture. I was blown away by the next course, which is one of their signature dishes: tartare of Charolais beef with oysters. I suppose some people might be nervous about eating oysters in the summer so far from the sea, but this was really terribly good. There was a pile of beef tartare surrounded by a carefully dissected oyster. Brilliant.

We then had poached langoustine with langoustine sorbet and cubes of coconut milk. I didn't really go for the coconut milk, but the langoustine and sorbet were a treat. Snails with morels followed, they were tender and full of flavour.

The piece of line-caught sea bass that followed was perfectly cooked, no hint of over-cookedness about it. This was served with sardine butter and seaweed puree which was a really good match. Foie gras is something I love and the escallop of foie was fried to perfection; a lovely crust and meltingly soft in the middle. Apple and goat's cheese came with this and the balance of flavours was superb.

The final course before cheese was a croustillant of ris de veau with shrimps. I am a big fan of ris de veau, but have never had them cooked in this way. They were quite well cooked so they developed a firm crust on the outside. It was delicious.

The service was excellent and they had a very pleasing terrace to dine on which made a hot evening's meal a lot easier to bear. The food was damned good. This is another place I'd like to revisit.

Contact: Le Jardin des Remparts, 10 rue Hotel Dieu, 21220 Beaune. Tel +33 3 80 24 79 41 Fax +33 3 80 24 92 79

When visiting Burgundy the one restaurant I cannot recommend highly enough is La Cabotte in Nuits St. Georges. I've eaten many good meals there and never left with an empty wallet. It is right in the centre of Nuits and is a great place for a relaxed, good-quality lunch or dinner.

On this visit I chose the most expensive menu they have, a steal at €45. We took along some of our own wines, but also got a couple of bargains from the list. Pibarnon rosé 2003 really helped to cool us off and the Mugnier Chambolle les Fuées 2001 was quite lovely.

I was amused by the amuse bouche, a test tube of tomato water, and really pleased by my first course, carpaccio of foie gras. The foie was removed of its nerves and served raw in very thin slices. This was followed by grilled shrimps with quite the most brilliant piece of pork rib I've had. It was meltingly tender and full of flavour. This was supposed to be served with langoustines rather than prawns, but the chef was not happy with the quality of the langoustines.

The main course was a perfectly cooked piece of sea bass with a sesame crust. Quite lovely. We then had a selection of very well stored cheeses, including one of the best pieces of epoisses I've had. I skipped dessert as I was stuffed, but people seemed very pleased with what they had.

If you are travelling to Burgundy and have business in Nuits you cannot go wrong with a trip to La Cabotte. It is a great place.

Contact: La Cabotte, 24 Grande Rue, 21700 Nuits St. Georges. Tel +33 3 80 61 20 77

David

It was Daniel's birthday last Sunday; cannot be avoided, we all have to get older once a year. We wanted to go for a relaxing meal with some good wine and our knowledgeable hosts in Burgundy suggested Ferme de la Ruchotte. This was sold to us as a farm house dining establishment where one eats what the farmer slaughtered that week. "Brilliant!" we thought.

Describing the owner as just a farmer is selling him short. Frédéric Menager is a very skilled chef who has an impressive list of restaurants on his CV. I had sampled his food before at the Castel de Très Girard in Morey St. Denis and was impressed. He moved on from there to start the farm where he breeds rare breeds of animals prized for their flavour. Then kills and cooks them.

It was quite a drive beyond the Côte to find the place; many tiny, twisty roads that would have deeply worried me if I was driving. It is quite a beautiful location once you get there. We parked and went into the dining room, which really was the farmhouse dining room with one large table and a smaller table in it.

There is no menu to choose, you eat what he is cooking that day as listed on a chalk board. There is a comprehensive wine list, which is not over-priced considering there are some gems on it.

The first course was a poached egg with duck gizzards in a soup of nettles and tarragon. The egg was one of the best I have eaten, clearly his chickens are from a pretty serious breed, and it was soft-poached perfected. I hoovered up the gizzards with great speed as I love them. The soup had a really good flavour. This was a very pleasing starter.

We were then presented with a côte de boeuf. This piece of meat looked marvellous, great marbling and perfectly cooked (ie. quite rare). It was served with sautéed new potatoes. The potatoes were quite lovely, slightly crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside. Everyone was impressed with the quality of the meat and we soon finished it up. It was excellent.

We had some home-made goat's cheeses to help mop up our remaining red wine. These were very good, flavoursome and pleasingly lacking in goat sweat character.

I had a different dessert to everyone else as I am off wheat at the moment, it was an excellent duo of very eggy creme caramel. Everyone else had a rather baroque looking cake which seemed to slip down a treat. This is us before attacking the cake:

The meal was very reasonably priced, we paid €40 per head plus wine (note: some of those wine we brought along ourselves, thanks to brilliant negotiation by our host). It was an excellent, relaxed meal in charming circumstances. I hope I get to visit again.

Contact: Ferme de la Ruchotte, 21360 Bligny sur Ouche. Tel +33 3 80 20 04 79 Fax +33 3 80 20 03 29

David