Eating Owt: Good gracious, great bowls of fire

It was partly by way of reciprocation, therefore, and partly to discover the secrets of the Orient that we dined last week - and were welcomed - at the newish Sakura restaurant in Durham.

It's in Crossgate, views to the Cathedral, and (as we shall hear) goes out of its way to make others love their neighbour, too.

We arrived unbooked, the restaurant empty save for a group of Japanese men half-hidden in an anteroom.

Two other couples, end of term students, arrived independently soon afterwards. One chap, instantly elevated, was an Arsenal season ticket holder; his girl friend - dew-eyed and delightful - was the daughter of an Appeal Court judge who, like the present Prime Minister, had been educated at the Durham Chorister School.

We looked him up afterwards in Who's Who - awesomely qualified, author of books on Cicero and them, recreations "Greece, living in London and philosophy" and, most fearful of all, barely a year older than I am.

Though no less agreeable, the other two were a bit quieter, possibly because the would-be barrister was in overall charge of a student bar and kept receiving calls on his mobile that things might (as they in the Far East) be kicking off.

"People will think you're our parents," said the judge's daughter. Worse, we might have been taken for their grandparents.

Cheek to cheek near enough, we were seated together around the huge hot plate favoured by Japanese restaurants in Britain, the salad starters already laid out so that places might be known and distances not kept.

The Arsenal fan was reading anthropology: you could do a Masters in watching Britons in Japanese restaurants. We commend it to him.

Yet after a gentle simmering, we got on fine, among the catalysts a mutual passion for heavy Gunnery and that the judge's daughter - just finished a degree in Latin and Greek - contemplated a career in public relations.

We counselled her most strongly, in terms of barge and ten foot implement, to reconsider. There might still be jobs down the pit, we added. Not only did she appear obdurate, but she was cack-handed - and unalone - with chopsticks.

Don't they teach them anything at the University of Durham?

The decor is what's probably called minimalist - pinkish walls, little adornment, reading matter confined to the North East Chamber of Commerce quarterly magazine and the brochure for Bede rugby club's trip to Dubai.

"Japanese" beer included Sapporo, the name of the stadium in which England played Argentina. "Brewed in Ireland by Guinness" it said in about a dozen languages, including Latin and Greek probably, on the back.

Whether the cuisine itself is authentically Japanese, or titivated to suit British tastes, we have no idea whatever.

It seems probable, however, that the pantomime performance which accompanies so many Japanese meals over here may be adapted for the western market.

Is David Beckham greeted by a chap juggling pepper pots every time he pops out for a sushi sandwich? Does David Seaman have to sit through the chef catching eggs as effortlessly as he himself gathers balls at the far post? Are the preliminaries always so inflammatory?

The menu, happily, goes out of its way to make strangers feel at home. There are set meals and steaks as well as sushi and other raw fish dishes which lose little in the translation.

Like our new friends, we chose the Sakura Royale, middle priced at £20.50 among three set menus. It began with a pretty English salad, dressed with something that might have come from a Hellman's jar, followed by "miso soya bean soup" with seaweed and horrid cheese.

It was awful, smelt chiefly of the cup in which it was served and tasted of the tea once stewed up every morning by the column's dear old dad.

For a great man and an old solider, it was curious how he could make such a pig's ear of a pot of tea.

After that there was a small and very tasty skewered chicken dish and some scallops, served alongside one another and after that, the main act, the one man bandana, appeared.

Which was the more important, we wondered, the ability to cook a steak or to juggle eggs? This guy seemed accomplished at both, and at the attendant pyrotechnics.

Four dishes - whole king prawns, salmon steak, sirloin steak and chicken teriyaki - followed in the firing line before the conflagration ceased. There were stir fried vegetables and especially enjoyable egg fried rice, too.

Since he didn't wear a hat, the chef couldn't catch eggs in it. David Nixon - or was it Philip Harburn, no good asking the students - did it better, anyway.

Close quartered, we seemed to be getting along fine until imminent insurrection elsewhere ("they're starting to throw furniture") obliged the bar manager to pack up his dinner in a foil carton and head off to address it.

The Arsenal fan suggested a pint of something called D Pils ("blows your brains") so we headed across the Wear bridges to the Swan and Three Cygnets, the city full of students - either disorientated or demob happy - singing of the twelve days of Christmas.

In exchange for a pint, he offered the information ("I know someone") that the Gunners will sign the mildly infamous Mr Lee Bowyer from Leeds United before the summer's out and suggested placing a large bet on that certainty.

Whether the information was even worth a pint of D Pils is doubtful, but the midsummer night - strictly for the gregarious - had been distinctive, different and really very enjoyable.

Before the Worlds turn much further we recommend a visit; you never know who you might go home with.

* Sakura, Crossgate, Durham (0191-383-2323.) Open seven days. Weekday lunch £8 50, Sunday lunch £10.50, vegetarian banquet £12.50.

LEST any readers (or their proud parents) be bound for Cambridge University, last week's rigorous research recommends the Live and Let Live - a tremendous pub on Mawson Road with a veritable panoply of richly distinctive real ales. Another for the charity box at the Ship Inn in Middlestone Village.

In CAMRA's Cambridge branch magazine, however, there's a copy of a letter sent to the city council protesting at the price and "very poor" quality of beer in those parts.

In the Live and Let Live, several scintillating real ales are £2.10. In Shildon Civic Hall two nights later, a pint of Roughwith was £2. You pays your money...

THE buffet on Darlington railway station has had a much needed facelift, re-emerging as the Pumpkin. It looks a lot better. A scrawny Coronation chicken sandwich is still £2.75, however (so much for the golden jubilee) and a pasty £1.95. The aftershock remains the same.

SOME other time maybe, we'd observed a few weeks back after almost eating at the new Four Clocks project in Bishop Auckland. On the stroke of 8.30, the Breakfast Club reconvened there.

The Reverend Gentleman, periodically outrageous, wore a football shirt that appeared to be a cross between Brazil, Brechin City and a second hand egg foo-yung.

"Oxfam United," he said.

The Four Clocks is itself in the former Wesley Methodist church at the station end of Newgate Street, impressively converted to community resource and caf without losing sight of vaulted roof and former purpose.

The caf is a training school for the town's College, or Tech as the locals still call it, with dishes of the day like pizza or quiche and chips for £1.75.

Breakfast, from 8am, is also commendably inexpensive, the full English with several gallons of tea and coffee, £15 for four. The bacon was exceptionally good, the toast flaccid and disappointing.

No one now does good toast, however long they've studied it, though the first lesson would be to use a better loaf.

The coffee was OK, too, though it was noticeable that the Reverend Gentleman and his companion seemed to have extremely long spoons beneath their contemplations.

It was a good start, nonetheless. An hour and a half in the Four Clocks and ready to face the day.

...and finally, the bairns wondered if we knew what goes "Ribbit, help. Ribbit, help."

A frog with a man in its throat.