Eating Owt: Memshabib's mediocrity

LIKE the television programmes which carry a warning of strong language, this column's occasional excursions into Asian cuisine should be prefixed with the caveat that it is indeed Another Country, and that its magic and mysteries remain largely unexplained.

We do know a little bit about beer, of course - the Tetley Smooth at Memshahib's Kitchen in Tow Law tasted remarkably like dental mouthwash - and, indeed, about Tow Law itself.

It's the draughty little town on a west Durham ridge where the wind farm does a roaring trade, where the Alpine Grill once blew cold and hot and where more recently, a damn great hole appeared in the middle of the football pitch. Men are still looking into it.

It is also possible to recall the 1997-98 season when Tow Law reached Wembley and would have walked all the way if they'd had to, but particularly the semi-final victory over Taunton Town after which a visiting supporter headed in the back of the bus to Somerset whilst waving over his head a lavatory brush inscribed "Tow Law Town FC".

He'd asked if he might have it as a souvenir, on the grounds that everyone else only had a programme. Why the club felt the need thus to emboss their lavvy brush, we never did discover.

Memshahib's Kitchen is almost out of town, where the number one bus at last ends its tortuous journey from Darlington - so far and no farther - situated in what until recently was Boundary Farm and had a reptile rescue centre next door.

If there were an Improbability Award, they'd win it by the length of Tow Law High Street.

The fog and the mercury were down simultaneously. An alarm proved not to be from any of the cars in the farmyard. "Someone's hot wiring the house," said a returning vigilant.

A sign above the door identifies the licensee as Hsiu-Ling Leh Turnbull.

The building might once have been a byre, might be a new construction - spacious bar at one end, eight or nine tables set symmetrically beyond. The eight or ten present last wintry Wednesday night might have been eight or ten more than in some of Tow Law's pubs.

The menu is very lengthy, its English impeccable right down to the immaculately inserted apostrophes. The walls are hung with attractive photographs by someone called Bill Dobson of scenes like the quaint little Paddy's Hole harbour on the South Gare at Redcar and of Cromarty viaduct, in Scotland.

Much seems standard: informally attentive service, table settings, music like something from the soundtrack of It Ain't Half Hot Mum.

We began with mutton tikka (£3.50) served with a token salad - pleasant enough, a bit overpriced - followed by king prawn rogan josh, described on the menu as "medium" but not necessarily happy medium.

If the prawns were king they had only been kings for the day and the day hadn't been terribly recently; if the dish (as the menu supposed) had been very gently spiced, then somewhere along that road it had jumped aboard the bland wagon.

The Boss began with mixed kebabs - somewhere on the scene a sauce of mango and yogurt and probably one or two other things, which was memorably good - succeeded by chicken niranish, described as "medium strength and dry cooked with okra, mushrooms, potatoes, carrots, green peppers, cauliflower, cabbage and fresh coriander".

They were perfectly OK, she said, and in faint praise might have said it all. Little offered the excitement or anticipation of the best Asian restaurants; little suggested that Boundary Farm was living on the culinary edge.

The coffee took ages to arrive and was decidedly not worth waiting for, the bill with a pint, a couple of soft drinks and one or two "supporting sundries" was £42. An attempt at identification with the Taiwanese lady behind the bar was rather lost in the translation.

Outside, the storm was stirring itself, the wind farm on time and a half. If you can't stand the heat...

l Memshahib's Kitchen, restaurant and takeaway, Tow Law (01388 731818). Open every evening from 5.30pm, lots of set meals, no problem for the disabled.

THEREAFTER to the Dun Cow, alias The Cow Tail, at Billy Row - a first visit for several years and a museum piece to out-Beamish Beamish.

The Cow Tail (and Steve Parkin, its landlord) are not just unique but wholly, magnificently, increasingly unique - plus several other things the grammarians would consider superfluous superlatives.

The Cow Tail is uniquely unique, its clientele like the casting couch for Last of the Summer Wine.

Billy Row's a mile or so above Crook, the pub about a mile and a half west of that along the lonely road signed to White Lea. The Parkin family, known for long generations as Doad, have been there since 1740.

Steve - Young Doad - is 64 now, not very clever on his feet, has served behind that idiosyncratic little bar for nigh on 50 years.

There are two rooms, both coal fired, cobwebbed like a scene from A Midsummer Night's Dream. The first's little used, the second had six in and thus was two-thirds full.

Josie the pub dog was there, too, waxing - "like the Durham Ox", someone said - on crisps which cost 10p a packet and which constitute the menu in its entirety.

"I never have any tea on a Wednesday," said someone else. "Couple of packets of crisps at Steve's and take another packet home for me supper."

There's a picture of George Stephenson, splendid 1890s football photographs of Howden Rangers and of Tow Law Town - Joe Lumsden, Steve's uncle, long shorted in both - a wall of receipts from the West Auckland brewery and from druggists who never did harm.

He mightn't win a Good Housekeeping award, understand, but this isn't the 19th century recreated - the Cow Tail never left it.

The conversation, among many others, drifted back to the teachers at Billy Row school - to the woodwork master who didn't just throw chalk at the recalcitrant but occasionally a chisel as well, to the corporal assassin who smiled whilst caning, to Mr Bailes who had a strap he described as his best friend and who never, ever used it.

"Ah yes," recalled the Compo of the Cow Tail, "he called that strap Peter."

There are two hand pumps, one promoting Darwin Ghost Ale from Sunderland and simply spectral, the other dispensing Doad's Cow Tail Bitter at £1.75 a pint, also from Darwin and advertised in a single small poster as "a unique beer for a unique pub".

We had a couple, stayed 45 minutes, enjoyed every moment. Lest Doad acquaintance be forgot, we'll be back again shortly.

* The Cow Tail has limited opening hours, from 8pm on Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

DOAD'S is included in the 2005 Real Ale Pub Guide (Foulsham, £12.95), a book now in its eighth year but hereabouts unheard of until a copy dropped onto the desk.

Not to be confused with CAMRA's indispensable Good Beer Guide, and with only half as many entries, it espouses the same values, nonetheless. "We believe passionately that real ale is a drink like no other, to be cherished and celebrated," they say.

Other entries include the celebrated Ship Inn in Middlestone Village, the Tavern in Hartlepool and the street corner Newton Cap Hotel in Bishop Auckland - "about two miles from the bus station".

Make that two minutes and you're there.

THE Daleside Arms at Croxdale, also in the Guide, has won the "best pub" award in Durham's Britain in Bloom awards, been named runner up in Durham CAMRA's 2004 Pub of the Year awards and starts "Strong Beer Week" today with lubricants like Octoberfest (5.3 per cent abv), Old Engine Oil (6 per cent) and Wreckage (7.2). From tomorrow, landlord Michael Patterson also plans to mak e Yorkshire pudding with the Old Engine Oil. It's open from 3pm daily, all day Saturday and Sunday.

...and finally, the bairns wondered if we knew what's purple and 4,000 miles long.

The grape wall of China, of course.