A soaking on the waterfront

This was Wednesday evening, however, all quiet on the waterfront and when we spilled a third of a bottle of Budweiser down the trousers it threatened, as Mr Burl Ives almost said, to be more of an Ugly Bugs' Balls Up.

"I can't take you anywhere, not even Hartlepool," said The Boss, who carries the line around in her handbag.

(An apology may at once be in order to readers of a sensitive nature. We were drinking Budweiser only because the alternative was John Smith's Smooth, as in baby's bottom.)

The sink or swim marina is remarkable at any time, Navigation Point one of the brave new blocks with apartments above, commercial premises beneath and a statue of a hart outside.

The alternative of a monkey was doubtless swiftly abandoned, not least by the mayor. Hartlepool, in any case, seems to be suffering enough monkey business just now.

The businesses are in what appear to be symmetrical units: Nauticalia, Leading Edge Solutions - to what for heaven's sake? - Office Recruitment Services, Authentic African Gifts. The Humber Work Boat premises were for sale; the owners perhaps having gone to Hull.

There are a couple of wine bars, a very large Chinese called Lotus Garden, an Indian called Spice and in Unit 12a, a restaurant called Farrar's which, since the owners are Mark and Charlotte Farrar, may not be the most original name in the world, not even in Hartlepool.

If the alternative was Unit 12a, however, you can understand where they're hanging their hats.

Linda Sewell had e-mailed in Farrar's slightly faint praise - "Food could be getting there" - and also reported that our old friend Didier da Ville, once the Scarlet Pimpernel of North-East gastronomy, is not only still at Al Syros in the Pool but can be seen buying his fresh veg at Tesco.

Only two other tables were taken, both by groups (like us) at the anxious end of middle age. Though not particularly loud, the music seemed inappropriate.

Really cute owners would have been scrabbling about in the attic - if unitary authorities build such places - seeking out Doris Day, or Bill Haley and the Comets or even Unit Four Plus Two.

Remember Unit Four Plus Two? Concrete and Clay, number one, February 1965.

Given its limitations, they've tried valiantly with the available space: little bar area at the front, wooden flooring, orange panel lighting on the walls, plants here and there.

The menu is both inexpensive and fairly imaginative, the food (as our correspondent suggested) clearly going places, though an ineffectual mushroom and thyme soup never passed first base. The bread was better.

The Boss began with a generous and appetising bowl of gravadlax, though some call it gravalax. As if unwilling to enter the debate, the till roll called it "cured fish".

Her excellent paella, £10.95 from a short specials board, was strong on mussels and king prawns, augmented by a couple of clams and by the inevitable squid's in, which she compares unfavourably with Mr John Dunlop's inner tubes. The till roll termed it "Misc. food."

We ordered "pan fried cod served on spring onion mash topped with herb crust, streaky bacon and lemon and chive sauce", also £10.95. It was a major hit - fresh, vivid and full of nicely contrasting flavours, though the streaky bacon may still wonder how it washed up there.

Other main courses are almost all less expensive - pork fillet on a bed of leek and potato mash with a wholegrain apple, vanilla and cider sauce (£7.95), braised lamb shank with garlic, rosemary jus and olive oil mash (£8.95) or a couple of pasta options for £5.45, perhaps. Vegetables, simply cooked and served separately, were sound.

In between, as is customary on such midweek evenings, we asked the waitress if she might find out the Arsenal score. The request threw her utterly.

We finished with a very moist and rather fetching sticky toffee pudding, she with a brandy snap basket with fresh fruit and ice cream and with two coffees form a lengthy list of specialities.

Apart from the soggy trousers, it was a very pleasant evening. At Hartlepool, the boat is coming in.

l Farrar's, Navigation Point, Hartlepool Marina. Open seven lunchtimes and Monday to Saturday evenings from 5.30pm. Two course lunch £7.95, early bird main courses £4.95. No problems for the disabled.

SEVERAL readers have offered more information about Cornforth and Cornforth, the Middleton in Teesdale caf closed - illness, it transpires -when last week's column went calling.

Geoff Eddon in Middleton even "leaps to its defence". No need Geoff, honest. It was never under attack.

All are enthusiastic, not least about the soups, the coffee, the log fires, the locally sourced produce, the black labrador and John and Vivian Cornforth, the idiosyncratic owners. "The meals are delicious, especially if you enjoy home cooking from an Aga," says Heather Wallington.

All this and we've never even crossed the doorstep. Another report very shortly.

COXHOE, pronounced locally as in boxer, boasts one of Britain's best butchers. It says so above the shop door, and Harry Coates has an acclamation of awards to prove it.

A few doors up there's a place called Noah's Ark, possibly the gerbil capital of the North, and between them - sandwiched between them, as might be said of a caf - is Foxton's coffee shop.

Lest anyone become disorientated, it is further described as "Foxton's of Coxhoe." Coxhoe's just off the A1, south-east of Durham.

It's a friendly little place, Earl Grey tea alongside egg and bacon stotties, lamb dinners to eat in or out, elderly ladies discussing clarts, kitchenettes and carcinomas. (In the latter case, it is devoutly to be wished that they wouldn't.)

We ordered vegetable soup, corned beef and potato pie with "proper" mushy peas (£2.75) and a glass of ginger beer, from which the fizz seemed earlier to have been appropriated.

The soup was a bit anaemic, as vegetable soup often is, the pie came with three crisps, hand counted, and was pretty good. The "proper" mushy peas? Some of Britain's best.

DESPITE attempts at discouragement, the PR lady at Foster's lager has tried to e-mail details of their "nickname" competition. She reckoned without "Content security".

"Content security", a sort of electronic MI5, censoriously blocked the message before it arrived - "either because it is graded as offensive or has a sexual connotation."

Foster's lager is admittedly not everyone's glass of cheer, but what the XXXX have they been calling it?

BATTER brained as usual, last week's column described Yorkshire puddings as "limpid" which - as Ian Forsyth in Durham transparently points out - means "pellucid, clear, not turbid." We meant limp.

From the same mea culpa column, Peter Murphy in Evenwood supposes that the reference to Thai currency should have been "a million baht" and not, as was printed, "a million bath". It seems best to come clean.

...so finally, the bairns wondered if we knew what's furry, has whiskers and chases outlaws.

A posse cat, of course.

Published: 04/03/2003