THE Good Pub Guide, which on at least two interpretations could be renamed the Excellent Pub Guide, has made its annual appearance. If it has a fault, and it has precious few, it's a certain sameness year-on-year. Sometimes it seems easier to get over the wall of Buckingham Palace than to get into the GPG; Kevin Pietersen drops more than they do.

In the 2006 edition, however, the Bridge Inn at Grinton, in Swaledale, makes a "main entry" debut so unequivocally enthusiastic and so utterly unambiguous - "A proper pub this," it begins - that we booked a table the night before publication.

The chef was away, they'd explained - "A chef of real talent," says the Guide - but the restaurant would still be open. They do bar meals, too.

It was last Wednesday evening - the summer gone, the rain slashing against the windows. Though we were the only restaurant customers, there was still a bright burning fire and deep leather armchairs gathered comfortably around it.

It was peaceful and pleasant, the tranquility threatened only by the periodic entry of the admirable young waiter. If he can leather a football as hard as he kicks that two way door, he could be England's next number nine.

The menu's extensive and inexpensive, the Guide extolling dishes like "delicious" freshwater prawns with garlic and tomato and lime couscous, lamb and barley casserole or blue cheese and red onion tart with tomato chutney.

The Boss began with monkfish parcels with a touch of chilli ("delicious"), followed for just £7.95 by a substantial salmon steak with a "cobb salad" of Wensleydale cheese, egg, bacon and one or two other things which she also thought very good.

The tomato and roast pepper soup (£3.10) was aromatic, piping hot and richly flavoured. The hot bread roll was the best for a year.

We followed with duck breast with a carrot and cauliflower mousse and an orange and brandy sauce. If ever there was a list of 101 things to do with carrot and cauliflower, this would be 102nd. It didn't work, the sort of stuff that should be fed only through straws to the enfeebled.

Similarly the vegetables, like the quality of mercy, weren't strained. Or if they were, the substitute in the kitchen had strained them through a five bar gate.

The duck was thoroughly in the pink, the sauce piquant and perky, the chips first rate.

Nothing, however, could compare with the ginger sponge made by Liz, the landlord's mother. It was an absolute masterwork, a belting, best ever confection over which, days later, it's still possible to drool.

We paid the bill, had another pint of well kept Jennings - there are four hand pumps - made the acquaintance of "friendly young landlord" Andrew Atkin.

He'd no inkling of the Guide lines, read it, re-read it, rang his mum, rang the chef, may even - as high as Kisdon Seat - have rung the ten o'clock news.

He's a Stockton lad originally, has kept the Bridge for three years, enjoyed a deservedly busy summer.

Now nights had drawn in and fewer were venturing out. Though by 10pm, just one other person remained in the bar, we left behind a very happy landlord.

* The Bridge Inn, Grinton, near Reeth, Swaledale (01748) 884224. Bar food all day, restaurant evenings. A bit tricky for the disabled.

THE 2006 Good Pub Guide also names the Charles Bathurst at Langthwaite, just a few miles across the moors from the Bridge, as its Inn of the Year. Black Sheep at Masham, a bit further south, is Brewery of the Year.

The column has never stayed at the former CB - "the bedrooms are pretty and comfortable," says the GPG - but these days it's the most welcoming of pubs, and with excellent bar food.

The "Northumbrian" dining pub of the year is the Manor House at Carterway Heads, on the A68 north of Consett, while the Yorkshire equivalent is the Blacksmith's at Westow, near York.

Lancashire, still £2 a pint on average, is the cheapest place in Britain to drink; Surrey, where the average pint of ale is £2.51, is the most expensive. In Northumbria, which includes County Durham, the average is £2.17.

* The Good Pub Guide, warmly recommended, is published by Ebury Press (£14.99).

REVIEWING CAMRA's 2006 Good Beer Guide a couple of weeks back, we offered a free copy to the first out of the hat to name Yorkshire's CAMRA pub of the year. It's the Crown at Manfield, just five miles west of Darlington, in County Durham. A copy of the guide is on the way to Jennifer Morgan in Sherburn, near Durham - to others, £13.99.

MIKE Elsom, who works in catering, picks up a hot potato. He lives in Eggleston, near Barnard Castle, to which last week's column several times referred. We called it - wrongly, Mike insists - Egglestone.

I wrote a column three decades ago - quiet day, probably - on the debate over whether the village should have a final 'e'. Vowel play, opinion (and even road signs) seemed divided.

In the past five years, however, The Northern Echo and Darlington & Stockton Times have between them carried 549 references to "Eggleston" with Teesdale and only 100 to "Egglestone" with Teesdale.

Mike is right; the e's have it no longer.

THE first anniversary of the National Railway Museum at Shildon was a lovely occasion. Five or six locos sonorously in steam, No. 2392 immaculate and immobile behind the Percy Main snowplough. Visionaries, they've done magnificently.

"It poured down on the day it opened," recalled Joan Robinson. The sun shone on the birthday party.

We'd contemplated lunch at the nearby Flag and Whistle, which the younger bairn had seen advertised on a football ground and guessed must be a referee's (or possibly referees') pub. You can only try with them.

It was temporarily closed, again having changed hands. Instead we headed back to the museum caf, its walls hung nostalgically with railway pictures and posters from the heady days of steam.

A very basic menu included bacon and sausage sandwiches ("Sorry," they said, "no sausages"), pies, pasties and biscuits. The bacon sandwich (£2) was OK, the bairn said that the pie (£1.20) was all you wanted from a pie. He meant it was big.

A cup of tea consisted of a tea bag with a bit of string on the end dipped into a paper cup. It cost £1.10.

What a pity that a thousandth of the imagination which has gone into the museum couldn't have been sidelined into the caf. £1.10 for a tea bag is immoral.

AMOS Ale, foretold hereabouts a couple of weeks back, should be commercially available next week. "I just mention Mike Amos and pubs are ordering it before it's even made," says Simon Gillespie, co-owner of the Wear Valley Brewery at the back of the Grand Hotel in Bishop Auckland. He brewed 16 barrels at the weekend.

Outlets so far include the Grand, the Beamish Mary at No Place, the Surtees at Crook, the Red Lion at North Bitchburn, the Black Horse at Cornsay Colliery and Darlington Snooker Club. Sounds like a pub crawl's called for.

...and finally, the bairns wondered if we knew what's green and goes "Boing, boing, boing."

A spring cabbage, of course.

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