Eating Owt: Food that's just the job

THE guides camp clamorously on the doorstep: the 2005 Good Beer Guide and both Les Routiers and Michelin pub guides launched last week upon a nation in search of direction.

CAMRA's Good Beer Guide includes for the first time the Colliery Inn at High Job's Hill - "a haven on the outskirts of keg-only Crook, fine reputation for food" - and in seeking to slake the thirst once again feeds the inner man.

It's an exceptionally pleasant discovery, an almost cottagey place run informally and hospitably by Nigel and Fiona Thomson and cheery young staff, helped also by the fact that Nigel organically grows all his own vegetables on three allotments across the road.

On one occasion, he recalls, an order for leek and Stilton something-or-other was endangered because they'd no leeks. Undaunted, he nipped over to the garden, pulled a few and served the dish 20 minutes later.

It gives new meaning to the term "fresh vegetables", and indeed to cash and carry.

For all that, the ungrateful locals apparently call him Arkwright, not - perish the thought - that the Colliery is open all hours but because he's supposed to be a miserable beggar.

Far from it, The Boss initially thought him a ringer for Sir Thomas Allen, the Seaham-born opera singer of whom she nightly dreams, but revised her opinion on closer inspection.

Sic transit gloria, as probably they say on High Job's Hill.

They've been there three years. Fiona had done the cooking at Brancepeth Golf Club, Nigel had worked for former Darlington FC chairman George Reynolds, where doubtless he learned a great deal about life but little about keeping beer.

He's a local lad, did his under age drinking in the Colliery, remembers (as does the Eating Owt column) when it was run by a coruscatingly camp character called Billy Cottle, still affectionately remembered in those parts.

Last week they picked up Punch Taverns' regional award for "Food experience", a title as curious as an accolade is deserved. Digging for victory, as they might say on the allotments.

It was Thursday, "steak night", 8oz sirloin or 10oz rump for £5.80, all grade 3A Aberdeen Angus (whatever that may be) and attractively served with mushrooms, tomato, onion rings, masses of garden garnish and a vast bowl of good chips.

It may not have been the most succulent sirloin ever to tremble self-sacrificially under a knife, but there'd be no complaints whatever.

We'd started with tomato and basil soup - rich, plentiful, full of flavour - she with shelled mussels in a sauce so swimming with garlic that next morning she ponged like a Parisian patisserie, frantically chewing parsley in an attempt to neutralise the effect.

Readers may be able to suggest a better way of clearing the air, or for that matter how High Job's Hill came by its name.

She'd followed with a sea trout steak in an imaginative and well judged sauce of fennel, Pernod, leek and ginger. Blackboard dishes included "sizzlers", the main menu had little over £8.

The best may have been left until last, however, the home made sticky toffee cheesecake was fantastic, the whole lot costing £24 for two.

Having discussed the attractiveness of the plate decorated with fennel, The Boss also came away with a great frond of the stuff. A frond indeed would do something about the garlic.

* The Colliery Inn, High Job's Hill, Crook, County Durham (01388) 762511. Meals lunchtime and evening, "steak night" Thursday, no problem for the disabled.

THE 32nd edition of the Good Beer Guide, truly among publishing's great indispensables, was launched last Thursday at The Bridge in Newcastle, one of Sir John Fitzgerald's classic urban ale houses.

Six real ale fonts marked the occasion, as they do every other; in the upper room, North-East representatives of the Public and Commercial Service Union were in hugger-mugger session about striking on bonfire night.

They included a retinue of Inland Revenue men; a nation weeps with apprehension.

Guests downstairs included Neil Amos, landlord of the Duke of Wellington in the city centre - the blighters are everywhere - and the column's old friend Alastair Downie from Frosterley, bus traveller and self-styled Weird Ale Warrior.

The admirable Alastair has lost half his present body weight in the past year, down from 18 stones to 12, on a diet which includes abundant real ale but strictly eschews cream buns.

The Guide affectionately embraces 4,500 cask ale pubs, but still with some notable omissions.

Andrew Brown at the County in Aycliffe Village is aggrieved - rightly, it seems from here - that despite his commitment to well kept real ale, his entry has been removed on the grounds that it's more of a restaurant than a pub.

"So what is Binns in Darlington?" he asks, as that store's admirable off-licence is, as always, included.

His wrath may be as naught, however, compared to that at the multiple award winning Magnesia Bank in North Shields, their uphill struggle no longer recognised.

For North-East cask ale lovers, the place to live is undoubtedly Witton Gilbert, pronounced "Jilbert" and between Durham and Consett, where all three village pubs - Glendenning Arms, Travellers Rest and White Tun - are included.

Real estate, if ever, that's one more than Hartlepool, Middlesbrough or the whole of Teesdale including Barnard Castle, two more than Bedale and three more than Shildon, Spennymoor or Stockton where the Sun, once celebrated, appears to be setting.

There'll be a chance to win a copy of the 2005 Good Beer Guide next week. Others can buy it, an 850-page treasure chest, for £13.99.

DARLINGTON'S real ale options expand apace, the Snooker Club on the corner of Northgate and Corporation Road not only included in the GBG for the first time ("family run and family oriented") but just named CAMRA's North-East club of the year.

"It's something I'd never even dreamed of," says Peter Everett, who operates the place with his mum.

Though dropped from the 2005 GBG, Tanners Hall - still the only Wetherspoon's pub in Darlington - held an aviation themed beer festival last weekend to mark Battle of Britain week.

The idea came from Darlington RAFA committee member Phil Chinery, whose branch has also given what is described as a "grand" donation to the Echo's appeal to erect a statue at Teesside Airport in memory of Andrew Mynarski VC.

Beers included Lancaster Bomber, Bulldog Bitter, Skydiver and Tom Wood Bomber County from the Highwood Brewery in Lincolnshire.

Darlington CAMRA's Rhythm 'n' Brews festival was held at the Arts Centre at the same time, among the topics of conversation the North-East community with the most pubs or clubs per head.

Ryhope, the outgrown "village" near Sunderland, was an early nomination. There may be other contenders.

MICHELIN'S "Eating Out in Pubs" guide (£14.99) accommodates 500 favourites. Almost all North-East entries will be familiar to Eating Owt readers, none is in the former county of Cleveland, one is the County in Aycliffe Village. The beer there's tip-top, too.

LES Routiers Pubs and Inns Guide (£12.50) is an extremely attractive and colourfully illustrated book, though any basic Les Routiers recommendation has to be set against the fact that businesses pay substantially for that privilege.

We are nonetheless delighted to report that the Nags Head at Pickhill, near Thirsk, the Boynton brothers' baby for 30 years, is the North's pub of the year and that the Crown at Great Ouseburn, near York, is wine pub of the year.

Rather a lot are in North Yorkshire, none in County Durham. More of this ere long.

...and finally, the bairns wondered if we knew what sort of birds lay electric eggs.

Battery hens, of course.

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