Going Beck to basics

A leech house is where they kept leeches, though it is best not to imagine for what purpose. Nor should a leech house be confused with a Leach Home, an altogether less bloody business.

The Baydale Beck is also a pub at the distant end of Coniscliffe Road, recently bought by Tony and Joanna Furphy, whose Uncle Ken remains something of a legend in these parts - 349 first team appearances for the Quakers at what used to be called wing half.

They'd run an 18 bedroom hotel near Reading, often served breakfast to Marco Pierre White - something of a tartar late on, so it's said, so heaven knows what he was like first thing - decided to move back north.

The Furphys are from Teesside. "If you come across one, we're probably related," said Tony.

The pub, on which they've already spent almost £50,000, is a fairly traditional roadhouse with child-friendly conservatory and outside play area; the newcomers intend to move the menu upmarket but presently are at a crossroads - nice food, shame about the surroundings.

We dined last Tuesday evening in the lounge, the conservatory not being available for that purpose. A mothers', or rather a grandmothers' meeting, overflowed the next table so contentedly that we expected them at any moment to start a game of nap, penny a point. In fact it was quiz night.

Smokers mixed with non-smokers; tables weren't so much set as unprepared for any eventuality; no place mats, no cutlery setting, no finesse.

It's Beck to basics; more frills on a twice- used doily.

We'd ordered from a carte on which prices were spelt out in full - four pounds and ninety five pence - rather like a journalist with a lot of space to fill and not much idea how to fill it.

Fifteen minutes later, Tony appeared in chef's whites to announce

a) that the specials list shouldn't have been there at all, b) that the escolar was available but the advertised mango salsa wasn't and c) that whilst there was definitely a rack of lamb he was rather hoping to have had it for his supper. (Escolar, which looks like an anagram - sole car, perhaps - was helpfully described as a meaty white fish but still hasn't been caught by the Oxford Dictionary.)

The menu is more imaginative than any pub in Darlington, the food generally very good, the herb crusted rack of lamb (£12.45) terrific. The Boss also enjoyed the anagramatic escolar, £9.95, served simply with baked potato, a peppery salsa and salad.

The Furphys' dilemma, has been reflected in diners' comments in the book provided for that purpose. "It's a pub with a good bar trade and I don't want to lose it," says Tony.

"Some people don't like laid tables in pubs, but there've also been a few comments from people who like to be pampered."

Though everyone's perfectly pleasant, the only way to be pampered just now is to bring a packet of disposable nappies. "It's a question of finding a happy medium," says Tony. The problem's a real one: on the side of the Baydale Beck, which way will they jump?

Baydale Beck, Coniscliffe Road, Darlington (01325) 469637. Lunch Wednesday to Sunday, evening meals Tuesday to Saturday from 6pm. Bar meals also available.)

PASSING reference the other day to Gabriele's ice cream - long in Bishop Auckland - chimed memories for Raymond Raine, long in Queensland, Australia.

Raymond not only remembers Gabby's when they sold ice cream from a motor bike and sidecar - "I don't suppose they were the only ones to do it" - but when they sold it on Toronto village green to mark King George V's silver jubilee.

(This, of course, was the Toronto outside Bishop Auckland. Not even Gabby's sidecar got to Canada.)

There has also been learned if inconclusive e-mailing on the subject of monkey's blood. Suggestions of a link with the unfortunate Hartlepool monkey may, however, wholly be discounted.

FOOD for thought, Costa have opened a coffee shop in Ottakar's book store in Darlington. Some of us are old enough to remember Sam Costa, a disc jockey when records were ten inches across and played with a box of needles. They are presumably not related.

It's all rather cosy, vaguely scholarly, tables squeezed in beside shelves marked "Self help" and "Philosophy" and other things of what teachers used to call an improving nature.

The menu includes sandwiches, salads, lots of cakes and pastries, paninis and tostatos. A proper food writer would know what a tostato is - or tostatos are - this one hasn't yet read up on it.

Coffees also sound like the AC Milan midfield - Americano, Mocha, Ristretto, Machiato - served either "normale" or "grande" and most expensively at £2.65 a cup, An Americano grande was £1.75 - excellent coffee, undoubtedly - and a chicken and bacon club sandwich would have been £2.99 save for a promotion which offered both for £3.24. Costa fortune? Not at that price, anyway.

ENTHUSIASTIC reference in last week's column to the joys of the black pudding sandwich prompts a special delivery from Hazel Forster in Killerby, near Darlington - a large jar of her chutney, home made to a Delia Smith recipe.

Hazel's a black pudding sandwich fan, too - "so pleased to find a fellow aficionado". The chutney she says, and with great good reason, is the only thing suitable to embellish it.

She has also been known to fry her black pudding sandwiches until golden brown on both sides - "but only on high days and holidays," of course.

RECENT columns have touched upon the Thai food at the George and Dragon in Wath near Ripon, cooked by A, and that at the Black Horse in Ingleton, cooked by Oie. We now hear of Thai bar lunches at the Travellers Rest in Cockerton, Darlington, cooked by El. Clearly they don't believe in long names in Thailand, but at least this one has a consonant.

...and finally, the bairns wondered if we knew what consists of bacon, sausage, steak, liver, black pudding, eggs and mushrooms and answers to King Kong.

A mixed gorilla, of course.

Published: 05/11/2002