Eating Owt: Homely is where the hearth is

THE RAC Hotels Guide, 100th edition, has arrived with a 750 page thud. When it first appeared, hotels still had signs saying "No automobiles" and chamber pots beneath the beds. Now they welcome automobiles.

Curiously for an organisation to which location could be all-important, the guide lists under "Durham, County Durham" places as far apart as Rushyford and Tow Law. Curiouser and curiouser, it doesn't include the Royal County Hotel at all.

"Durham, County Durham" may not be the place to have your nineteenth nervous breakdown, therefore, but it does help resolve a niggling problem.

The Helme Park Hall Hotel, once merely the Helme Park, is alongside the A68 in the west of the county. Estate agent Chris Close, a former owner, insisted that the correct address was "Fir Tree"; the column reckoned it was nearer Tow Law.

Finally, Mr Close got out a tape measure or slide rule or something and claimed victory by approximately three-and-a-half inches. Tow Law may have felt huffed.

The RAC Guide, economical with its prose, describes the Helme Park as "a country hotel with a reputation for service and plentiful quality of food with tremendous views of the countryside".

Perhaps they meant quantity, not quality, but the thing for which the place is really renowned is the coal fire in the lounge. It is a magnificent fire, the sort of fire that burns only on Christmas cards, the sort you leave as reluctantly as a loved one at the airport, a fire which - as the old miners used to say - always seems to be in.

"Someone once said to me that this one was the sort of hotel you wanted to wear your carpet slippers in. It was the nicest thing I've ever heard," said John Wheeler, the manager. Sadly, however, we were unable to remain with the in crowd. We'd booked in the restaurant, instead.

There's nothing wrong with the restaurant, understand, just that a radiator is to a coal fire what corned beef is to caviar, or Smoothflow to a pint of Strongarm.

Each of the corners was occupied, the middle of the room entirely empty, like the start of a noughts and crosses game. They were motor trade reps, the others, and swapped travellers' tales, though it's probably a place for those with no expenses spared.

Where the hearth is offers a sound, sturdy bar meal menu. In the restaurant, there's a table d'hote at £16.95 for three courses and a carte with around a dozen main courses listed at £12.95 but with about half attracting "supplements". The Boss thought it very irritating, and probably had a point, but calmed down when the food arrived.

She began with a melon gateau, sliced with strawberry, creme fraiche and kiwi fruit - "much better than a melon just plonked down" - followed by a Thai red vegetable curry, among the dishes with a £1 supplement.

Though she thought it overpriced, it was very good. "Proper crisp vegetables, not the usual gloop."

She'd wanted to start with the whole fig, stuffed with parma ham and things. It was off. Involuntarily and inescapably, we broke into Swinging On a Star - Big Dee Irwin, circa 1967. "And if you don't give a button or a fig

"You may grow up to be a pig."

The rendition appeared not to be appreciated.

The motor traders, what goes around comes around, had retired to the fireside with their library books; the rest of the hotel had long since clocked the two strangers in the far corner.

"We froze," said Mr Wheeler, another motors man, afterwards.

John and his wife bought the place three years ago from Chris Close, sold it last month to Newcastle businessman David Ratliff who, having all sorts of other fires, employs the former owner as manager.

"It's supposed to mean I work less hours. I'm not sure it works out that way," said John.

We began with broccoli and blue cheese soup, OK, with a spectacularly good bread roll, followed by lamb shank in a red wine and garlic sauce. The lamb was perfectly tender, the vegetables so-so, the roast potatoes - light and crisp without, melting within - even better than the bread roll.

If there were an honours degree in roast potatoes, the lass in the kitchen would have graduated with a first.

The pudding which followed had four words - chocolate, champagne, truffle and gateau and not necessarily in that order. It wouldn't have done the back axle much good.

The whole thing was served by a young lady called Judith, there for 16 years and still abounding in enthusiasm and charm.

Pudding finished, we hurried back to the bar for another pint of cask Theakston's, impeccably kept, and a coffee. As hotels should be, it really is most accommodating - and as the motor traders might say, firing on all cylinders.

l The Helme Park Hall Hotel, near Fir Tree (and other places) (01388) 730970. 25 per cent off bar meals in January and February, weekday lunchtimes and between 5.30-7.30pm.

CHUNTERING about things which should be banned from pubs - bandits, piped music, flaky pastry and (of course) puff adders - last week's column also included the word "drizzled" on menus.

Helme Park not only had drizzled, but "nestled", "pooled" and "rested" as well.

Butcher's boy Arthur Pickering, Hartlepool lad with Hartlepool tastes - proud to be a pork pie man - adds to the list jus, confit, seared, pan fried, tart when used for savoury dishes, assiette, sabyon and several others but particularly remembers the menu from a posh place in Derbyshire: "Braised belly pork with stuffed pig's trotter, soy and cardamon jus."

Arthur's dad used to sell pigs' trotters - but never, he says, with jus.

INDEPENDENTLY inspected and with no charge for entry, the 2004 Michelin Guide also appeared last week, with a "Bib Gourmand" category for 111 places reckoned to serve "good food at moderate prices".

For the Michelin men, "moderate" means three courses for less than £25. For Geordie, "only moderate" means something else entirely.

Two of the region's three new entries are around Easingwold, North Yorkshire - the Durham Ox at Crayke and the Roasted Pepper at Husthwaite; the other is the Angel at Corbridge. Caf 21 in Ponteland, one of Terry Laybourne's celebrated set, loses its accreditation.

BY no means for the first time, Virgin Trains have been seeing quite a lot of the column of late: the warm scrambled egg and mushroom panini may particularly be recommended. On three of the four most recent journeys, however, the catering crew had to announce that there'd be no hot drinks because the machine had broken down. Among all the high flying enterprises with which he is now involved, might not Sir Richard teach his people how to boil a kettle?

...and finally, the bairns wondered if we knew what you get by crossing a nun and a chicken.

A pecking order, of course.