THE bar was well filled, standing room only, the blaze in the hearth so magnificent that, had the village fire brigade been turned out, they'd have summoned reinforcements from half way across the county, if only to stand there and admire it. The restaurant was utterly empty.

People hovered, watching for empty tables, fed men's shoes. The Boss spotted an opening, sidled towards it and in a twink was headed off by a chap clearly in training for the All England musical chairs championship.

When the music stopped, it was tempting to fetch him one round the earhole with the menu. "I can offer you a table in the restaurant," said the barman.

It was Sunday lunchtime at the Kings Head in Masham, North Yorkshire, an 18th century coaching inn - it still says "Excise office" above the door - which for all its solid, stone built squareness seemed still to have an inner circle. Pariah commitment, we took the table in the restaurant.

Though pleasant in a rustic sort of way, the restaurant wasn't half as cosy, a couple of piratical toby jugs washed up atop a stove that was cold hearted and long redundant. Whatever we'd been cast into, it wasn't the fiery furnace. Several tables were reserved, another offered copies of the Mail on Sunday.

"Kennedy blames Ming the merciless" said the splash, a reference (of course) to Sir Menzies Campbell.

Several papers have wondered how Menzies came to be pronounced Mingies, several more how the word "minging" has crept to perjoratively into the beautiful language.

It means ugly, horrible or disgusting. The British army, not for the first time, is said to be responsible for its wanton spread.

Though there were three roasts, there wasn't a Sunday lunch menu as such. Starters of "tom yum prawns" with chutney and Thai fishcakes, doubtless with the same provenance, were £6.25 each.

There are Yorkshiremen who not only expect a three course Sunday dinner for that price - never mind a few tiddlers with a nancy name - but to have enough over to buy a glass of Sam Smith's bitter and to leave 5p for the waitress.

The prawns tasted of Thai spices and of chutney but not noticeably of anything marine; the fishcakes were said to be fine. More customers were arriving, the waitresses as efficient and as attentive as the barman had been offhand The old place was warming up.

Costing seven pounds summat - the receipt has gone cap in hand to our accounts department - the roast wasn't so much topped as overwhelmed by a vast Yorkshire pudding which in appearance resembled a depressed chef's hat (you know, a depressed hat worn by a chef) but tasted a bit better.

The Yorkshire also looked a bit like one of those O-level illustrations of the body's essential organs, which you're mighty glad to have but would rather not be reminded of. The waitress brought a side plate for the overflow.

The lamb was OK, pleasantly pink, the roast potatoes fine. The mint sauce was far too acetic, much too bitter. The word "mint" has also been annexed by the younger generation, taken - so far as may be divined - to mean "cool". The Kings Head had just invented the antonym.

The Boss had salmon bearnaise with pesto mash - pesto Masham? - which she considered both "interesting" and "abundant", though the vegetables were disappointing.

This is brewing country, four Theakston's hand pumps outnumbering one from Black Sheep, brewed somewhere out the back. Half an hour earlier in the Henry Jenkins at Kirkby Malzeard we'd heard someone ask for a pint of Blacksmith's, perhaps what's known as half-and-half. The Kings Head lunch was accompanied by a pint of Black Sheep and by piped music..

We finished with a tactile treacle sponge and with a pear and ginger tart which tasted distinctly of both of its principal ingredients. With a pot of very good coffee, a pint of beer and a £3.95 glass of something red and recommended, the bill reached £46.

By 2pm the restaurant was blazing away quite merrily, the hot seats in the bar beginning to cool a little. Overall verdict: lukewarm.

* The Kings Head, Masham, North Yorkshire (01765 689295). Food every lunchtime and evening and all day Saturday and Sunday. No smoking in eating areas, no problem for the disabled.

JOHN North column readers will know that, a week back Saturday, we spent three hours kicking about Teesside Airport, or whatever we are required now to call it.

The Yard of Ale bar sells decent coffee at £1.60, icy Worthington beer for £2.60. Caf Oasis, which some might term a watering hole, is a large self-service place nearby. Plane cooking, as it were.

"Home made" burger, chips and salad were £6.85, a glass of Coke £1.60. The burger was lukewarm and, as they say groundside, kizzened. The chips were simply awful, the salad as flaccid as if suffering from an extreme case of jet-lag. Even the Coke tasted a bit odd.

Just one other family dined. Perhaps they'll take off in the summer.

EATING Owt column, March 18, 2003. "It should at once be said that this was not only the finest and best value lunch of all time but an easy going, invigorating and immensely enjoyable experience."

The meal was absolutely stupendous, said the column, adding that it was impossible to remember being so excited. Subsequent visits confirmed the virtue of doing simple things wonderfully well.

We wrote of Cornforth and Cornforth, a little tea shop in Middleton-in-Teesdale run - a little idiosyncratically, it may be conceded - by John and Viv Cornforth.

He'd been a barrister, she'd run a pub food franchise in London though her roots were in Whitburn, Sunderland. They came to Teesdale in the summer of 2003.

"We'll either have to be carried out in a white van or a black estate car," said m'learned friend.

Sadly, Cornforth and Cornforth is now for sale. They'll leave behind a removal van, though they hope to start another business in the region.

There are few places about which Eating Owt unequivocally enthuses. Most of them - the hero worshipped Chapel House Tea Room in Arkengarthdale another example - seem to close, or to change hands, within two years.

We're just going to have to stop being so nice...

DIGESTING lunch at the Dog and Gun at Potto, near Stokesley, last week's column noted that starters were served on a triangular plate, puddings were rounded and main courses were, in every sense, a square meal.

So why "square meal"? The etymological almanacs vying for meaning on these sagging shelves agree - which is to say that there seems a remarkable degree of plagiary - that the fanciful theories about sailors' plates and US military may be discounted.

A "square meal" appears to indicate nothing more than that it is fair and square. Honest.

...and finally, the bairns shamelessly wondered if we knew what a parrot should be stuffed with.

Polyfilla, of course.

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