Royal flash

WHEN you’ve only been open five weeks and are still feeling your way, you would be very apprehensive to discover that a reviewer has been sitting at your table, sampling your wares. Even more so when his visit coincides with two of your five waitresses phoning in sick, leaving the service falling short of what you would have wanted.

You’d be even more disturbed to discover that the reviewer was accompanied by an environmental health officer.

In fact, my brother-in-law, visiting from Norwich, is not any old EHO, but the one who pioneered the cleanliness ratings you now see displayed on the front of nearly all food establishments in the country. Indeed, the minute we’d sat down at the King’s Arms, he whipped out his smartphone and tried to access his “scores on the doors” website to see if the pub had been rated yet.

Fortunately, although Great Stainton is on top of a hill between Darlington and Sedgefield, with all the lights of Teesside twinkling at its feet, mobile reception prevents such downloading.

In fact, Great Stainton is not really that “great”. It is only a handful of houses. When I cycled through in the summer, the prominent pub was dead with an empty skip outside – it felt as if the village had had one of its front teeth knocked out.

But now the pub has been brought back to life, a lovely charcoal smell from a woodburner providing a warm welcome on a blustery night.

The front room was full with diners, and a little bar had a couple of locals in drinking Hambleton ales, so we were shown across the barcode carpet into a pleasant rear restaurant.

There are three varied menus, all with local ingredients. There’s a Price Fix for early birds, offering three courses for £15; Pub Classics with a twist, offering gammon and (duck) egg or fish and chips for £11 maximum; and the a la carte, where dishes are often two-meals-in-one and prices rise to £18.

In addition, a specials blackboard hung over the woodburner in the front room. We, though, were in the rear, and so all four of us traipsed backwards and forwards, failing the memory test.

Starters were just under £6. I had a disarmingly large doorstep wedge of deep-fried brie, which was perfectly gooey in the middle, and then a nibble of my mother-in-law’s homemade Scotch egg in black pudding.

I’ve only once previously encountered such an item as a starter – in Northumberland, where the sausagemeat overwhelmed the egg. But here, with a crispy breadcrumb coating, the more delicate black pudding allowed the perfectly gooey egg room to reveal itself.

THE EHO cleaned his plate of homemade duck pate, and my wife debated the merits of her Thai-style king prawns. The EHO’s partner is from Thailand, and after some analysis, he concluded there was an absence of the lemongrass aroma that flavours Thai cooking – the one failure of the evening.

For main course, the EHO and I had “lamb two way”: a two pin rack of lamb from Neasham Grange, and a shepherd’s pie topped with Mordon blue cheese.

At £17.95, it was the most expensive item on the menu.

And at £17.95, it was worth every penny.

This was a dish that grabbed the attention.

The flavour was huge – strong and strident – and enhanced by a little strip of pancetta covered with a dark jus. I was told, the chef boils this up from bones and red wine over the course of the day.

The EHO looked up, momentarily concerned about the boiling process, but quickly fell on his shepherd’s pie where the salty blue cheese – made only a couple of miles away – worked superbly with the minced lamb.

Mother-in-law made similarly enthusiastic noises about her rack of lamb – four pins, no pie – and my wife uttered complimentary comments about her breast of chicken stuffed with wild mushrooms, wrapped in pancetta and served with garlic and tomato sauce.

They were drowned out by the “lamb two way”. With vivid green kale making a striking presentation, it is a dish that will live long in the memory.

I calmed down enough to look at the dessert menu. “All our desserts are made by Laura, our talented pastry chef,” it boasted.

Priced at £5.95 each, they followed the King’s Arms theme of cramming the plate with similar tastes. For research purposes, I should have opted for the “Study of Raspberry” – vanilla panacotta, macerated raspberry, raspberry jelly, raspberry bread – but both I and the EHO are suckers for sticky toffee pudding.

This, we decided, was a very good one, and was a proper fruity pudding as opposed to the sponge you usually get.

The EHO cleaned his plate and then turned to the turnover that mother-in-law found unmanageable from her “apple two way”. She had ploughed commendably through her apple crumble, which was large enough to have qualified as a dessert in its own right, but had to turn over the turnover to someone else.

TO conclude, Steven Wright, who has rejuvenated the King’s Arms, offered complimentary coffees to compensate for the slow service.

Although in between courses the EHO had regaled us with horror stories about kitchens he had closed down, it hadn’t been the fastest meal.

None of the food had been piping hot, the plates weren’t thoroughly warmed and the pub had run out of water jugs.

Steven, who also has the McOrville at Elwick Village, near Hartlepool, recognises the weak spot. Hopefully, sickness will be soon cured, and a new maitre d’ starts this week.

But the discrepancies did not undermine the meal – which came to about £37.50 per head for three courses and wine – and in the “lamb two way”, the King’s has a dish fit for a king.