THE audience may have been of nouvelle cuisine proportions but its appetite was huge for restaurant critic Jay Rayner's warm, witty, enlightening and sometimes spicy serving of foodie thoughts.

Rayner, food writer for the Observer and well-known to many as a guest judge on MasterChef, took his Arts Centre audience through his personal list of the Ten (Food) Commandments.

These include why thou shalt eat with thy hands, thous shalt covet thy neighbour's oxen and why thou shalt worship leftovers.

With an audio-visual backdrop, the self-appointed culinary Moses served up an entertaining and informative evening, sharing anecdotes and snippets from his career as a professional food fan.

Little gems sprinkled throughout the evening, such as Heston Blumenthal being behind the sudden ubiquity of salted caramel, delighted the small but enthusiastic crowd.

The second part of the show involved tweets from the audience of their own food commandments (thou shalt not eat crumbly food in bed, thou shalt eat marmalade and sausages together... yes, really) and a question and answer session which revealed judging on MasterChef takes four or five hours of eating the contestants' food, that Rayner believes service should be added into the price on menus and restaurant staff should be paid a decent wage. Oh and that he really, really hates baked beans.

It's a shame more people didn't venture out on a Thursday evening to see this great show. I for one would certainly go back for seconds.