Why I Joined the Chain Gang ; It's Official: London Is the Most Expensive Place in the World to Eat Out but It Is Also the Capital of Affordable Dining Finds Our Food Writer. Here He Picks the Best Mid-Range Restaurants in Town

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AS RECENTLY as 10 years ago if you said that you were going out to eat at a chain restaurant, your friends would have looked at you sideways.

Then "chain restaurant" meant greasy chicken, shoe-leather burgers, or soggy pizza, and the idea that chain restaurants would ever end up in a Restaurant Guide would have been laughable.

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Why I Joined the Chain Gang ; It's Official: London Is the Most Expensive Place in the World to Eat Out but It Is Also the Capital of Affordable Dining Finds Our Food Writer. Here He Picks the Best Mid-Range Restaurants in Town

Times have changed. My new restaurant guide includes a good many chain restaurants. They have raised their game and London-based ones are particulary good. They will never be candidates for a Michelin star but they do provide a good place to pop in for supper on the way home.

They also make a decent lunchtime option, especially if you're paying.

The cost of lunch has never been more relevant. Last week Zagat published the results of the 2007 Restaurant Survey the detailed research on which their guide book is based and announced that the price of the "average meal" had risen once again, up 2.9 per...

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