FAITHFUL followers of these columns during 2004 will have divined that the names of Mr John Briggs and his American wife Lynn appear with comprehensive regularity.

They are our Internet research team, unpaid but neither unwilling nor unappreciated. Usually their only reward is a ham and pease pudding sandwich in the Brit - it was time, Christmas time, to push the boat out for the on-liners.

The lady from Cleveland, Ohio, rather confusingly wore an emerald green jumper with "Ireland" across the front; Mr Briggs wore his best tracksuit bottoms and an expression of having sung for his supper - which, manifestly, he had.

Their favourite Darlington restaurant is Spice Garden, almost opposite the Civic Theatre and frequented by great troupes of theatricals. Uri Geller bent a fork there, having first sought permission; Ken Dodd looked in for a 1am chicken korma, his show presumably having finished rather earlier than is customary.

We began with a beer in the Greyhound, a few doors down, a pub so popular with Civic society that there used to be a bell - maybe still is - between tap room and dressing room.

It was welcoming and bright bedecked, three or four jolly boys at the bar attempting to capture the spirit of the season with a rendition of something called The Banks of the Old Royal Canal. They sounded like they'd been thrown in the deep end.

Spice Garden had decided against Christmas music, probably wisely, though the restaurant was furnished festively enough.

Many years ago, I asked the actor David Kossoff how he would be spending December 25. "Like all Jews I adore Christmas," he said, and clearly meant it.

Abdul Kharim, Spice Garden's engaging owner, has a similar philosophy, celebrating Christmas, New Year and the major Muslim festivals but drawing the line at Easter.

His bairns draw up the usual lengthy wish lists. Santa Claus? "Let's just say they don't go short," he said.

He was brought up in the West Midlands, worked in Alnwick, might have had an accent that was a cross between Timothy Spall and Jack Charlton but happily appears to have escaped.

The restaurant's fairly small, the menu very long. Kharim, a man who cares about food, spent a year with a 15-member taste team compiling it.

The column, which knows next to nothing about Asian food and in any case is incorrigibly mild - "a sort of gastronomic Walter the Softy", an earlier account observed - was sensibly not invited to participate.

It takes no expertise, however, to discern that this is different, thoughtful and generally very good indeed.

Though a "special mixed grill" starter may have lost something in the translation, not least of the word "special", the rest was terrific, a symphony in spices.

We'd followed, just £5.10, with a chicken tikka Malay curry cooked with onion, garlic, ghee, coconut milk, salt, lemon juice, coriander powder, ground mustard seed, ground cumin seed, turmeric, ginger and green chillies. Think about it, then imagine the taste with a plate of mushroom rice.

Mrs B not only had tandoori buttered chicken but had looked forward to it like a child to Christmas morning. It had been marinated in a rich, mild, slightly spicy sauce, came with garlic rice and daal samba, a sour hot lentil and vegetable curry.

Her old feller, holder for 16 years of a first class pass for retired railwaymen, had started with garlic mushrooms on puri - "absolutely tons of them," he said - followed by chicken pathia, the Indian equivalent of sweet and sour and served with a hot sauce.

We also had a keema naan, stuffed with tandoori mince and a sizzling platter of chicken shaslik with tomatoes, roasted onions and peppers. With coffee and a couple of drinks apiece, the bill for three reached £60.

Mr and Mrs Briggs thought that it was all to die for, a curious phrase now much used but of uncertain etymology. Before the column returns on January11, we've asked them to look it up on the Internet.

l Spice Garden, Parkgate, Darlington (01325) 254041. Open from 5pm seven days, happy hour 5.30-7.30pm Monday-Wednesday and Friday. Free home delivery; difficult for the disabled.

MICHAEL Winner, arguably Britain's most feared restaurant critic - and among the best - has been to Durham. "The north is more than a bit odd," he wrote in the Sunday Times. "It's like another country, if not another planet. They talk funny, they dress funny but they're good hearted and that's much more important."

He stayed in the Royal County, thought the accommodation "modest but not bad" and the breakfast "pretty awful". Durham constabulary, Winner line, were the worst of all.

KING of the jungle until not so long ago, the Red Lion at North Bitchburn has new owners and roars, impressively, again.

Keith and Jackie Kyte had re-opened and reinvented it in the late 1980s, won umpteen awards - including one of this column's briefly coveted Jammies - immodestly rebranded the pub the "Famous" Red Lion.

The Kytes retired to Witton Park. In giving the Lion's tail another vigorous tweak, Keith Young has taken a swagger stick - sic transit gloria - to the "famous" fascia and maintained his predecessors' commitment to well kept, frequently changing, real ale.

North Bitchburn's between Bishop Auckland and Crook, a high blown hamlet which somehow sustains a cricket team with an electricity pylon at third man but which lost its Methodist chapel earlier this year.

A "sold" sign stands outside. Unlike the pub, there seems little chance of the chapel's second coming.

We lunched with a lovely couple whose hearts are in every possible right place except Christmas. Neither the festive decoration, nor the vogue Pogues nor the excellent pub food could convince them that it was the season to be jolly, or at least any jollier than usual.

Even a suggestion that they read A Christmas Carol in the four days before Christmas Day fell on ground as icy as Tiny Tim's slide.

The pub was dressed, but not overdressed, for the occasion though it's not yet adapted for the disabled. The menu eschewed any such frivolity, a few simple lunchtime specials and a slightly more elaborate carte.

The mushroom soup was hot, attractively presented and full of flavour, the abundant mushrooms on toast might have come from a Picasso still life, they looked so appetising.

Martin had the steak and kidney pie, Denise the parsnip, chestnut and something-or-other bake - "really different," she thought - we a wonderfully wintry, hugely enjoyable plate of venison sausage and mash with onion gravy.

Vegetables arrived in side dishes, carefully cooked and in great multitude; the napiery - praise be - included proper tablecloths and matching napkins.

A campaign for real napkins, as opposed to those almost literally bog standard, may follow in the new year. Acronyms welcomed.

Two courses for three - honestly unsophisticated, admirably executed - came to just over £30. Glory to the reborn king.

...and finally, the bairns wondered if we knew what monkeys sing at Christmas.

Jungle bells, jungle bells....

www.northeastfood.co.uk