Eating Owt

Thus it was that, almost an hour after departing Darlington, the bus creaked querulously into Ferryhill last Wednesday evening. Patiently, almost proprietorially, Mr Jamie Corrigan waited on a bench.

Jamie, good bloke, is Ferryhill Town Council's executive officer - a sort of town clerk with increments on. The benches have made a big impression on him.

They're new, each representing local images like Dean and Chapter colliery or the Great Boar of Broom, guaranteed vandal proof. Like the unsinkable Titanic, it seemed not so much tempting fate as positively soliciting it.

Across the road from the bus shelters stands Romana's restaurant and take-away, run these past 38 years by the indefatigable Romana Ross, Latin and legendary.

Romana arrived from Italy 49 years ago - she points to her wedding ring finger: "He say you marry me; we come to England" - worked in local factories like Smart and Brown and Black and Decker, helped in the caf before taking it over.

She asks how old we think she is. "No more than 65," says Jamie.

"I love you," says Romana.

It's an extraordinary place, in the middle of an attractive "caf/bar" refurbishment but still doubling as old fashioned sweetie shop. There are Rich Treacle Perfections and Chocolate Limes, Buttered Brazils, Throat and Chest Lozenges, enough Ferryhill rock to (as it were) sink a ship.

What might almost be termed the Scottish section has Berwick Cockles, Hawick Balls - round, not oval - but no Jedburgh Snails. "Lovely little curly things," Mr Corrigan insisted.

"It's the sort of place which could have been designed by a committee, there are so many compromises," he said.

There was also an awful lot of fudge, though that (of course) has nothing to do with council committees, and certainly not Ferryhill's.

To Jamie's despair, there are also sweet jars in the window. One day he hopes to have the town centre pedestrianised, though goodness knows where they'll put 20-odd buses an hour, and to introduce caf society and fancy stools.

"My customers like their sweets," insisted the owner, and for the moment the Rich Treacle Perfections hold sway. When in Ferryhill, do as Romana does.

Sadly, the restaurant out the back wasn't open. "They've taken the pool table away," said Romana and though the connection seemed a little obscure, Jamie - who misses precious little in Ferryhill - confirmed that he had indeed seen two men wheeling a pool table on a hand cart through the market place.

We ate from the take-away menu in the caf end, a cracking good "Romana's special" pizza the most expensive on the menu at £6.80. Jamie had a ham and mushroom with one or two extras, enjoyed it greatly.

We also had a 660ml bottle apiece of Peroni beer, encouraging debate over how many millilitres in a pint. Jamie thought 563 - "approximately". To some of us, all there is in a pint is two halves.

Jamie, unfortunately, spilled half his Peroni over the marble floor. "It's lucky," said Romana, with what an English person might have called equanimity.

Though the take-away menu doesn't run to puddings, she produced a lustrous dark chocolate and cream confection, additionally laced - well not so much laced, as bound hand and foot - with a liqueur called Stinger, or Stinker, or some such. "It's the first time I've had a pudding which brought tears to my eyes," said Jamie. With pudding, coffee and beer the total bill for two was £24.90. A quarter of chocolate eclairs (or whatever it is that confectionery is now weighed in) was 68p extra.

It was all thoroughly jolly, greatly enjoyable. A bench mark, as they may never again say in Ferryhill.

l Romana's restaurant (01740) 651100, is usually open every evening except Sunday. The caf and take-away are open seven a days a week until late.

THEREAFTER to the ever-excellent Ship in Middlestone Village, roughly between Ferryhill and Bishop Auckland, where half a dozen hand pumps included Evolution from the Darwin Brewery in Sunderland (about time they thought of that one) and Ozzy Basher, from Archer's. This column's being written on Friday morning. By now, it's to be hoped, that pint of beer has proved an omen.

THEY took last week off at the Coxhoe Fish Bar. "Sorry for any inconvenience" said a notice on the door and well, indeed, they might be. A couple of pints later, we had to eat, late night, at Bowburn motorway services instead.

Coxhoe's one of ten regional finalists in the fish and chip shop of the year awards. Most of the others appear to be owned by our old friend Chippy Beedle, once Cockfield's unsurpassable goalkeeper.

It was 10.30pm at the services on the A1/A177 junction, part of the On Route chain. There were more staff than customers; in fact no other customers at all.

Immediately outside the restaurant there's something called a relaxation chair, £1 for five minutes, but not recommended for those under 14 or who are pregnant, have a bad back or a dicky heart.

Those with an aversion to looking like a right twit in public might think twice, an' all.

We asked for sausage and mash. "I wouldn't, the mash isn't very nice," said the assistant with commendable and wholly disarming honesty.

The alternative was steak and ale pie, neither ale nor hearty. It hadn't been cooked in the dish but rather had collapsed into it in a forlorn heap, like the tail end Charlie in the Great North Run.

Other possibilities included "smothered chicken" (an unappealing thought), Mediterranean lasagne and slow cooked ham hock. The younger bairn, however, had his heart set on fish and chips, around £7.

Well you know what the chips are like in these places, and if you don't you don't want to, but the fish was surprisingly good: succulent, fresh tasting, good crisp batter.

It may never compete with the Coxhoe Fish Bar, of course, but when next they inconveniently choose to take a holiday, the motorway's only two miles up the road.

BREWERS Fayre is introducing afternoon teas, the "quintessential English treat". To mark the occasion, they asked 1,000 customers to suggest the person with whom they'd most like to butter a scone.

More than half the men (they said) said Madonna, 36 per cent of women wanted the Queen - on condition that tea wasn't served by Paul Burrell.

Brewers Fayre in Middlesbrough, adds the press release, includes Darlington, Preston Farm, and Scalby Manor (Scarborough).

...and finally, the bairns wondered if we knew why you can't get aspirins in the Amazon jungle.

Because the parrots eat 'em all.

www.northeastfood.co.uk