Sunday lunch for two for a fiver - and it's good food too. What more could you want on the Sabbath?

Surreal Neil is a Marske United supporter, is familiar on many North-East cricket grounds and collects telephone exchanges - those little brick outhouses on the edge of three figure villages - in the way that others collect train numbers.

Once he came across one with curtains, a find so exciting he'd to pull himself quite together.

It's irrelevant really, except that Karl Crawford wrote recommending Sunday lunch at the Cleveland in Redcar and added, as if seeking to establish what the Romans might have called his bona fides, that he was a friend of Surreal Neil's.

A surreality check, as it were..

The Cleveland is in High Street West, sufficiently far west not really to be in the High Street at all but for a Tudor navigator to worry about falling off the edge of the earth.

It's part of an elderly terrace in Coatham, inland from the boating lake, across the road from the bookie's and may be termed unprepossessing without fear of a writ from the brewery. "It's not a rough pub, but on the other hand it doesn't have new carpets," wrote Karl.

We went two Sabbaths ago, on the day that the Sunday Times listed its selection of Britain's 20 top seaside hotels. Though Seaham Hall, astutely marketed, was among them, the Cleveland (not altogether surprisingly) was not.

The differences are infinite, among them that the last time we had Sunday lunch at the Seaham Hall Hotel it was £27.50 (each) and that at the Cleveland you can eat as much as you like for fifty bob. Puddings, for those of a truly egregious appetite, are an extra £1.

The arrangement is that a chitty (and perhaps a pint) is bought from the bar and a lengthy queue formed at a little carvery counter. A poster announces that the meat is from Fawcett's of Redcar, Neil Diamond warbles on the CD, the television is pictured, mute and sullen, in one corner.

The choice is beef, pork or chicken with an optional sausage (a Redcar tradition, no doubt) with Yorkshire puddings and mountains of fresh vegetables, cheerfully and continually replenished from out the back.

Regulars balance stacked high plates like a trainee librarian might carry a pile of books - steps uncertain, knees buckling, eyes barely visible over the top. Were the great edifices any more precarious, they would surely need a scaffold and an advisory inspection by English Heritage.

Mr Jack Cohen may have had something similar in mind when he spoke of piling it high and selling it cheap, though even the great Blondini would be stretched to maintain the equilibrium.

With the possible exception of the roast potatoes, which The Boss considered "disgusting", it is precisely the sort of meal which might be enjoyed at thousands of North-East dinner tables but without the hassle, cost and necessity of shopping, scraping and cooking.

£2.50, indeed, would barely cover the bus fare to one of Mr Cohen's establishments - he was the founder of Tesco - and may unless others know otherwise represent the country's least expensive Sunday dinner.

We forewent pudding, even home made for £1, partly because of eyes and belly syndrome and partly because the seats, like dead man's shoes, were already being coveted.

Lindsey and Chris Appleby took on the pub as tenants, bought it and are working tremendously hard to make it work. We wish them every success: the surreal thing, undoubtedly.

Appropriately as a last minute substitute, inappropriately in the Legends Lounge, we found ourselves an FA dinner guest before England's big match at the Riverside Stadium last Wednesday.

Mostly they were FA and UEFA people, though Mr Sven-Goran Erikson's personal manager and Ms Nancy Dell'Olio, his fragrant partner, were also in attendance.

Mr John Motson was wandering rather distractedly around the banqueting suite in a white mac, suggesting that he had lost his voice and couldn't remember where he last saw it.

The other half does very well. We began with marinated salmon fillet served with peeled prawns and a dill creme fraiche, followed by an excellent beef fillet served with pesto mushrooms and a Mediterranean vegetable ragout and for pudding - sweet FA, so to speak - lemon panacotta with citrus syrup and strawberries.

Despite the conspicuous conviviality and overt opulence several chairs remained empty, however, prompting the column to suggest that the spirit of the fourteenth chapter of St Luke be invoked.

It's the Parable of the Rich Man's Feast, the bit where they go out into the highways and hedge backs in order that the house might be filled.

Though many an England fan down below might have blown up his air horn at the opportunity, the FA chaps seemed unenthusiastic. They work from different bibles at Soho Square, though they are considered no less holy writ.

The meal was good, the service confident, the Shiraz and the Chenin Blanc flowed freely. The only problem was that a delay between starter and main course suggested that coffee might still be being served with 15 minutes gone and England 3-0 ahead.

Suggestions that the kick-off be delayed were discounted, however, on the grounds that the German referee was unlikely to be accommodating.

The game proved memorable, the seat in the directors' box unaccustomed, the post-match dim summy things - should a food critic write about dim summy things? - exceedingly moreish.

The team having commandeered the Redworth Hall Hotel, the FA party retired to the Hardwick Hall Hotel in Sedgefield - a former maternity home over which many a natal star still shines.

At 9.30 the following morning, a meeting of the National Game Board was duly convened at Hardwick. It should not be confused with the National Gaming Board, but you pays your money and takes your chance, anyway.

The following evening, coincidentally, to a do at the Stadium of Light in Sunderland - not a match, but the launch of former Vaux Group chairman Sir Paul Nicholson's autobiography.

It was only the second time we'd visited the 50,000 capacity ground. The first, readers will be unsurprised to hear, was for Stanhope Town v Wearhead in the Crook and District League. Details on request.

Sir Paul remains Lord Lieutenant of Durham, confesses to drinking lager when very thirsty, lives at Brancepeth, between Durham and Crook and devotes much time to his horses.

The book launch offered a soft drink called pink ginger, uniquely horrible, and the old Vaux favourite Double Maxim, now marketed under the slogan "All flavour, no flannel" and brewed in Lancashire on licence to ex-Vaux valiants.

After the splendours of the previous evening, food consisted of a few pickings of pizza, a copper of crisps and some carefully spelt crudites. It didn't amount to much, but as football fans will now confirm, Middlesbrough are in a different league.

From some far flung corner of the world, Phil Atkinson e-mails to confirm that the Woodentops dog really was just called Spotty. It's the reason he first ventured into the Talbot in Bishop Middleham - "I liked the sign" - though the Strongarm quickly assumed some importance, too. A talbot, of course, was another breed of spotty dog.

From some other corner, Iran to be precise, an Internet reader who'd most safely remain anonymous says that Titanic isn't just the name of one of the ales in the Victoria in Durham (Eating Owt, June 3) but of the illicit vodka in those parts.

"At the end of a night on that," he adds, "you're very definitely sunk."

...and finally, the bairns wondered if we knew what's pink, curly and cuts the grass.

A prawn mower, of course.

www.thisisthenortheast.co.uk/ leisure/eatingowt.htm

Published: 17/06/2003