Summing up in style

SAVE for the occasional hand of dominoes and for the annual sure fire wager that Hartlepool FC will finish above Darlington FC in their respective divisions, I am not a gambling man.

It probably stems from a cathartic childhood, weekly witnessing me mam and me Aunty Betty frivvleH sixpence each way at Binks the Bookies, whether they could afford it or not.

Nor have I ever been in a casino, still resolute in the belief that a pontoon is a boat landing and a poker hand is the one with which to stir the fire.

There's a new casino and self-contained restaurant near the Millennium Bridge in Newcastle, a £5m development by Darlington-based Duncan Bannatyne, a former ice cream salesman who made his money from nurseries and care homes.

Described a "multi-millionaire entrepreneur" by his PR firm - spin doctors, as a casino operator might say - Mr Bannatyne is also well known as a philanthropist but rather less as a philumenist, which is a match box label collector.

The chances of striking it lucky at the new place seemed to diminish, however, with every blizzard blown mile up the A1 motorway.

By the A690, a bridge too Carrville, we turned for safety's sake towards the south. The risk business could quickly go bust around here.

THOUGH home and hearth were most welcome, the real misfortune was that - wheels within wheels - the other part of the plan had already been put in place.

The day previously we'd lunched with the Artful Accountant at the New Grange Hotel in Darlington, another of the philumenist's glowing concerns.

Up front it's as irresistible as a croupier in a six inch skirt, two courses for £4.95 - and these days you can barely get a bag of fish and chips for that. That the final bill was £30, without coffee, may say more about us than them. You pays your money...

The New Grange is (by no surprise) at the top end of Grange Road, though best approached by car along Southend Avenue. Handsomely refurbished, efficiently staffed, it was also full of women - not just ladies who lunch but who seemed happy to take all day over it.

We were last in; almost first out.

Four starters included roast tomato and basil soup, a well dressed and very tasty smoked chicken salad and the Accountant's melon with "maccerated winter berries".

"Macerated", as correctly it is spelt, is a word loved by medics and by menu writers, most recently defined by the Geordie nurse helping to sort this irksome ankle ulcer as "soggy".

The dictionary offers to steep or to soften, but also to mortify. The Accountant, conversely, seemed to be reviving by the minute.

Four main courses included liver and bacon, agreeably flavoured pork with caramelised onion and a vegetarian option and to their credit, they don't skimp on portions. What they don't include, however, is potatoes and vegetables, £1.50 extra.

Then there were a couple of pints apiece, another £10, and a couple of puddings - memorably good sticky toffee - at £3.50 apiece.

The Accountant, as they do, summed up. "I thought it was wonderful," he said.

ANOTHER rum deal, or it seemed, Mrs Elizabeth Steele in Staindrop wrote in praise of a bistro called Victor in Saltburn - "broad spectrum of clientele, great buzz".

The subsequent exchange of e-mails reminded us both of Victor's in Darlington - so admirable that for several years it made the Good Food Guide, so small that its life could never be sustained.

Victor in Saltburn had a problem, too, which was that it didn't exist.

We turned out on a morning when a dog might not humanely have done so, plodged up and down the main street, found a dentist, a pet centre and a place that sold liquorice torpedoes and porridge for about 5p a ton, but no Victor, ludorum or otherwise.

The tourist information centre, busy with people trying to escape, was helpful. "Perhaps she meant Virgo's," they said. She did, and there's one in Guisborough, too.

It's a cosy little place, seats in the two bay windows much treasured, frequently a queue for other tables, too. We sat next to a couple of well spoken, middle aged women discussing Sex in the City.

Sex in the City? In Saltburn? Do they know about this in the Spa Ballroom?

The menu is mainly snacks and interesting looking salads, with a leaning towards the vegetarian. Specials appear on the board from Thursday to Saturday lunchtimes in winter, with evening meals on Wednesday and Friday evenings.

Vegetable and lentil soup, with particularly good bread, was £2.50, Thai vegetable curry with noodles was £5.50. Both were perfectly OK but didn't somehow amount to much. £8 seemed a bit steep, too.

A truly heroic columnist would thence have gone down to the sea again, written of black skies and white waves, of Huntcliff and hyperbole.

Instead we went for a pint of Black Sheep in the Victoria, a couple of doors down. It wasn't what Mrs Steele had in mind at all.

NOT much comeback from last week's column but Maurice Heslop in Billingham reckons that those seeking cheap beer need look no further than Hartlepool United - "pretty good football team as well" - while Lou Dale in Leeming Bar implausibly inquires which of us followed breakfast at Fortnum and Mason with the Royal Academy and which with Enfield v Bedlington Terriers. "I think we should be told," he writes, but he's still going to have to guess.

Further to Fortnum and Mason, Brian Shaw from Shildon rings with an unsolicited testimonial for Funk and Wagnall, who also earned a linked mention. They were compilers of an American encyclopaedia - "the best I've ever owned," says Brian.

SOME time after returning from Saltburn, macerated to the skin, there was an unexpected PS to all this. Had we struggled through to Newcastle last Wednesday evening, we'd have discovered that in order to eat at Bannatyne's restaurant - however self-contained - diners must first be members of Bannatyne's Casino.

Membership's free, without need to cross the casino's threshold - or palm - and with the clout to introduce six guests, who need identity on the first visit. As with bingo halls, however, it must be held at least 24 hours in advance.

In other words we'd couldn't have got feet beneath the tables, after all? "'Fraid not," said Bannatyne's man. Our lucky day at last.

...so finally, the bairns wondered if we knew what's musical and can hold 36 gallons of beer.

A barrel organ, of course.

* Frivvle - you know, to spend wastefully. As in frivolous, see.

Published: 01/03/2005