Eating Owt

Like a dose of flu, however, it sometimes seems impossible not to catch one - and so we had feared last Tuesday evening.

Where do you dine in mid-December without stepping on the corns of others' meretricious merriment, without being assaulted by paper hats and party poppers or, yet worse, perniciously being charged with poopery under the False Jollity Act of nineteen hundred and best forgotten?

With expectations neither of comfort nor great joy, we booked "Hugo's Festive Fayre" at the Hall Garth Hotel at Coatham Mundeville, near Darlington, and were utterly, almost rapturously, surprised.

Hugo's restaurant, said to have two rosettes and to be award winning, wasdecorated with nothing more than a couple of bits of mantlepiece tinsel that might have come from the end of a roll. The music machine played not Jingle Bells but Joseph and his Dreamcoat, the fire was not the sort upon which chestnuts might be roasted, not least because it was gas.

There are those, it is true, who in booking "festive fayre" might reasonably expect a sprig of mistletoe beneath which to embrace the spirit of the season, but this was the little ploy that Santa Claus forgot.

It may be, of course, that the Hall Garth's head lad knows how to keep Christmas - as was said finally of old Scrooge - as well as any man alive.

Elsewhere in that expansive hotel that night was something called a "Kylie tribute evening" - "tribute" is a modern term, meaning "cheap impersonation" - while at other times there are party nights, worldwide extravaganzas and, on New Year's Eve, the promised prospect of "the piper piping in the haggis while reciting the traditional ode".

Isn't playing the bagpipes difficult enough without simultaneously reciting poetry? And what exactly is the Hogmanay address to a haggis?

Hugo's was different; it was like the "quiet coach" which, mercifully, is now included on most trains and in which the noisome noisy may find themselves eviscerated with their own electronic gadgetry. It was all the more peaceful because we were the only ones there; silent night, indeed.

As if to emphasise the point, the other tables were set for breakfast. You could tell what meal it was because the word "breakfast" was writ large upon the napkins in case of disorientation.

Perhaps some of those attending the Kylie tribute were planning to stayovernight and to be a little disorientated in the morning.

We were attended by a talkative Turk whose lapel badge said Corus, not a redundant steel worker - Corus is the hotel group - but a chap who'd met a young lady from Darlington on the cruise ship on which he worked, moved back here (does Christmas vote for Turkey?) and married the lass.

Now he hoped to set up his own place, maybe in Richmond, and sought counsel on the possibilities. Far from leaving a tip, we were minded to charge a consultation fee.

He was very efficient, failing only the fundamental test of not being able to find out the Arsenal score. Perhaps he mistakenly thought an arsenal was somewhere that guns were kept; perhaps he'd misheard something worse entirely.

The restaurant is fairly small and very comfortable, the setting in 67 acres of land, which includes a nine-hole golf course. Hugo's festive fayre, a £22.95 table d'hote, offered four or five choices at each stage.

The Boss had a filo pastry goats' cheese parcel followed by mushroom ravioli ("a bit too much like lasagne") bound in a red pesto dressing with parmesan ribbons and finished with a bowl of "warm winter fruits" in malibu syrup.

On the other side, we started with a savoy cabbage and bacon wrapped ballontine of duck with a sweet plum chutney. "Ballontine" is one of those many culinary words - "paupiette" is another - of which we don't know the meaning, but this was a bit like an upmarket and rather bland but definitely potted meat. After a bit of contemplation, it came out on the right side of the balance.

Cod fillet was served with crispy potatoes, puy lentils and capers. The fish was cooked perfectly, the sauce memorably delicious.

Pudding proved disappointing, the rum baba a bit of a bum baba - moist enough, but so lacking in the advertised staple ingredient that Uncle Ebenezer himself might have been holding the bottle.

We finished with lukewarm coffee in one of the lounges, where there was not only a nicely decorated Christmas tree but a set of Arthur Mee's affectionately remembered Children's Encyclopaedias.

Whatever happened to Arthur Mee, we wondered eruditely, and was he related to Bertie Mee, Arsenal's double winning manager in 1971?

We crept homeward about 10.30. Kylie or cure, those seeking a more sedate Christmas have a day and a half to book in on the quiet.

TEETH into last Wednesday's paper, Chris Greenwell in Aycliffe Village draws attention to a paragraph about a "wine and mice pie party" in Barnard Castle (below). "That it raised more than £1,500 is a tribute to the epicureans of Barney," says Chris.

FOR 17 years, the Lodge at Leeming - formerly Leeming Bar Motel on the A1 near Bedale - has been holding traditional "pantomime lunches" on the Sundays before Christmas. For almost all of them, we've been going with the bairns.

As is only proper, precious little changes. Leslie and Suzanne still heroically head an all-star costumed cast, the themed menu still describes turkey as a "game old bird", the bairns still squabble.

Come to think, they still eat the party poppers, too.

The Lodge did experience a taste of the unexpected earlier this month, however, when Jonny Wilkinson's chauffeur driven car piled into a tree out the back, prompting the arrival of a veritable junket of journalists.

Mirror man: "Did you see him after the crash?"

Carl Les, Lodge owner: "No."

Mirror man: "Yes, but what did he look like?"

Carl Les: "I don't know, I didn't see him."

Mirror man: "Yes, but was there any blood..."

The five course pantomime lunches also embrace - Oh yes - a gift, a visit from Santa, crackers and the like for £13.95. Great occasions; book early for 2004.

AS forecast in last week's column, the much missed Black Lion in Richmond has re-opened for the festivities - but without the handsome array of military plaques which once decorated the bar but have been ripped from the walls.

"Whoever did it couldn't even be bothered to unscrew the fitting plates," reports Brian Robertshaw. He's trying to find replacements.

BOB Kelsall in Heighington writes with the best sort of recommendation - "four lovely lunches in recent weeks" - for the Chequers at Dalton-on-Tees, south of Darlington. The column was similarly enthusiastic a few months ago.

Six months ago, they closed Heighington post office; four months later they took away the post box. Bob's an e-mail convert, instead.

...and finally, the festive bairns wondered if we knew who's tone deaf, can't hold a tune and circumnavigates the globe.

Singbad the Sailor, of course.

The column returns on January 13 - until which time, as Tiny Tim observed, may God bless us, every one.

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