It was with regret that we laid down our chopsticks and admitted defeat. It was the unfinished whole crab that hurt the most: chopped up, then flash-fried in a light batter, it lay amid a pungent, rustling nest of dry fried red chillies, garlic, salt, chillies, Szechuan peppercorns, and more chillies, a thrilling mountain of white and red. The shell was soft enough so that you could rip it apart with your teeth, or even squeeze the meat out of the legs, and when you got to it, the ribbons of white crab were sweet and salty and fiery all at once. They offered to let us take the rest home but we both knew it was not the kind of dish that would taste good the next day, so we let it go.

Here's what generally happens. I book into the chosen restaurant under a pseudonym - usually the name of my companion - go there, eat food and come home again.
If I haven't been rumbled - which, to be honest, happens most of the time these days - the first the restaurant will know about it is when the Observer's picture desk calls to arrange to take photographs of both the room and the food.