Eating Owt: The real McCoy

FOR something produced almost entirely on expenses, the column is surprisingly ascetic, which should on no account be confused with acetic.

Acetic's vinegar. Ascetic means not given to over-indulgence in the pleasures of the flesh - or in this case, in one in particular.

It isn't so much a hair shirt front, however, as the belief that the man on the 213 bus - as if he hadn't troubles enough - wants most of the time to read about something he might reasonably be able to afford, and not to resemble the poor kid with his nose pressed against the sweet shop window.

All of which is but ruminant rubric to what may, in 19 years Eating Owt, have been the most costly meal we've ever eaten.

This really is an expense account...

Just over a year ago, following an abortive attempt on Saturday lunch at Gisborough Hall, we wrote a piece severely censorious of that upmarket establishment in east Cleveland.

Last Thursday evening we returned, without booking, the overflowing car park suggesting that a little critical flagellation had done nothing to deter the natives.

Almost outside the door was an HM Coastguard people carrier, prompting The Boss to suppose - notwithstanding the thought that one coastguard Toyota did not the wreck of the Hesperus make - that it must be their annual extravaganza.

A lovely log fire burned in the foyer, the attractive barmaid courteously explained that the restaurant was heaving - with or without the coastguard cutters - and that it might thus be a little while before the chef could push the boat out for bar meals.

Fair enough. We headed instead to McCoys Bistro at the Cleveland Tontine, alongside the A19 north of Osmotherley in North Yorkshire. Three courses, a couple of beers - £3 a pint - and two glasses of house red, £82.

There, off the chest. Said it.

McCoys is justifiably famous, in the guides longer than the late Lady Baden-Powell, a frequent star turn but perhaps what the theatricals used to call a speciality act.

"A marvellous place with a relaxing and civilised atmosphere for those who approach it in the right spirit," said a recent Good Food Guide, and with that emphasis, said it all.

It's serious cooking at serious prices for a pretty laid back clientele.

By 8.30pm it was a bit of a no-room-at-the-inn job, mind, though they found us a little table for two and sent across the accomplished young head waiter, who'd himself eaten at the Tontine on his wedding anniversary a couple of weeks earlier. "If you're a bus driver, it doesn't mean you don't catch the bus," he said.

Maybe another 40-50 were in, perky staff matching the buoyant atmosphere with practised informality. The Beach Boys tried to get a word in on the speakers; smokers, surprisingly, were in no way discouraged.

The ever-enthusiastic Eugene McCoy appeared afterwards, too, falling eagerly into discussion about his all-time favourite subject, good food.

"I love proper nosh, me," he said - in the manner of the wretched carpet salesman on the radio - and recalled a recent visit to Manchester when he'd rung friends to ask where was a good place to eat thereabouts.

"Leeds," they said.

The engaging Eugene, trying to revert to more traditional cuisine, had also been contacted that morning by his old friend Egon Ronay, now turned 80, who plans a new guide after several years absence.

"Egon talks about taking food forward, I want to take it back," he said.

Asked for "undiscovered" recommendations, we proposed two totally different places in County Durham, and await the outcome with much interest.

The Boss began with split and grilled king prawns marinated in lime, garlic and lemon grass with pickled cucumber salad and chillies and a coriander dressing.

The dish was £8.30 - "absolutely marvellous," she said, though perhaps even then not as good as the French black pudding with a Parma ham sausage, white onion puree, saute potatoes and a roast carrot dressing (£7.25).

You forget what flavours are really meant to be like until tasting a dish like that.

Ten main courses, three of them fish, cost from £17-£20. She had cod with king prawns, colcannon, a red wine jus and lobster oil - "gorgeous colcannon," the head waiter had promised - we the chicken breast, smoked chicken ravioli, mushroom jus, Irish cabbage and truffle oil.

Matching chicken breast with smoked chicken ravioli might not, it must be said, be the greatest idea ever to emerge from the McCoys' kitchen but flavours remained freshly vivid, textures firm, cooking crisp. Vegetables were simple.

From ten desserts, £5.75 each, The Boss chose hot morello cherries in a brandy sauce which, if ignited, might have set light to half the North Riding of Yorkshire.

Cointreau ice cream with prunes - jokes involving the words "run" and "money" may be inserted here - offered six prunes, from which one of the stones may have gone somewhere unintended and has yet to follow nature's course.

Thus five stones lay on the plate: tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man... there may be a moral there somewhere. Readers must weigh the cost of it for themselves.

* McCoys Bistro, Staddlebridge, near Northallerton (01609) 882671. Open seven lunchtimes and evenings. Stairs down to the bistro; restaurant re-opening shortly.

BETWEEN Guisborough and the Tontine we also had a swift sortie round Stokesley, where Chapters has turned over a new leaf. The Good Food Guide-rated a la carte restaurant has moved to a garden room at the back, the front has become an "authentic" Spanish tapas bar. "We feel this is the future," says owner and former journalist Alan Thompson.

TABLE booked at the Rendezvous Cantonese restaurant in Consett, Ellen Carlin and friends were disappointed 24 hours before their night out to learn that it had been sold.

Instead they remembered the Eating Owt column, made a late booking at the Wok Inn in Brandon, near Durham, and were delighted that they had.

With thanks for the recommendation, Ellen writes from Carrville, on the other side of Durham The soups were "very tasty", the duck "fabulous", main courses "superb", puddings "pretty good" and service from Nick and Carrie Wool and their team "fantastic".

Nick, of course, has additional reason to be a happy feller just now. As we have observed previously, he is the Hong Kong Gooner.

FROM Canada, meanwhile, a chap called Christian e-mails in response to last week's column on the Friar's Head at Akebar, near Leyburn, in which we described the pub's Quote of the Week as "some nonsense by a Canadian dame".

In fact, says Christian, the quote - "Women have to work twice as hard to get noticed half as much" - was by Fanny Hurst, an American novelist.

"I think an apology is owed to Canadians, dames and women in general."

LOCOMOTION, the new National Railway Museum at Shildon, has an eating place called the Platform Caf. Having overshot it, we decided instead to seek sustenance in one of the two nearby pubs. Neither is in any way signed, and since it's a railway museum off the beaten track - and since the column might be considered a native guide - it's a problem which should swiftly be addressed.

The railway themed Flag and Whistle, barely 200 yards from Timothy Hackworth's cottage, is under new management. Like the horses when Locomotion first steamed past, locals were recently much alarmed by a notice proclaiming: "We serve drinks, not drunks."

They sold a pleasantly destabilising pint of Marston's Old Empire (5.7abv) but because electricians had taken the heat out of the kitchen, weren't doing food that day.

The Masons Arms, next to the spot from which the world's first public passenger train began its journey and bright burnished like a top line express, is waiting to see how Locomotion turns out before offering much food.

We begged a ham salad sandwich and sat at a table marked "Old Codgers' Corner". For such a museum piece, it seemed entirely appropriate.

LAST week's column offered a copy of CAMRA's 2005 Good Beer Guide - 850 pages, £13.99 - to the first reader out of the hat to name CAMRA's new North-East pub of the year. The pub's the Ship at Middlestone Village, near Bishop Auckland; the winner is Paul Chinery from Darlington.

... and finally, the bairns wondered if we knew what's green and slimy and goes hith?

A snake with a lisp.