The Voodoo factor

PERHAPS it's just the ease with which "Missing" posters can now be knocked up, but there seem to be an awful lot of AWOL animals these days. Ungrateful little blighters.

In Wingate a couple of years back, we came across a poster about a cat said to answer to the name of Rooney - whether Mickey or Wayne wasn't specified - and in the foyer of Oswald's restaurant in Sowerby, there's a poster seeking information on a "timid" moggy, "answers to the name of Colin".

Do cats, especially shy and retiring ones, really hear the name Colin - or Rooney or Rufus or whatever - and think: "On blimey, that's me, I'd best slope off back home or there'll be trouble"? Possibly not.

Oswald's entrance also boasts an award from Yorkshire in Bloom, a citation from the AA - "restaurant with rooms" - and something about being the Darlington & Stockton Times restaurant of the year, though that was under different ownership.

Sowerby's effectively part of Thirsk, North Yorkshire, the business named after the parish church. We'd last been there a couple of years back after an evening meeting - races, not Rotary Club - an occasion so memorable and a meal so enjoyable that we vowed professionally soon to return.

Like the gallowers in which unwisely we had invested, some things take a little longer.

It had also been the evening on which a flippant late-night debate had led to a midnight message to Ask Answers about the origin of Garibaldi biscuits. Something to do with the Italian emperor of that name, apparently, and a quid better spent than with the earlier Honest Joe.

This was Sunday lunchtime, so predictably wet, cold and windy that another two diners arrived in top coats.

It's all very well cared for. The bar, spacious and comfortable, offered Timothy Taylor's Landlord for £2.60, the restaurant had a sort of glass dome, the gent's had wallpaper with cowboys whirling lassoes, exactly the same as there'd been all those years ago in the playroom back in Shildon.

The west must be a theme. There was also a framed cover from some Hillbilly sheet music, songs like Can I Sleep in Your Barn, Mister and Hallelujah, I'm a Bum.

The Sunday lunch menu offered about five choices in each section, plus specials, and it should at once be said that The Boss appeared to come off second best. Serves her right for ordering turkey in August; probably it just felt like Christmas.

She'd begun with smoked salmon and prawns in a Marie Rose sauce - "perfectly OK" - followed with quirky turkey. She thought the bird "very perfunctory", the gravy "all purpose", the roast potatoes "flaccid" and the Yorkshire pudding uninteresting, even in the North Riding where they get soppy about such things.

Canny vegetables, mind, and particularly good dauphinoise potatoes.

The chicken liver and foie gras parfait came with greenery and a "golden apple and sultana chutney" and, at the end of the meal, was followed by a "crunchy" chocolate parfait with chocolate sauce, such little as there was of it.

Originally a frozen dessert, "parfait" is one of those words that's scattered all over these days, presumably in the belief that it sounds sophisticated.

The starter was much too moist, the pudding excellent. You know what they say about practice makes parfait.

In between, and from a list that also included beef and Whitby haddock, we had salmon baked in a filo pastry with "fresh crab and lobster bisque".

The pastry was very good, the salmon succulent, but after the quirky turkey the risquà bisque - a bit tepid, a bit dull but otherwise a very pleasant change. The service was efficient, if a little under-employed.

Those wishing to see for themselves should ring 01845-623655. Those who come across a caffy-hearted cat called Colin - possibly Col to his friends - should ring 522218.

LAST week's approving piece on Peggy's Wicket - at Beamish, near the museum - noted that a youth had worn his baseball cap throughout the meal, grudging gratitude that at least he wore it the right way round. An email from Stan Johnson notes that he saw the same thing while lunching at Walworth Castle, near Darlington. "I only realised afterwards that the probable explanation for this bad-mannered occurrence is that they have to cover the lobotomy scar."

LIKE Colin the cat, the lady of this house has again been absent without leave. Since man shall not live by Weetaflakes alone - as desirable as doubtless that would be - we took the early bus into town in search of something more substantial.

It arrived surprisingly, a "gigantic breakfast burrito" in a place described as "Darlington's first Latino-American cafÃ/restaurant" and with a watchword pinched from the Dalai Lama, something about approaching food and love with equal abandon.

The Voodoo Cafà is above In Arcadia, a highly unusual place in Skinnergate - unusual for Darlo, anyhow - that sells exotica and offers tarot readings.

Both businesses are run by Les Fry and Harold Volkmann, who are partners, with help from Kendra Day, who's Les's partner. See what happens when you start mucking round with the English language.

The website proclaims the chef to be Bel, the self-styled Voodoo Queen. If not spirited away exactly, she's gone.

Though by no means unwelcoming towards those of us a little older, the cafà leans towards youthfulness, though one young man almost eviscerated his street-cred by discussing Noel Edmonds. "My grandma likes him," he said.

Another revealed that he'd started taking snuff in an effort to stop smoking. Not even Noel Edmonds takes snuff.

A third customer was much taken with the bread, inquiring which part of Latin America it might be from. "Sainsbury's," said Kendra, and earned full marks for honesty.

Lots of speciality coffees included "Rich brown Java", said to have a full, rich body - haven't we all? - and served by the pot. It was very good.

The usual "Mexican" dishes, all very inexpensive, were augmented by specials like gumbo - a sort of chicken and pork hotpot - jambalaya and Louisiana piroques, baked aubergines stuffed with prawns. There was also "Gaucho breakfast"; they eat sausages, too, though possibly not Weetaflakes.

The burrito (£4.50) was a tortilla wrap with scrambled eggs, spicy sausage, onion, cheese, tomato, greenery and "a shot of chilli to pep you up for the day".

It really was a very pleasant change; beats all-day, any day - and available from 10am-4pm.

MONKEY Business, the fanzine of Hartlepool United FC, carries a piece from a fan who won Sunday lunch for two at the TFM Arena, home of arch-rivals Darlington. The Ron Greener suite, he notes, was "worthy of a four-star hotel dining room", the meal "very pleasant." This may be what's called praise, indeed.