Romania at the top

The claim to be "County Durham's first Romanian coffee shop" may be considered inarguable. Since it's Spennymoor we're talking about, they sell an awful lot of bacon sandwiches - lots of sauce - too.

"You have to walk before you can run," said the cheery Joanne Gale. "A few of the customers are asking about the Romanian dishes, but they ask for chip butties, too".

The lads should be a bit more adventurous. Though Romania's pretty impoverished, peasant food can be very pleasant food, too.

Joanne's from Cramlington, her accent as Northumberland as Craster kippers. Her husband, Dorel, is from Transylvania, him and Dracula, and for six years ran a café over there. They met in Leeds and married, last year, in Romania.

For 40 years the Spennymoor premises were The Broadway, a little changing café. Now it's La Gale, pronounced locally as in Force 10 and more accurately as in Durham Big Meeting.

"We answer to all sorts," said Joanne, helped by Gemma, her daughter from a previous marriage.

We lunched with Robert Ellis and Paul Hodgson, the Barnum and Bailey of Spennymoor Boxing Academy, just back from a fighting trip to Australia via Raffles bar in Singapore.

It went fine, save that one of the lads was issued with an official written warning from the immigration department for daring to bring in an apple.

"Not so long ago they let all these convicts in from Britain, now you can't even fetch an apple," said Hodgy, he who claims to have Vibration White Finger from excessive signing on.

As well as HM Customs and Excise, the Spennymoor lads also got to meet former British heavyweight champion Joe Bugner, now living on the Australian Gold Coast and not short of a bob or two himself. "Lovely feller," said Robert, "I can't understand why no one over here seemed to like him."

Spennymoor, in their antipodean absence, had been named the greatest thing since fried bread, or the seventh most desirable British desirable place to live, or some such. Whatever it was, it was spurious, and last Tuesday wasn't a day for showing off the old place (shall we say) to best advantage.

The rain persisted, the windows condensed like a 1950s washing day. Not what you'd call Romania with a view. Outside, the kids kicked the bus shelters and the CCTV monitored all that came - and went - from the charity shop.

Inside, all was cheerful, the newly decorated café hung with everything from an image of the old blood sucker to a playbill for Marilyn Monroe, in Niagara. The door to the netties was marked "Toaleta", which may require little translation.

The menu included a proper English breakfast - Hodgy's dish of any day - jacket potatoes, paninis, lots of distinctly Anglo-Saxon sandwiches.

The specials board offered broth with leek dumplings or shepherd's pie. The Romanian dish of the day appeared hidden beneath a Bucharest bushel; as in one of those naughty bookshops, it's best to ask.

It was salmali, little cabbage parcels with pork, paprika and peppers, eaten authentically with cream, bread rolls and a little bowl of greenery and usually served on Sundays or high days.

"It's a bit like Yorkshire pudding over here," said Joanne. "Men might have four or five, women two or three. If your wife can make salmali, you're on to a winner, if she can't, you think about going home to your mother.

"I try Romanian dishes on my family and friends first. If they don't fall over, I try them on Spennymoor."

On other days, Romanian specials might have been a light goulash, meat balls or a chicken dish with pasta made back in Romania by her mother-in-law. Everyone in Romania has a pasta machine, said Joanne.

All of us had salmali, delicious and different, gently spiced and enhanced by the cream. "It would be about fourth course on a Romanian dinner menu," said Joanne.

When in Spennymoor, we also asked about jam roly-poly, made do instead with warm and wonderful home made chocolate brownies with yet more cream.

Now the best bit of all: the bill for three, including coffee, was £13.95 the lot. Fried breakfast or no, we returned happily to the desirable streets of Spennymoor. Full English.

* La Gale is open Mondays to Saturdays, daytime only, closed Wednesday afternoon. They plan a Romanian evening in November.

LAST week's piece on the Almshouses in Durham noted that the stone above the door is dated MDCLXVI - "which, as everyone knows, was a very long time ago." Tony Stainthorpe in Newton Hall, Durham, didn't know at all and put it into his computer. 1666, it said at once. Amazing what you can do in MMVI.

FOR reasons best known to the Development Corporation, as was, there's a Rembrandt Way on Aycliffe Industrial Estate, where half the factories - every picture - appear to have "For sale" signs outside.

Since neighbouring thoroughfares are dedicated to local worthies or nearby places, the name's a puzzle. There's no Rubens Road, Constable Close or Picasso Parade. Perhaps it was Joe Rembrandt, vice-chairman of the works and sewers committee.

On the corner of Rembrandt Way and Durham Way stands a café and take-away called The Bait Box, no oil painting but clearly meeting a need. It's for sale, too, though breakfast last Friday suggested it's definitely a going concern.

At 9.45am it was almost empty. Fifteen minutes later they were queuing outside, as if the industrious estate were reviving the tradition of ten o'clocks, a sort of latter day Workers' Playtime.

A few made themselves at home. Others left shipping orders and said they'd be back with a barque.

Most left with food for colleagues; bait boxes, indeed.

A good quality "special breakfast" was £4, including coffee, accompanied by a copy of the Newton News, published since 1959.

"What's the problem with the town centre?" read the front page headline. It could have been written almost any week in those 47 years.

The Boss enjoyed her bacon butty, too - "a bit of a change from organic yoghurt and a banana" - the whole lot £6.40. As old Rembrandt might almost have said, we ate an arty breakfast.

REPORTING in March that the Wensleydale Heifer in West Witton - near Leyburn - had served up one of the top five Sunday lunches in recent years, we noted that its "passion was principally piscine." Absolutely right. The Heifer, pictured above - owned by David Moss - whose father was one half of the long-established Darlington carpet shop Moss and Campbell - has just been named the AA's 2006-07 Seafood Dining Pub of the year for England.

APPARENTLY heat resistant himself, the indomitable Abdul Latif - aka Lord of Harpole - stages what's billed as the world's hottest curry eating contest on Friday, October 27.

To raise the temperature yet further, asbestos entrants will also be required to down a pint of Crazy Ed's Chilli Beer, brewed in Arizona for idiots.

Old Abdul's fiery curry is said to be made from chilli seeds, chilli powder and precious little else. Crazy Ed is reckoned to have replaced limes with chillies in order to deter customers he didn't like.

Mr Latif runs the Curry Capital, nee Rupali, in Newcastle's Bigg Market. To add flavour, contestants will be asked to wear Indian dress. Burn-off is 7. 30pm, entries to Mr Latif on 0191-232-8629.

... and finally, the bairns wondered if we knew what you get by crossing a nun with a chicken.

A pecking order, of course.