It boasts food of unrivalled flair and despite its unlikely setting, Villa Spice is true to its word.

IN idle moments, of which there are a great many, the column falls to planning its own funeral. The cortege will arrive to the suitably haunting sound of Simon and Garfunkel singing Scarborough Fair and leave, wellies wet with tears, to the theme from Last of the Summer Wine.

The reading will be from the sixth chapter of the Gospel according to St Matthew, the bit about considering the lilies of the field, the hymns will include Thine be the Glory, Joy to the World - how very appropriate - and Oh For a Thousand Tongues to Sing.

Though much favoured by other football folk, Abide With Me will definitely not make the parting play-list, being altogether too miserable for a funeral.

We mention all this, lest there be undue anxiety, because of an unusual agreement struck with the Rev Virginia Ramsey, Methodist minister in charge of five churches and six cats in the Cockfield area of County Durham and a direct descendant - a direct line, as it were - of George Stephenson.

Two Sunday evenings ago we attended her service at Ramshaw, a small village near Evenwood where - as the column has previously noted - a new Indian restaurant called Villa Spice has opened above the Trotters Arms.

It may also be recalled that so many people had been invited to the formal opening that, unable to get a seat, we hared off in a huff.

Sunday seemed a good chance to turn the other cheek and try again. Virginia said she was very fond of Indian food and, much travelled, quite knowledgeable about it, too.

The deal, we said, was that we'd stand dinner at Villa Spice in exchange for Oh For a Thousand Tongues - all eight verses, not some anodyne, abridged version - at the chapel across the road.

"You're the sort of person I can do business with," said the minister, a good sort whose standing was yet further enhanced because she'd asked her mum to record Last of the Summer while she was in church.

The location is improbable, the downstairs pub still (shall we say) workmanlike. The upstairs restaurant is cool, stylish and most attractively furnished - the contrast, one side and the other, like a McVitie's Digestive among catering houses.

It's family owned, most of the menfolk already on the telephone to apologise over the earlier impasse.

Amran Hussain, a purple clad emperor among chefs, has worked at Vujon and at Junction 365 in Newcastle, both of which have been in the Good Food Guide. Namwar Hussain, his dad, heads the front of house team with much courtesy; Manik Miah, Amran's uncle, is attentively out there, too.

The all-male staff wear co-ordinated shirts and ties rather like those worn by the players of Shildon FC. The way that Shildon have been going of late, however, the waiters would beat them with one arm up their back.

The menu's a bit purple, too - a style of cooking so spectacular, says the preface, that until now only a few places in the world were able to accomplish it. There's stuff about "stunning repertoire", "food of kings" and "style, panache and distinction" - and to a very large degree, they achieve every word.

Some dishes are familiar, others wholly innovative. When was salmon (or trout) last seen on an Indian restaurant menu this side of Newcastle? Where are such imaginative vegetarian dishes offered, where such attention paid to fragrance and to presentation?

We'd begun with a cold dish of chingril moslai, prawns with garlic, mustard, herbs and spices, and followed it with a chicken breast - Clark Kent mild, Superman seasoned - with a boiled egg in there somewhere as well.

The Boss, also in attendance - though not, alas, at Ramshaw Methodist church - started with sabzi varkee ("grilled green pepper stuffed with spicy fresh mixed vegetables and topped with a minted yogurt sauce") and followed with salmon salon, with fresh herbs and spices, sliced green chilli and orange peel.

The minister had had bhuna prawns with puree, followed with another chicken breast cooked with mild spices and honey in a creamy sauce, thought it all abundantly worth eight verses of anyone's time.

The staff may have been too eager to please, however, explaining why they did nothing about the couple who not only virtually chain smoked but did it directly beneath the sign expressly forbidding such anti-social and carcinogenic activity.

Villa Spice is a real find, nonetheless, an example of fresh thinking and fresh cooking all but unimagined in these poppadom parts. Truly food to die for.

l Villa Spice, Gordon Lane, Ramshaw, Bishop Auckland (01388) 834300. Open seven evenings, 6-11.30, but since the restaurant is upstairs, sadly unsuitable for the disabled.

PERHAPS no surprise to Eating Owt readers, Samuel's Restaurant at Swinton Castle, near Masham - best known as brewing country - has been awarded three rosettes for culinary excellence by the AA. "We're thrilled," says head chef Andy Burton.

Darlington 41 Club, a title which refers to minimum age and not maximum number, held its dinner last week in the training restaurant at Darlington College of Technology.

Since the meal was billed as "An evening of French delights", and since the column was once more chanson for its supper, we told them the joke about what a Frenchman has for breakfast.

You know, huit heures bix.

The training restaurant serves five course lunches for around £6 and five course dinners - usually Wednesdays and Fridays - for either £12.50 or £13.50. The difference appears to be that the higher priced meal is "authentic restaurant cuisine prepared by our advanced catering students".

The French delights, £12.50, may not have been authentic but were generally very good. A multiple choice menu included chicken mousse, melon and prawn salad and cheese and chive beignets as starters, followed either by lemon sorbet or a splendidly herby courgette and rosemary soup - excellent bread, too.

The "seafood gateau" may have lost its way a bit, the vegetables had a similarly rough crossing, but everything was again redeemed by a top rate bread and butter pudding with lots of cherries. Student service, too.

The 41 Club, probably about 25 of them, also made a heroic effort to drink Darlington Borough Council's entire stock of red wine. The other half of the restaurant had been booked by a Women's Institute party; as the column rose to its feet, they very sensibly left.

* Information and bookings at the college's Oak Room restaurant on (01325) 503003.

CLASSICALLY inept, last week's column puzzled over the Latin phrase "Dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori" and has been helped in the translation by several helpful readers. It's from a First World War poem by Wilfred Owen - "It is sweet and glorious to die for one's country". Owen thought it the old lie.

...and finally, the bairns wondered if we knew why birds fly south in the winter.

Because it's too far to walk, of course.