Oh Ma goodness

In Twickenham a Big Mac could refer to the signature dish of home-made black pudding en cro°te with mustard sauce served in one of John McClement's local restaurants.

McClement, espouser of offal, fan of the butch plateful, has over the years opened various eponymous restaurants on Whitton Road and Twickenham Green. Latterly he concentrated on McClements at 2 Whitton Road but six weeks ago opened MA CUISINE, next door but one, where, true to the name, he is in the kitchen.

When summarising McClement's Bistro in the Evening Standard London Restaurant Guide 1995, I enthused about a paté of gizzards, a dish of lamb's heart, lamb's tongue and baked potato with tripe Provençal, and at his Petit Bistro a dish of stuffed pig's trotter served with a slice of crisply cooked cod.

What is extraordinary about the menu at Ma Cuisine is not that the extremities-and-entrails element has receded - there have been food scares and some people are maddeningly slow to convert - but that, nearly 10 years on, prices are much the same.

Ten first courses range between £3.75 and £4.75. The nine "plat principal" rise from £7.75 to £10.50. The set-price menu du jour is £10.50 for three courses at lunchtime, £15 at dinner. Main courses come fully garnished. There is none of that swings and roundabouts of the expensive potato and vegetable side order.

The restaurant, a former pine furniture shop, is small and simply decorated with red and white gingham oilcloth on the tables enthusiastically signalling French bistro.

Two efficient waiters run the room which, not surprisingly, was busy the evening we visited. Art Nouveau posters that I think have been recycled from a previous establishment decorate the walls.

Four of us went for dinner and bossy Fay made sure that everyone chose different dishes, although one renegade chum went for two first courses.

In that course I can heartily recommend the home-made black pudding en croute - practice has indeed made perfect - the jambon persille, brawn for the fastidious, served with sauce ravigote (vinaigrette with mustard-gherkins, capers) and rillette of skate served with a salad of baby leeks. In the old days, rillette would have been made with something gutsier but the flesh of skate pulls apart perfectly for the process.

The flavour of mussel stock had the upper hand in the bouillabaisse but it was a good soup enriched and made rosy with red mullet. I am of the belief that tinned tuna and either tinned or salted anchovy fillets are best in a salad Niçoise.