The Quay question

One week the main meal may be relatively expensive, the next week offer change from a ten shilling note; sometimes it's in a pub - the ever-present temptation - on other occasions in hotel, ethnic restaurant or fish and chip caff.

Much the greatest problem, however, is getting the geography right. Something to do with the moon's pull, probably, the general inclination is to gravitate towards North Yorkshire.

"It's got to be north of the Tees," we periodically insist when discussing where to pitch tent and last Wednesday we achieved it by the width of the Great Stupendo's tightrope.

McQuays by the River - riparian yarns, and all that - has berthed in what was once Stockton's dockland, a great deal of water having passed beneath Thornaby bridge since those heave-ho halcyon days.

Though the replica of the Endeavour is moored magnificently alongside, the old dockside now houses recording studios, marine consultants - the latter day equivalent of the washed up old sea dog with the wooden leg and the twinkle? - and something called Digital Office Solutions.

We'd no idea what a digital office solution might be; others may better know the answer.

Twenty years ago an old paddle steamer called the John H Amos was also moored a few yards downstream, but since it was rusting, decrepit and patently past its best, was clearly no relation.

There's also a handsome but thoroughly scary new bridge, a pleasant and sensibly lit riverside footpath and the offer of boat trips on the Teesside Princess. The Boss hadn't been on the Stockton riverbank for years - the last time was with a rat catcher, she said - and was properly impressed. None of it, however, could attract anyone else into McQuays.

Save for a short intermission for the benefit of a photographer from Another Newspaper - of which more a little later - we dined utterly alone.

The restaurant and upstairs bar opened six weeks ago, several months behind McQuays, up river, in Yarm. Originally it was Mcquay's, the apostrophe apparently having been lost in transit.

Malcolm McKee, almost eponymous, began (memory suggests) at the Fox and Hounds in Kirk Merrington, near Spennymoor, and owns several other spots throughout the region.

Joe Smith, his general manager - a McKee worker, as it were - formerly ran the catering operations at Darlington Football Club.

We arrived shortly before 8pm, a young waitress interrupted from chalking the day's specials on a board in the bar. "Supreme of...." it said, and left the blissful thought unfinished.

Like the other staff she was very pleasant, the head lass so commendably clued up on the menu's more arcane aspects that we also considered asking her what a digital office solution might be.

There was a table by the window, overlooking the river, opposite bank from what they now insist upon calling Teesdale, though most of us still believe that Teesdale is Barnard Castle. Like knees before Wembley, the table went all trembly as we sat at it.

"It's never done that before," said the head lass and transferred us with good grace to another.

The floor's bare, room large, furnishings modern. The concept, said the menu rubric, was traditional, yet modern.

We had the ostrich, first time ever, what's probably called sticking your neck out. Brooks Mileson, the Sunderland born former four minute miler who now heads the Albany Insurance group, breeds ostriches at his place in Cumbria and has named his firstborn Amos in the column's high honour. Even baby ostriches are an acquired taste: they might call it Amos, but they could never call it beautiful.

The portion, like all portions at Mcquay's, is huge. You couldn't eat a whole one. The strawberry pavlova at the end - the waitress pronounced it almost like Navratilova - was as thick as a docker's sandwich, but delicious for all that.

The ostrich, at any rate, was almost gamey, slightly smokey, a bit chewy. It came with sweet and sour red cabbage, chilli chutney and, extra on the bill, some very good mash.

We'd started, first things last, with a lime-scented king prawn risotto. Whilst the prawns may have been king for a day, the day was probably one last March, but the risotto was otherwise fine.

The Boss had pan fried sardines with lime and olive oil ("lovely") followed by tagliatelli and summer vegetables with stir fried noodles and a ginger and spring onion sauce.

That barely a drop was spilled down her front was evidence, probably, of how much she enjoyed it.

The photographer, as we were saying, looked in half way through. A meal was placed before two staff who were photographed in anticipatory pose before the food was taken away again. The ancient Chinese could have adapted it as a torture; probably did, come to think.

With a couple of drinks and two spoons for the strawberry pavlova, the bill reached £46. We shall look even further north next week.

Last week's note on the Race Riders Caf at Middleham stirred memories for Tom Cockeram, now in Barwick-in-Elmet, near Leeds, but raised before the war within sight and sound of Middleham's clattering hooves.

"I used to sleep in the back room of what is now the Stable Door Caf," he recalls.

The Race Riders is in Warwick House, former front room of the legendary Captain Crump and frequently visited in the thirties, says Tom, by ukelele twanging George Formby, pictured right.

He'd arrive in his auburn sports car ("the one with the straight eight cylinder engine") and be welcomed by Jack Drake, one of Neville Crump's predecessors.

"It was a breath of fresh air for him," says Tom, and air was never much fresher than at Middleham.

Durham bus station, roundly and rightly criticised in a recent letter for being a comfortless dump, has a new attraction.

What in various guises, none very inviting, has long been a bus station caf is now the Lacuna Lodge, where inexpensive food comes with tea or coffee as standard.

The name is curious, however, since "lacuna" generally means a gap, hiatus or hole and is further defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as "a small pit or depression on the upper surface on the thallus of lychens."

Perhaps it sounded a good idea at the time.

There's also a cocktail called Sex on the Bus, a romantic mix of vodka, orange, cranberry and one or two other things and climactic for those of us who had hitherto believed sex on the bus to be a left behind copy of the Daily Star.

A bit old for either, we waited patiently for the 765 to Consett, and to the beer festival at the Grey Horse.

The Grey Horse's real ale extravaganza smashed all records, but nothing else whatever. "Not so much as a broken glass, the atmosphere was wonderful," says landlord Paul Conroy.

By 9.45pm on bank holiday Monday they'd sold the last drop of the 21 nine gallon casks of guest beer - Timothy Hackworth arithmetic makes that 1,512 pints - plus another 1,000 pints of the excellent Derwent Rose ales which Paul brews out the back.

There'll be another festival next August. "I was on my feet 18 hours a day," says Rosie Conroy. "One a year is enough."

...and finally, the bairns wondered if we knew what you call a fruit that plays guitar and sings harmony.

John Lemon, of course.

Published: 03/09/2002