11:04am Tuesday 7th July 2009
While Brussels are no longer welcome on HMS Bulwark, they make an unexpected appearance in the sag aloo at Chutney’s.
THE Echo, whisper it, missed both the story and its local roots: Wayne Keble OBE, captain of the 19,000-ton assault ship HMS Bulwark, has banned Brussels sprouts from his decks. They are, says Captain Keble, the devil’s vegetable.
Though there have been official denials, word is that Bulwark has had rather too much wind in its sails of late.
The Telegraph’s account can be called up online. “They are the only thing I do not like and the only thing I hate,” said Capt Keble. “They are absolutely banned on HMS Bulwark.
I do not eat them and I don’t know what the after-effects are.”
The Telegraph added that a 2002 survey had found the sprout to be Britain’s least favourite vegetable.
Related articles, added the web page, included “British captain describes fighting off Somali pirates in Arabian Sea” and “There is no hope your husband is still alive”.
The local angle, at any rate, is that Bulwark is County Durham’s affectionately adopted ship, Capt Keble and his crew familiar at many a fundraising function and at full-fig civic receptions.
Devil’s advocate, it is perhaps fortunate that the greens party doesn’t run County Hall.
The other local link, discovered one sultry evening last week, is that Chutney’s restaurant at Ramshaw includes Brussels in its sag aloo, a vegetable side dish. My friend Harry, lovely chap but getting on a bit these days, supposed that he’d never before had sprouts in an Asian restaurant.
He’s probably right.
Ramshaw’s near Evenwood, in south-west Durham, largely a onestreet village where the Methodist chapel has recently closed after 139 years of valiantly spreading the word.
Chutney’s is across the road, above what was once the Trotters Arms, though the pub has been closed for a couple of years. The building was bought in 2005 by Namwar Hussein and his family, the pub retained and the upstairs opened as Villa Spice.
We’d dined there soon afterwards, almost coincidentally with the Methodist minister, who’d asked her mother to record Last of the Summer Wine while she was out.
The location was improbable, we supposed back then, the ground floor pub workmanlike. “The upstairs restaurant is cool, stylish and most attractively furnished – the contrast, one side and the other, like a McVitie’s chocolate digestive among catering houses.”
Since then the restaurant has changed management, again closed, and now reverted to the original team, recommended by Susan and Anthony Page who live up the road in the hamlet of Windmill (where, thankfully, the lovely little Methodist chapel still turns).
“It was undoubtedly the best Indian food ever and now it’s even better,”
wrote the Pages. “A good report would give it the boost it deserves.
We are writing this for purely selfish reasons as we want it to stay open for ever this time.”
Well to be honest, it was a queer night for a curry. Great puddles outside suggested the intensity of the recent downpour, though the humidity remained and the heavens ruminatively rumbled. Though still stylish and attractively furnished, the restaurant certainly wasn’t cool.
The menu, in turn, promises that the food will be lavishly portioned and sizzling hot. A couple of Cobras proved welcome.
The food’s good, the secret clearly in some artful and aromatic spicing.
Cleaving the king prawn bhaji may need more surgical skills than these, but it was clearly a good fist; the lamb bhuna was equally subtle, appealingly different, save for the not uncommon proviso that a diner with eyes closed might struggle to identify the meat.
Harry had onion bhaji and lamb biryani, generously proportioned as promised, particularly enjoyed his peshwari naan bread. It’s a very civilised place. With a couple of side dishes, the bill without drinks was about £37.
The other news is that, despite what’s happening to pubs (and Methodist chapels) throughout the land, the Trotters is to reopen, probably on July 17. As Mr Gordon Brown would wish us believe, these may be the green sprouts of recovery.
SPROUTS to scouts, and a warm weather note from John Barr in Darlington – charged £1.20 for an ice cream from a kiosk in the Market Place. “What a pleasant surprise to buy one at the Cockerton scouts’ garden party for just 40p.”
LUNCH at the Seven Stars at Shincliffe, south-east of Durham, with former Middlesbrough footballer Bill Gates – now spending most of his time in the Cayman Islands – and his lovely wife Judith.
Bill’s a Ferryhill lad, reckons his first job was to follow the Store hoss to collect manure for his dad’s rhubarb patch. It helped give him a lifelong passion for rhubarb pie, something not particularly plenteous in the Caribbean.
Coincidentally, we’d written only two weeks ago about the great (and ridiculously inexpensive) rhubarb pie at the Lazy Dayz garden centre at Houghall, between Shincliffe and the city. They may expect another customer.
Judith, meanwhile, recalled that all five Gates boys – they included Eric, himself a former England footballer – were born in either May or June. “It was so that the Christening could be in rhubarb pie season,”
she insisted.
SUNDAY lunchtime at the Windmill, a newish pub and conference centre development alongside the A19 between Billingham and Peterlee. It’s seriously busy, efficient young staff criss-crossing like dashing white sergeants at a fifth form dance.
(Their generation, of course, would only suppose a dashing white sergeant to be a guardsman in a hurry. Others will understand.) Once there was a proper windmill, what might be called a Camberwick Green windmill. Now the more silently strident sort stalk neighbouring fields, turning heads.
It’s owned by Cameron’s, so the Strongarm’s pristine. A second real ale’s badged as Windmill but it’s becalmed, exhausted, not a breath.
The carvery is £7.45 for one course, £9.45 for two and £11.45 for three, £2 off for concessions. Main course options included pork, beef, gammon, turkey and, admittedly difficult to carve, a pasta dish.
It’s clearly popular. The Boss watched incredulously as a portly chap staggered away with “at least 20” roast potatoes. At least 20? That’s fower taties more than a gis.
Others sat outside in the Sunday sun. There’s a pond, a rockery, several flagpoles. The Scottish pole was shoogly, as they say north of the border.
The food’s glad handed, two queues, fourth or fifth sitting in line.
When the bill came, however, it was about £8 short.
The waitress, incredulous, sent for reinforcements. “You’re saying it’s too low?” echoed the second girl, the emphasis rather like that old Bob Newhart record of Walter Raleigh reporting back from America that he’s bringing 80 tons of something called tobacco home with him. The response is similarly astonished.
“You can shred it up?… And put it in a piece of paper?… And roll it up? Ha, ha, ha.
“Don’t tell me, Walt, you stick it in your ear, right?
“Oh, between your lips. Then what do you do, Walt? You set fire to it? Ha, ha, ha.”
“You inhale the smoke, huh…”
A second bill arrives, bill of rights.
Cameron’s are a good bunch, brew the column’s all-time favourite beer, and it wouldn’t do to cheat on them now. As probably they say of windmills, what goes around comes around, does it not?
…and finally, the bairns wondered if we knew what’s Belgian, wears short trousers and gives a twofinger salute.
A Brussels scout, of course.
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