Wu-Wei has been playing a game of restaurant tag. It’s a jeu-sans-frontieres which makes it particularly appealing to peripatetic expats. (And few more peri than Wu.) Anyway, it had me thinking about my five Euro faves.

1. Mama Roma. Italianskaya Ulitsa, St Petersburg

In shakedown, plastic-melting St P, Mama Roma’s business lunch is rare value for money.

The nice thing about this Mama Roma is that it’s opposite the old propaganda-era, ‘Soviet Museum Of Hygiene‘. Here, with its old alabaster models of brain damage and intestinal corrosion, you can see what happens to you if you eat and drink. You will also learn, from old posters, that smoking shrinks your testicles and how ants can spoil a picnic. Pavlov’s dog (stuffed) is in the museum too.

I can tell you, after the Museum of Hygiene, I was really salivating for a dog’s dinner and Mama’s business lunch offers a greed yourself selection of everything Italians smother in oregano, with as much of what they call ‘Old Italian Bread’ as you can backpack for later.

2. The Station Cafe, Baltisk Station, St Petersburg

I give this one loads of stars because it recognises that single travellers can’t leave luggage around with lots of iffy Russians about. Thanks to the 1855 architecture you can get into the wide-doored toilet with at least four bags.

The canteen is non-Russian-speaking friendly too. You can just point at what you want and I’ve learned over time that what you see is what you get. If it looks like a kind of meaty-looking sort of thing in a sort of spicy-looking rice, it does indeed approximate. Recently re-furbished with a wipe-clean melamine motif, this canteen won’t impress a date but it will get you on your way.

3. The Chalet Rouge, Woluwe St Pierre, Brussels.

I have been going to this restaurant on and off for over 20 years. In that time, the Chalet’s Mme Julie has been married four times. But somehow I never contrived to be in Brussels when she was single. (One day I will write an ersatz Maupassant story about this.)

You don’t have to ask about the food - almost everyone in Belgium seems to be a world-class cook. And at Mme Julie’s, sons, daughters, extended family and even ex-husbands pitch in the kitchen. It depends upon whose unemployed at any one time.

Of course, there are inevitably extended-family feuds here, which means you can eat and enjoy a living soap at the same time. Once you become a regular, feel free to take sides in any family dispute - though caution. I once received a full face hit of a plate of salade de tomates, with the most exquisite blend of shallots, olive oil and fresh basil.

4. Les Ateliers De La Grande Ile, Russian Restaurant, Brussels.

The funny thing about this place is that it’s considered up-market and even has a website. But visiting New Russians are shocked to find that it doesn’t have tablecloths and silver cutlery and that old scrubbed-table workshop decor is trendy in Europe.

You get to this place through a dark courtyard where a couple of pigs are smoking. By which I mean roasting.

The Grande Ile is all about ambience. It has brilliant music. Roby Lakatos was resident here before he became famous and the gypsy bands are always up to snuff. Someone only has to start playing the first three bars of Moscow Nights on the violin and the Russian emigres are all crying into their cabbage and mashed potatoes.

5. Joe’s, Berlin, Tiergarten.

While living in antiseptic, EU regulated Holland, I developed a craving for a real sausage. There was nothing else for it but to get the car out and head off to Berlin. No problem, one of my favourite cities.

Bang next to Tiergarten station, Joe’s place is brash and touristy, but you can gorge on bradwurst marinaded in dark beer sauces, rather the dry street sausage in a bun. And if you’ve been starved of that inimitable taste for awhile, it’s heaven.

Unfortunately, I then saw that news clip about the German cannibal who cut of the victim’s penis and fried it for a last meal. So, I’ve never been able to eat German sausage since. But if you’re not squeamish, eat at Joe’s.

Feeling Hungry in Berlin