Ah, Bistro!

We e-mailed at once, offered bonus points were it to arrive before last Wednesday - another birthday - and waited.

The GFG was not to be; the Guide has yet to find its way to these shelves.

The 2003 edition also became disorientated, perhaps for the same reason. The 2002 version included Bistro 21 in Durham, albeit in a slightly muted manner. We went, she and I, for the birthday party.

It's at Aykley Heads - near County Hall, police headquarters, sundry official agencies and a company offering waste strategies and solutions - and owned by the celebrated Terry Laybourne, a man who made a fist out of ham knuckle and the only Geordie to win the MBE for services to gastronomy.

Culinary iconoclast, he probably won it for valour as well.

Lucky for many, he'd opened 21 Queen Street in Newcastle in 1988, gained a Michelin star four years later and - says the Bistro brochure - has opened three other restaurants.

For some reason, it forgets the shorter-lived enterprise by the Wear in Sunderland, as if the prodigal son had been airbrushed from the family photograph.

The evening began alarmingly, and not just because a bottle of Black Sheep bitter was £3.80. The appealing little bar, formerly the coal hole of the converted 18th century farmhouse, was full of boisterous - that is to say, over-noisy - Americans. Most Americans are.

In a moment they were gone, however, as if instantaneously translated into a soundproofed enclave marked "Boisterous Americans". Every restaurant should have one; 21 has private dining rooms, anyway.

The main restaurant was once the kitchen and laundry, now bare boarded and furnished, it's said, like a classic French bistro. Perhaps classic French bistros, like 21, also have chairs hanging from the wall above the stove.

We couldn't work it out, meant to ask and forgot. Perhaps it was high table; perhaps one of those adhesive ads, waiting to come unstuck.

As we took a more ground level seat, the departing chap on the next table was telling the waitress that it was among the best meals he'd ever had. Every restaurant should have one of those, too.

Unquiet Americans apart, it wasn't very busy, urbane staff not in any sense rushed off their feet. The 1992 GFG had warned that service could be slow.

There's a main carte and a daily changing specials list, both full of imaginative options - seared sea scallops with home made black pudding and pea puree, spiced king prawns with marinated fennel, baba ganouj (?) and cous cous with a yoghurt and mint dressing, duck rillettes with onion marmalade and comichons (?, yet again.)

We began with crab and prawn spring rolls with wasabi cream and picked vegetables - enjoyable dish, delicious bread and butter - followed by "Asian sweet braised pork with noodles and crab egg roll."

The pork, said the brochure, was Gloucester Old Spot, the crab egg roll was close to an omelette, the sauce soy based and fragrant - ah, Bistro. The improbable combinations worked very well; hitting the old spot, as it were.

A world authority on these things, the lady began with Caesar salad - "among the best in memory" - followed by grilled turbot with gnocchi, baby mozzarella and slow-roast tomatoes with a creamed spinach side dish.

The fish hadn't been long out of water, the gnocchi a rich dumpling ground. High marks.

The puddings were therefore a bit of a disappointment. Spotted dick should have all the finesse of a blackboard rubber around the ear hole and this was much too subtle, too delicate by half for those of us reared on Bishop Auckland Grammar School dinners.

Similarly, the summer pudding was a bit Septemberish, a little heavy, the last of that ilk, perhaps.

The bill, with a half bottle of Sancerre and a couple of bottles of beer, was almost £80 and must therefore be considered no more than an annual occasion.

A relaxed, adventurous and altogether pleasant evening, nonetheless. The 2004 Good Food Guide may or may not confirm that unsolicited opinion.

* Bistro 21, Aykley Heads, Durham 0191 384-4354. Open Monday to Saturday, lunch and dinner.

BISTRO 21 assistant manager Victor Castro-Quiroga and his wife Paula have a 22-month-old daughter, Lucia, with a rare and incurable kidney condition which makes kidney failure inevitable.

In an attempt to help, Victor and around 20 catering colleagues completed the Great North Run and hope to have raised £25,000 for the Children's Kidney Unit at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle.

"It's a brilliant hospital, helping in this way was the very least we could do," said restaurant manager Barry O'Leary.

Terry Laybourne and other celebrity chefs are also staging a £75 a head "gourmet banquet" at St James' Park on October 24, with all proceeds going towards the Children's Foundation, which supports the unit.

Donations can be made to the Children's Foundation, PO Box 2YB, Queen Victoria Road, Newcastle upon Tyne NE99 2YB or on-line to www.justgiving.com/chefsunited

Lucia, says Victor, is "doing fine" at the moment.

THOUGH the GFG remains misguided, it's possible to report that of the top 35 eating places, only two are in the North - in Altrincham and Leeds - and that they're concerned at the dearth of "everyday" eating places offering quality food.

"We may have more top flight restaurants than ever before, but it's still hard to find fresh, real food at affordable prices," says Guide editor Andrew Turvil.

THE 2004 Good Pub Guide has arrived though, its contents embargoed - alas - until tomorrow.

It may merely be an appetiser to reveal that the Guide's pub of the year is in North Yorkshire and that the "also rans" section for Northumbria includes the dear old Colpitts - "basic two bar local" - in Durham City.

A fleeting visit last week failed to notice what the GPG believes may be Britain's smallest beer garden but could hardly miss the increase in the price of a pint of Sam Smith's Old Brewery Bitter. When last we were there, two or three years ago, it was £1.18. It's now rocketed to £1.20.

IT'S that time of year, of course - publish and be damned sure to catch the Christmas market. In possession a couple of weeks ago of a spare copy of the 2004 Good Beer Guide, we offered it to the reader first out of the hat who suggested what CAMRA stood for. It is, of course, the Campaign for Real Ale - the book's on its way to Chris Greenwell in Aycliffe Village (where the County is the Good Food Guide's Northumbrian dining pub of the year.)

...and finally, the bairns wondered if we knew what nut sounds like a sneeze.

Cashoo.