as I write, the Michelin ratings have been announced, and the irregular collective of restaurant critics, food writers and loquacious bon viveurs have all dropped their trousers to anoint them with a trencherman's ordure.  It is a given that we all hate the Michelin ratings. We despise, mock and abhor them, and just as I write, in other spare bedrooms-cum-offices, there will be others chewing a PR's freebie cinnamon wafer, typing that, once again, the Frogs have got it all wrong. They will list kitchens that are inexplicably unawarded, and ones that laughably are, going on to mention, more in anger than in sorrow, that Michelin is responsible for ruining chefs and interior decoration, breeding zombie waiters, maintaining archaic menus, snobbery and Francophone elitism. Michelin will be blamed for racism, cronyism, conservatism and faddery. It will be held responsible for the extinction of ingredients, the rape of habitats, global warming, heart attacks, strokes and possibly the banking crisis. and those of you who bothered to get to the end of this spittle-flecked rant may wonder why so much ire is devoted to something as negligible as a tyre manufacturer's touring guide.  Why indeed? Well, in truth, there is a grudge here, a bone whose marrow is being sucked, a little professional competition. We hiss at Michelin stars, while awarding our own.  Critics hate Michelin because chefs love it obsessively and pathetically. They should be more in awe of our reviews. We despise the creeping guide examiners as vampires despise werewolves. We both dine off the same lifeblood, but guide inspectors are sad, friendless Gollums, eating solitary suck-foam meals, watching others with money, friends and futures enjoy themselves. and Michelin undoubtedly distorts restaurants at the top end of the business, although that rather depends where you consider the top to be. I know quite as many people who would use the guide for where not to eat, as to make a detour. and if your preference is for non-European food, then it's next to useless. For most diners, Michelin is irrelevant. The star is only a warning that you're going to be paying a premium for some chef's ego. What we should do is regard the annual awards as the edible Oscars - an act of slightly mad, tasteless, partisan and hysterical industry self-love. We can take a passing celebrity interest, but it really has very little to do with hunger, happiness or hospitality.  Last week, I did something I rarely do: went back for seconds. Restaurant guide inspectors always return, like dogs to vomit. They have to pretend their views last a year; mine are only good for one Sunday. I'd been to Les Deux Salons with Tom Craig and Bay Garnett (who both adored it), but the distance between eating and writing grew too long, and I needed to go again, which was no hardship, because my memory was of some exceedingly catchy food, a finger-clicking menu and a buoyant atmosphere in a nice corner of London.  Les  Deux Salons is a dining room with a bar that looks like it was designed with enthusiasm, but not much money and not quite enough thought. The bar's in the wrong place; the tables, even by West End standards, are too damn close. But, this being Trafalgar Square, it's perfect for pre- and post-theatre dinners, doing what the Ivy does, but without the stress, the glitz, and rather cheaper. We took Emeric, the movie producer, whom I seem to be feeding every week, Beeban Kidron, the film director, and Caroline Hickman, who does something about dressing and movies. The room was humming and jammed. They're open all day; tea slides into pretheatre, where there's a three-course set menu for ?15.50. We were fitted like cogs in a watch next to a table of drunk fat men. It's odd how tables of women look self-contained, happy and confident, while tables of men look like sad losers. and fat drunks are always more worrying than thin ones: it's the Weeble thing. You notice from the corner of your eye that if they start toppling, they'll take everything else with them. Fat people are clumsy when sober; drunk, their stomachs and arses clear tables. So that was the neighbours.  The menu is still very good: full of Frenchish bistro dishes, stuff you remember from summer holidays in southern towns, and occasional modern variants, such as snail and bacon pie. We began with warm cod brandade, which was light and nicely made, but you're still left with that metallic, fishy breath, like Portuguese kiss chase, and an onion tart that was a bit of a fiddle: a slab, rather than an individual tart, sweet enough, but not dense enough. It was like a savoury apple tart fine, and its accompanying goats' cheese was more curd than ch?vre. a ravioli of rose veal was a bit of a slippery french letter that suffered from rose veal not being veal, but rather watery and unwanted dairy-herd boy calves. autumn wild mushrooms on toast with an egg was a good idea, or it would have been before Christmas. It's nearly spring now.  For main course, the best was american aged beef. I love american steak, with its corny, grainy sweetness. This one was ordered rare, but came medium. Cooking a steak to order is tricky for a busy kitchen; it's tough to judge distinctions in the middle of service, and satisfy customers who may have very singular views about what rare should look and taste like, but our table was hungry, and we ate it anyway. But at ?70 for a single slab shared among three people, really you should get what you want. I chose a cheeseburger, mainly because it was a dish that didn't belong: a sort of an exchange student brought over to learn some manners.