Sardines for one

When seagulls follow a trawler, it is because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea' - Eric Cantona, 1995

SOME say that M Cantona had - you know - temporarily lost possession. Perhaps it was just that he didn't like sardines, or simply couldn't stand the smell of the blighters. The seagulls must have been fond of a treat, an' all.

They are a fish which should be enjoyed between consenting adults in private, and preferably atop Dufton Fell.

It explains why dinner for two at the Floaters Mill quickly became dinner for one, why The Boss rapturously ate her starter - with a grain mustard and mayonnaise glaze - in the restaurant while I fled with hummus and olives to the sweet sanctuary of the conservatory.

If smoking is now proscribed in public enclosed places, shouldn't sardines be too?

That said, the Floaters Mill is not just a very different kettle of fish but a very distinctive one, too. The Boss, for so long the Mrs Sprat of this union, thought it simply wonderful.

It is certainly very interesting, very idiosyncratic and, in truth, very promising, too.

The pub's in Fencehouses, approximately between Chester-le-Street and Houghton-le-Spring but fewer than ten minutes from the motorway and well worth casting out for. Since summer it's been run by Trevor and Pat Davis, he a man with a real passion for food and, particularly, for his fish.

Thus the daily changing chalk board offered, among much else, frogs' legs in garlic butter, warm smoked trout salad, whole Poole plaice - he's a Poole lad - catfish with Thai green sauce and monkfish wrapped in bacon on savoury mash.

Meat included springbok.

Since there are plenty more fish in the sea, The Boss followed with talapia, which has schools in the Indian ocean, and to which we shall return. Spider crabs arrive soon: Trevor positively drooled at the prospect.

So here's this big-fish-small-Poole sort of a guy, overflowing with enthusiasm and manifestly no mug, and here's a pub which - to date - appears to have been washed up from a previous, less enlightened, incarnation.

They don't do tabs - "plenty in that machine," said the local joker - insist on paying upon ordering, offer service which may most kindly be described as willing and may regard finesse as something on the back of a lady mackerel.

Worse, the two real ales went off together, like they'd eloped on the last train to Gretna Green.

Then there's the spelling. It may be almost understandable to misspell "escalope"

and you can see where they're coming from with "sheepherds pie", but "gravey", for heaven's sake? Trevor blamed the staff.

Yet somehow this is crying stinking fish, too. It doesn't matter - most of it, anyway - because the guy's personality, passion and clear culinary ability may drown all music but its own.

Until he met Pat, Sunderland lass, he'd worked half way round the world, cooked for King Faisal and for the Princess Royal, never been north of Watford.

Now he also owns Cheese and Pickles, an outside catering company in Sunderland, and a small cafe in Silksworth.

Already they describe the Floaters as "almost famous".

A notice advises that bairns are welcome but unless kept under control risk having custard tipped over their heads (accidentally) or their backsides skelped, on purpose. This is a paraphrase, understand, but the sentiment was to be applauded.

Clearly and ecstatically having decided that a rose by any other name smells just as sweet - even if it's a sardine - the lady turned to the talapia. Trevor had said that the fish could be orange, yellow and one or two other things. This was black, with a lime and lemongrass glaze.

She thought it sublimely, deliriously different.

Trevor had also got himself a bit excited about the rabbit pie, now cooked with black pudding and gravy though it's not in the south. Sage and cream sauce gets by down there. Like much else, they were locally sourced but not personally caught. "I can't get near them," he said.

It sounded good, but it was the steak pie which arrived and in a bowl so vast that in a previous incarnation it may have been used to cut the hair of Fencehouses' colliers, a snip at one and a tanner.

The pie remained close to as good as it gets, at least for £7 or so. The vegetables were fine. The rabbit pie with which we were sent home - that and a basketful of apologies - was quite lovely.

We finished with something called toffee apple melt and with banoffi pie with sorbet and strawberries. It had been an unforgettable evening: the Floaters vote, undoubtedly. Sing ooh-aah, Cantona.

■ The Floaters Mill is open seven days, offers two-course lunchtime pensioners' specials for £4.95, afternoon teas with clotted cream and breakfast from 10.30am at weekends.

T HE Red Lion in Cotherstone, middle of Teesdale, is Darlington CAMRA's 2007 country pub of the year. It's wholly unspoiled, like rural pubs used to be before they were almost universally arty-farted up.

The bar is coal-fired, homespun, welcoming.

Jokey little blackboards advise the progress of the dominoes team, and that "superstar" Donald Eccles is available for transfer, after the skipper forgot to register him.

Another goes on about playing wrong uns. Underhand in the Teesdale doms league? Surely not.

Two of the three hand pumps offered pale ale - which may be thought a little beyond it - but both Mordue's and Nethergate were in great good fettle.

It was Sunday lunchtime, the menu looking promising but no time to stop.

Besides, you couldn't stir for Methodists.

More from that part of the country ere long.

T HE Duke of York at Crayke, near Easingwold in North Yorkshire, is the AA's pub of the year. Funny how these things leave an impression, but I still remember it best for the wholly unconcerned reaction after I'd nearly shattered my skull on a low flying door.

On the day of the announcement, but before he'd heard it, Maurice Heslop in Billingham rang enthusiastically to recommend the cafe at Farmhouse Preserves, also in Crayke - "Lovely people, great coffee, absolutely delicious lemon drizzle cake, fish on Fridays."

Crayke expectations? Expect more from there, too.

T HE Scotch Corner Hotel, where in the course of Backtrack column business we breakfasted last Thursday, has been given a major and much needed overhaul.

The lengthy list of the day's meetings, from Michelin to the Institute of Quarrying, clearly indicated that business is on the up, too.

Breakfast for waifs and strangers is £10.95 and really shouldn't be. It's wholly unexceptional, less A1 and more A66, the help-yourself operation from the table at the end naught availed by seemingly disorientated staff. The procedure for paying the bill bordered on the bizarre.

Still, the old place is altogether more cared for than it was - and as probably they say of working breakfasts, it's still quite early in the day.

... and finally, the bairns wondered if we knew about the egg in the monastery. It leapt out of the fying pan and into the friar.