LONGWALL BEEFEATER, GARSINGTON ROAD, OXFORD 01865 779230.

Paul Stammers quietly strikes a blow against the system, while enjoying a tasty dinner.

EATING out can be a pain in the artichoke. Sometimes you want to have a pop at the people who set the rules. But how do you take on ‘The Man’ without being blacklisted?

Here’s how. It’s low-key, but effective – rather like the diary-writing 1980s schoolboy Adrian Mole wearing red socks to school.

Having decided a visit to the Longwall Beefeater was overdue, as I sat in a snug corner, I resolved to shun steak, despite the fact my visit was on St George’s Day and roast beef is about as English as it gets.

Talk about treason!

Admittedly, Beefeater offers far more than sirloin, but the fact that the Whitbread-owned chain hails itself the Home of Chargrilling was enough to switch my attention to the specials board.

Here, I noted, I could choose a risotto with slow-cooked pork and caramelised apple as a main course for £12.75. Tantalising.

But I decided to test the restaurant’s mettle by opting for its grilled fare – of the maritime variety.

SO WHAT DID YOU ORDER, COMRADE?

First, I requested duck and port pate and toasted bread as my starter, shunning the ‘RECOMMENDED’ koftas. List something in capitals, and I’ll dismiss it my friend (a rule I later broke, in the spirit of anarchy).

The pate arrived speedily, although the bloomer slices referred to on the menu looked mightily like regular brown bread.

Employing the steak knife to sever my toast and to spread the more-ish spiced onion relish on it was enough to send adrenaline coursing through my veins – even if my breach of etiquette seemed to have gone unnoticed among my fellow diners.

They were eagerly nibbling three-course-for-£11.95 meals, amid extremely quiet 80s pop and vaguely post-Impressionist paintings by someone whose scribbled signature wasn’t quite readable from a few feet away.

HMM. AND THE NEXT STEP TOWARDS FREEDOM?

Secondly, I resorted to the once trustworthy tactic of asking for a red wine with my ‘RECOMMENDED’ Fisherman’s Chargrilled Selection. Surely someone would raise an eyebrow?

However, in these post-modern times, it’ s difficult to rattle cages with such a cliched approach, and many foodies seem positively in favour of swigging red with fish nowadays.

Hence there was no audible tutting as I sipped a fruity Cotes de Rhone with my fat grilled prawns on a skewer, a modest but tender fillet of seabass with tartare sauce and a solitary, but chubby, Atlantic scallop presented on a shell in a puddle of garlic butter.

The green salad that came with the seafood was lush (no rubbishy iceberg lettuce for a start) and substantial, while the chunky chips were adequate.

My final, but perhaps most anarchic flourish was to thumb my nose at the dessert menu.

Most of the items were labelled ‘Recommended’ or ‘New’.

Clearly the chain was determined to hem me in. Thus I not only refused to order the likes of the Belgian chocolate cheesecake, I summoned a dessert that wasn’t even a pudding – the cheeseboard.

Take that, Beefeater!

The wedges of Stilton, brie and mature cheddar, accompanied by half a dozen biscuits, eight small sticks of celery and a handful of red grapes, were certainly flavoursome, like the rest of the meal.

But striking a blow against the system – that tasted good too.