In one of the novel's more poignant moments, Sepha and Joe stare at one another through the vast plate-glass windows that envelop the Colonial Grill, "the premier eating establishment of the District's elite".
'An amazing view," the pal says, looking out of the vast plate-glass windows over the Gherkin, St Paul's and ribbon-like expressways, "is a bit like a good-looking husband.
She leads me down to the dining hall, where one wall is given over to a vast plate-glass window so that the room seems to unfurl into the green fields beyond.
There will be builders, market traders, postmen and artists, all sitting shoulder to shoulder, with vast plates of bacon and eggs.
Here the food – goulash, schnitzel, vast plates of roast duck, cabbage and dumplings – was entirely in keeping with the rustic, wood-lined dining room.
After a couple of days of drinking negronis and looking at churches, we drove an hour west to Il Granaio, an agriturismo just outside Modica where vast plates of local fruit, ham, ricotta, eggs and bread were laid out for us each morning.
This is where the vast Pacific plate bends steeply beneath the Philippine plate, leaving a huge groove in the Earth's crust.
I like being on a vast tectonic plate with no one else I know.
But worst of all is "drunken chicken parmesan": the bludgeoned, breaded breast, spurted with mozzarella and sugary tomato sauce (it has vodka in it, apparently, but you'd never know), covers a whole vast round plate, a mutant pizza, a bulimic Parmo.
By far the most ambitious main course was a duck tasting, a vast square plate holding, in each of three corners, a variation on the named ingredient: breast seared to order (this time medium rare and on target), pleasingly fatty leg confit, and a spring-roll wrapper filled with spaghetti squash, savoy cabbage and more confit.
