Café culture (From The Northern Echo)

Café culture

10:02am Tuesday 17th June 2008

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The column drops in at the Café in Northallerton for red mullet and pork schnitzel

FORGETTING all that his fond mama had told him about its being rude to point, when Horatio Herbert Kitchener stuck out a finger and advised that the country needed us, he could have hardly imagined the impact it would have.

It was 1914 and Britain still had a volunteer army, just 730,000 officers and men. Kitchener, the secretary of state for war, was soon pressing for conscription and though Asquith and the Liberals stood against him, they were fighting a losing battle. It came two years later.

Index-linked, that poster of Lord Droopy Tash may have been used on more posters, in more raw recruitment details, than any in history - from Dad's Army to Bombardier bitter.

The latest is displayed on half the shops in Northallerton High Street, directing townsfolk behind a referendum - this Thursday, 4-9pm - against Hambleton District Council's proposed parking fees.

The issue similarly inflames Stokesley, Thirsk and Bedale, the correspondence columns of the Darlignton and Stockton Times so greatly overrun that the editor may himself be considering a congestion charge.

Next Tuesday lunchtime there's a protest march through Northallerton - "peaceful," the poster insists, lest that great army of shopkeepers and so forth who now insist that the best things in life are free be inclined towards civil disobedience.

It's to cover a third of a mile, perhaps further than some of them have walked since school sports day. No doubt the St John Ambulance will be on standby.

It's coincidental that the march should start from the near the secure youth hostel, or whatever these days Northallerton jail is called, because many years ago I'd asked a sad old serial offender living out his time there what most he'd like for Christmas.

To be able to walk 100 yards in a straight line, he said, a level of profundity equalled only by the Hartlepool pieman.

(Come on, you remember the story of the Hartlepool pieman.) We parked in the High Street early one Saturday evening, and within five yards had damn-near been knocked over by two cyclists on the pavement. Isn't there supposed to be a law against that, too?

So to supper, about which - rather like a reluctant call to the colours - we have procrastinated as long as possible. As much may have been obvious.

It's not that there's anything greatly amiss with Café, yon end of the High Street near the post office. Probably, weekend weary, there was more something wrong with me. It is not, for all that, the sort of place for which you'd want to go over the top, either militarily or metaphorically.

It's run by James Butterfield, who used to be involved with Imperial Express in Darlington. We'd breakfasted there four years ago - wholly happy with the food, aghast at the cacophonous combination of Radio Gaga, a screeching coffee machine and chairs being pulled across a tiled floor.

"The coffee machine," said the column, "was coming in on March 8." Since it was February 17, it's possible that we meant Mach. This time they'd turned down the volume but done little about the music choice. Whoever the lugubrious lady was, they were songs to slit your wrists to.

The Boss, it should without further ado be made clear, thought her food very good. From a sensible and regularly changing menu she had mozzarella salad with tomato and basil, red mullet served still in its oven foil with orange and fennel and a good half of the selection of five puddings which together followed for £7.95.

Several other starters had cheesy influences.

Broccoli and stilton soup was fine but far too much of a good thing. It could thus not possibly be confused with a 200ml bottle of Coke - in other words about three thimbles-full - which was £1.50. At that rate a pint of Coke's getting on a fiver.

The pork schnitzel, £14.95, came on a bed of greens. It was fresh, tender and the sort of thing that the lady of this house cooks for supper in about 20 minutes.

The chips were okay.

That's probably the thing about Café: fine so far as it goes, it lacks excitement, real ambition or indeed any great joie de vivre either in the food or those who served it. Like the Poor Bloody Infantry, it is perfunctory.

The bill, including 400ml of Coke and a single glass of wine, was nearly £58. We thought it too much.

What's presently required more urgently than ever is news of hitherto hidden gems, the call to arms once again to join the joyous ranks of the unequivocal.

Reader recommendations most gratefully received. Your critic needs you.

FAMILIAR, ubiquitous, indefatigable, Oie Shaw - reckoned County Durham's first Thai chef - has left the Black Bull at Ingleton, between Darlington and Staindrop, to go back home.

Little worry, home's now Darlington.

We'd last been to Ingleton four years ago - "ingredients are sourced locally, spiced expertly, served abundantly and usually for no more than £8 or so, including rice," the column reported.

While the Black Horse continues to run with an English menu, Oie is relocating from mid-July to the Wheatshead in Yarm Road, Darlington where - Oie at the Wheatsheaf - she'll serve Tuesday to Friday lunchtime and Thursday to Saturday evenings.

The oriental mystery of the lady's cooking may be matched, however, by the well-kept secret of her age. We can reveal that in the days leading up to the youthful new venture, Oie will be 71.

NO less familiar at the entrance to Scotch Corner services, the Little Chef has disappeared, too - replaced by a rather smart Costa Coffee outlet and, tacked on the end almost like a transport café, a more mundane Burger King.

Burger King advertised that it now offered a breakfast menu. Advertised beneath the slogan "Cereal killer" - perhaps they meant one foot in the grave - it seemed largely to consist of a pappy bun filled with a "flame grilled" burger, sausage and something ludicrously labelled a "light and fluffy" omelette.

The Boss couldn't eat the bacon roll, couldn't finish the coffee, nibbled at half a hash brown and wondered why she'd got out of bed. They played Radio Raucous.

Costa seemed to be doing quite well, lots of folk in suits looking far more comfortably off than we were. Burger King's for the day, we dined alone. There's a moral to drive home somewhere.

and finally, the bairns wondered if we knew what weighs 2,000lbs and wears a flower behind its ear.

A hippy potamus, of course.

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