Hacked off (From The Northern Echo)

Hacked off

5:28pm Friday 22nd July 2011 in Reviews By Mike Amos

OF all the mischievous, multi-faceted and mostly misunderstood four-letter words sent to wreak lexicographical mayhem upon the English language, “hack” may be the most insidiously versatile.

The one o’clock news overflowed with it – telephone hacking, truly the news of the world – as we headed northwards towards lunch.

Subsequent table talk found it inescapable.

The Oxford English offers dozens of definitions, from “manage” – as in being unable to hack it – to “a sorry and worn-out horse”.

It can be a tool for breaking things up, a nasty cough – weren’t there once Hack’s cough sweets? – a ridge of earth left behind by the plough, a falcon’s feeding table, a term in curling, a kick on the shins in football and very much else besides.

Worst of all, the Oxford supposes a hack to be “a person whose services may be hired for any kind of work required of him; a common drudge” – and particularly a literary drudge, it adds, a “mere scribbler”.

We’re headed for the Pump House at Shincliffe, between Durham and the A1 and built in 1840 as precisely what it says above the door, the city’s first water pumping station.

The bar area has a statue of a woman carrying a water pot and framed copies of two restaurant reviews, neither of them from the column’s last visit, in January 2003.

It had been headed “Where there’s a willy”, a reference to some little-to-the-imagination prints in the ladies’ loo. Perhaps that explains why it’s kept out of sight.

We ordered a bottle of Black Sheep and a bottle of water. The waitress, pleasant and attractive, couldn’t pour beer, the head like the third prize winner in an Elvis lookalike competition.

Had we known what it cost, we’d have expected it not so much to be poured as delivered on a velvet cushion accompanied by the Band of the Coldstream Guards.

Just two others were dining, by no means all hands to the Pump House, the male wearing a trackie top. Though numerous seating options remained, we were shown to a cubicle that might in other circumstances have formed part of a Royal Marine obstacle course, hard to get into and even harder to escape.

It should also be said – indeed they need to know it – that the first impression of the restaurant was of an unexpected smell, probably cooked fish. They may need to look at their extractor fans.

There are both brunch and lunch menus, simultaneously served between 11.30am-2.30pm.

A brunch dish might be two eggs on toast, smoked salmon and scrambled eggs – they’re very fond of their eggs, probably keep chickens – or, for £4.50, fresh fruit salad.

The lunch menu had five starters, six or seven main courses. Our starters may most kindly be described as inauspicious and most kindly as dire.

The lady asked for the twice-baked goats’ cheese souffle, a poor and shrivelled little thing as flat as a – well, whatever you might expect in a Pump Room. It cost £7.95. “If I’d made that at home, I wouldn’t have dared serve it,” she said.

It may in some ways have been preferable, nonetheless, to the “roasted beetroot with a soft boiled egg and a mustard and horseradish dressing”, proclaimed at £5.95.

My dad grew beetroot, unbeatable beetroot, bore great overflowing bags full of it home in triumph from his allotment and would have been disappointed had a stone or so of it lasted more than two days.

This utterly risible, damn-near invisible offering comprised three or four minuscule slivers of beet, a properly cooked but proportionately under-sized egg and a few sprigs of greenery. It was gone almost before the waitress had left the room.

The good news, the slight hope that we might keep head above water, was that the Boss thought her wild mushroom risotto (£8.95) to be excellent, another £2.50 spent on some accompanying greenery.

The beer-battered cod supreme – has anyone on earth ever discerned alcohol in a beer-battered cod? – came with insipid mushy peas, a spoonful of tartar sauce and “stacked chips”.

We counted the chips; there were seven. Not as in magnificent. Admittedly they were chunky chips but a Shildon lad would never suppose seven to be stacks. Though never going to be a supreme champion, not even of Eldon Lane Show, the fish was okay but wholly lacking in the fresh-from-the-pan vibrancy that a good chip shop might deliver.

A chip shop might also be about a third of the price. This was £11.95.

We passed on pudding; she had a coffee – £2, no refill, no sweetie, but nice teaspoons. She contemplated sticking the spoon in her handbag by way of reparation but, hand on heart, decided against stirring it.

Two courses, two bottles of beer, a bottle of water and a coffee topped £50. The beer was £4.60; a bottle. Upstairs they still had the seminaked but under-endowed men in the ladies, but I’ve thought of another headline now.

GARDEN centres are clearly a growth industry; they’re springing up all over. In Shincliffe Village, a mile from the Pump House, there’s the Poplar Tree, which sells everything from handbags to hose pipes and has a food hall and self-styled “wonderful” tea room, too. We went there for petunias, and for pudding.

There was also a statue of a semi-naked woman which, mistakenly, we first took to be one of the Lorelei. It would have explained why so many Rhine boatmen ended up on the rocks.

Left to order, the lady returned with a slab of strawberry rumpy-pumpy, or lumpy-bumpy or some such, and with a piece of chocolate cake. The latter was fine. The former might greatly and properly have been appreciated by a sweet-toothed three-year-old but not by a savour-toothed tiger.

The best, the best in all history, was yet to come.

SHE’D also bought a corned beef pie, something for the weekend. It was from H Coates in Coxhoe, a Man United among butchers, recipient of endless accolades.

Harry Coates founded the business in Trimdon Village in 1965, with his wife Eva and sister Mary. Eva and Mary concocted the recipe for the pies. They moved to Coxhoe in 1984.

“It’s still exactly the same recipe, still a secret,”

says the genial, butcher-shaped Ivan Lowther, who now owns and manages the business.

The filling is so succulent that the temptation is to eat a whole one, the pastry golden delicious, the pie crust sensational. (The words “sensational” and “pie crust” may never before have been used in the same sentence.) Coxhoe’s just a mile off the A1, at the A177 interchange. There’s an online shop, too. We shall be heading that way again very shortly, in urgent search of replenishments.

SINCE we have had occasion to be critical of it – and were rebuked in some quarters – it should in fairness be mentioned that the Honest Lawyer at Croxdale, south of Durham, has won an AA rosette for its food. “Prepared with care, understanding and skill,” it says.

BETTER known for its real ale, the Langdon Beck Hotel, at the top of Teesdale, will host a tea party from 3pm on Wednesday, July 20, in aid of Marie Curie Cancer Care. Events include bingo, quiz, raffle and tombola.

Across in Weardale, the Black Lion, in Wolsingham, has a mini beer festival this weekend, including ale from the new Black Paw brewery, in Bishop Auckland, and the newish Just a Minute, in Spennymoor. More of that next week.

…and finally, the bairns wondered if we knew what you call a pantomime fairy with dubious personal hygiene.

Stinkerbell.