Tasted great. What did it look like?

HAD we been able to see into the future, or indeed much beyond the end of the room, last Wednesday's lunch venue would wholly have been different. A couple of broken arms dictated a last minute change of plan.

The arms, of course, were on two pairs of spectacles. First one, then hard upon it the reserve, until forced finally to grope towards the Opulent Optician's.

He's in Willington, next to a glazier's, and were the left lens to be frosted, the attendant eye could hardly be more ineffectual. Its partner - not just a pretty face - is little more visionary.

We'd once mentioned to the Optician's wife the difficulty of picking up a red cricket ball against a green background. "Oh," she said, "you're colour blind as well."

They're good sorts, though, order frames from British Steel and lenses from Newcastle Brown and have a Fisher Price garage in reception, lest child's play seem a better bet.

Wednesday, as luck would have it, was his half day. Once there were Wednesday afternoon wayzgooses and Wednesday afternoon football leagues and shop staff spent all week half-day dreaming; now almost everyone's open all hours and they look shattered and scratchy as a result.

After an academic eye test - like bus fares, eyes "change", but never for the better - it was an excuse to stand him lunch.

Willington's best have emigrated. Mike Boustred and Jenny James steered the Stile restaurant into the Good Food Guide but are now rebuilding in France. There's also somewhere called The People's Caf, which sounded interesting but might not have been the place to raise glasses to the Opulent Optician.

A couple of miles away, though more easily accessed from Bishop Auckland, is the village of Newfield - a scenic surprise for those who still believe south Durham to be all coal scars and carbuncles.

The Fox and Hounds was taken over eight years ago this month by Ray Henry and William Thompson, first as a pub/restaurant, then restaurant/pub and now entirely as an eating place.

Real ale has gone, couldn't be kept in order, replaced by the more obsequious Smoothflow. A number of chairs were missing, too - "times are so hard we've had to make a bonfire of them," said Ray and though he was joking (they were being re-upholstered) we dined alone. The Fox and Hounds could yet be an endangered species.

It would be a great pity because the place remains first class, not least in an area where imagination and ability seldom meet beneath the same kitchen roof.

The lunch menu, Tuesday to Friday, includes open baguettes (£3.50), soup of the day (£2.75), and scrambled eggs with smoked salmon and chorizo sausage (£4.95).

The Sicilian sausage - an offer we felt unable to refuse - came with borlotti beans (don't ask; don't know) and terrific pesto mash. The sausages were as succulent, as spicy and as full of flavour as any we can remember anywhere.

That dish was £4.95, too. You pay as much for proprietary pap.

The Optician had roast vegetables and Moroccan spiced cous cous (£4.50, "grand"), The Boss - someone has to drive - thought her pasta with cannelini beans, roast aubergines and red pesto sauce perfect for a Spring lunchtime.

In France they might call it peasant cooking, and mean it affectionately, but in Co Durham it deserves medals for simple versatility, for perseverance and for valour.

We'd begun from a long blackboard list - "Have you a Braille version?" the Optician had asked insolently - with a lobster, salmon, coriander and sweet potato cake with roast cherry tomatoes. A bit mushy, but a gallant attempt.

The Optician's black pudding with a spiced onion compote was lovely. On a previous visit, we'd suggested that the black pudding might fall a little way short of Willington standards but was "pretty good for the French"; the entente cordiale seems to be improving as does the lemon hollandaise ("absolutely delicious") with The Boss's asparagus.

They care about their food, these guys. They usually source it locally, present it attractively. The beamed restaurant is no smoking, though there's a small lighting up area next to the Rayburn in an ante-room.

The chairs were being returned as we left after a couple of pleasant puddings. If it means more bums on seats, they richly deserve it. See your way there soon.

* The Fox and Hounds, Newfield, (01388 662787) - a pleasant three-mile walk or drive from Bishop Auckland Market Place. Closed all day Monday and Sunday evening. Suitable for the disabled.

SInce this is the column that had the DVTs before they were even fashionable, the rest of the family flew off to Iceland whilst, grounded, we sought somewhere to make breakfast.

Plan A was Yankee Frank's, newish in Darlington Market Place and offering American breakfasts - "a stack of six griddled pancakes and maple syrup"; do they really begin that way? - alongside the old English.

Since it was still closed at 8.30am, however - when some of us had already done half a shift - we retired to the tried and tested Three Squares, in Skinnergate.

The Squares is an unchanging, clubby, Hail Fellow sort of a place with a cheerful atmosphere. Someone was even singing Magic Moments, which seemed a bit excessive at such an hour, someone else whistled a snatch of Morning Mood from Peer Gynt.

The breakfast's fine but should probably not be taken daily; the coffee's not recommended. The morning mood had brightened, nonetheless: it was time to re-start the day.

If all that matters is location, location and location, what of the Old Barn - alongside the A1 near Gateshead? Handily placed, anyway, it gained a popular new neighbour in the Angel of the North, changed its name to the Angel View and must have considered itself halfway to paradise.

We lunched there with the grey- haired Northern League secretary, whose recollection was that the pub had been called Eighton Lodge. "That's the old folks' home," said the barmaid.

It's large, pleasantly fitted out and with an attractive inner courtyard (though without visions of the Angel.) There's a single hand pump (Courage Directors), a standard menu and "specials" chalked above the bar.

Our companion thought his "chunky" steak and brown ale pie fine. It was certainly big enough. The pork loin, however, was as tough as old wellies, the sauce bland and the chips a lukewarm testament to all that's ineffable about catering for the masses. Angel, maybe; ambrosia, it wasn't.

Foot-and-mouth behind them the folk of Leyburn and Middleham are staging a Dales Festival of Food and Drink this weekend, including bank holiday Monday.

Based mainly around marquees in Leyburn Market Place, but with a free shuttle bus to Middleham, the weekend also offers real ale and tea shop trails, farming displays, free tastings, fairground, bands and bunting.

In Middleham there's a "Good enough to eat" art exhibition and medieval cookery demonstrations in the castle grounds. The tourist information centre is on 01969 623069.

...and finally, the bairns wondered if we knew what you call a snake in a bowler hat.

A civil serpent, of course. The column returns in two weeks.

Published: 30/04/2002