THREE course Sunday lunch at the George in Piercebridge is £13.95, which may explain why a couple inquired, conferred and ordered two packets of plain crisps instead.

It's a bit steep for a north countryman is that, worse still for a Yorkshireman - within whose canny domain the George remains by the breadth of half a river.

At £14 less coppers it needs to be outstanding. It wasn't.

The hotel's by the Tees west of Darlington, has endured hard times of late and re-emerged under the hand of London Inns. Though Sunday lunch needs re-thinking, there are encouraging signs, nonetheless.

The fires are magnificent, the ale (Timothy Taylor's Landlord, Adnam's Broadside) in good nick, the feel - how may this best be put? - fresher than for ages.

At a table by the bar, a group of Sunday rugby regulars were being fed resplendently from a "snacks" tray that included a small mountain of samosas. "Satsumas", one of them said. It's what rugby does to the brain.

The group was also eagerly recounting an incident in one of Darlington's best known pubs the previous evening in which persons were said to have been caught in flagrante delicto in the loo. "A couple of them," confirmed the man with the satosas, "two blokes and a woman." It was time for the riverside restaurant. It was 1.45pm, the place not a quarter full, the tables set with tea cups and - curiouser and curiouser - jugs of cream.

The pate was so-so, the melba toast soggy, bland and dire. The melon hadn't even been sliced. Main courses were served in colossal quantities and were generally very much better, though The Boss demurred at all-purpose gravy - for both pork and turkey - and at stuffing with home-made knocked out of it. Nor was there any crackling, though the rugby boys had had some with their little pipe opener.

The menu promised puddings to tempt the imagination, but it would have taken a Concorde flight of fancy to suppose that they could have been accommodated. Two courses with coffee, £10.20.

The grandfather clock immortalised in the children's song still stands sentinel outside. It may be a little time yet, before the George fully regains old glories.

AS it's next to the bus stop, another Sunday lunch pint at the Coach and Horses in Barnard Castle - among several North-East pubs recently taken over by Jennings Brewery from Cockermouth.

They also have the Cooperage in Bowburn, the Bridge at Grinton in Swaledale, the Kings Head in Allendale, the Manor House in Haltwhistle and the celebrated Wooden Doll above North Shields fish quay, once someone's pub of the year.

Since the brewery was formed in 1828, it's taken a fair old time to get over the Pennines. "Another three pubs are going through the legal pipeline and we've identified four or five more," says area manager Brian Naylor.

Jennings' beers are almost all cask conditioned, the best known Cumberland Ale (1040) and the stronger, darker Snecklifter (1051).

At the Coach and Horses they were complemented by a handsome range of Sabbath nibbles, the black pudding as good as the ale.

SINCE the railways seem to have given up on Hartlepool, and since football managers are always late, we couldn't make the opening of the Peter Morris Pasty Shoppe. The photographer went instead, and with specific instructions.

The shop's run by Chris Morris - born in Newquay, played football for England schools, Celtic, Middlesbrough and the Republic of Ireland - now a director of the family firm that according to the Daily Telegraph makes the best pasties in Cornwall.

This is the first branch outside the Duchy, pasties ferried daily northwards from where they were once the tin miners' great staple, and sold for £1.80. Though legend has it that the devil would never cross the Tamar from Devon because Cornish folk would put anything in their pasties - ashes a one-time favourite - these are the genuine article.

The shop's in the Middleton Grange centre in Hartlepool, opened when finally he arrived by Boro manager Bryan Robson. The photographer waited patiently, then home rejoicing brought both pasties - traditional, beef and stilton, ploughman's and vegetarian - and pictures.

They were very good; so, come to that, are the pictures.

ALL this rampant derailery is also hitting the station buffets. At Darlington, the girl pointed out that while a coffee and a sandwich were £3.45, a coffee, a sandwich and a cake were £2.99.As the gentleman almost said in The Godfather, a special offer you can't refuse.

IT'S Tesco founder Jack Cohen, known for purely philanthropic reasons as Slasher Jack, who's credited with the notion of piling it high and selling it cheap.

Perhaps it was also Slasher Jack who coined the well-known Jewish maxim about Cohen for a Song. Or was that Leonard? It's been hijacked, at any rate, from the Orient.

Chinese buffet restaurants are helping themselves everywhere. Jumbo - in Durham - is probably as good a name as any, though the column would like to suggest Fower Taties More Than a Gis, both to emphasise the philosophy and to keep in with the locals.

Until recently, it was a carpet shop, purpose-built near the bus station. Now it can seat 180, and Jumbo (which also does roast taties) has clearly taken off. Party of 14 for three weeks hence, someone asked? Sorry, they said, we just can't fit you in.

The decor is minimalist, unfussy, the table clearers attentive if occasionally inscrutable, the music western, the seating arrangements reminiscent of a school dining hall. When it's full, they reckon, the noise level's about the same, too.

Choice is many a mile broader, quality several furlongs superior, than similar establishments of our acquaintance.

Food's arrayed cookhouse style - soup, starters, main buffet, fruit - empty plates smartly taken away but cutlery left. "All you care to eat," says the menu, and no elephant skin needed to take Jumbo at their word.

Lunch (12-5pm) is just £4.99, £6.99 after 5pm, £8.99 after 7pm. Like the stars and Burglar Bill, the seafood comes out at night, too.

They may never do as well as Tesco, of course, but an awful lot of people are going to Jumbo, too. 0191-370-9180.

UNABLE for varicose reasons to fulfil the ambition, the column spent half the summer dreaming of a day trip to Frinton-on-Sea - where to the consternation of some Frinton frontiersmen, the first pub has duly opened.

Cleveland CAMRA's newsletter reports Mr Roy Caddick's view that it's "the worst thing to happen to Frinton since the German Fokkers beat up the town in 1944".

The CAMRA boys are unimpressed - "tell him, somebody, that those Fokkers were Messerschmitts."

....and finally, the bairns wondered if we'd heard about the cat that won the milk drinking contest.

It lapped the field.

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