It's a little rough round the edges, but the grub at the Spotted Dog is worth wolfing down.

WHIRLING around the Internet just now are a series of jocund scripts aimed, they say, at those born before 1940.

They are the folk who believe a Big Mac to be an outsize raincoat, a joint to be something you eat against a background of Two Way Family Favourites on the wireless and coke to be something you keep in the coalhouse.

They are the folk, say the scripts, who believe that "going all the way" means getting off the tram at the terminus.

Though not quite so venerable, the column is old enough to remember when the Spotted Dog at High Coniscliffe was considered sophisticated. That's how long ago it was.

We had a dining club at the Red Lion in Shildon in those dear distant days, out once a month in the mini-bus and the three-piece zoot suit - Hepworth's, mustard coloured, a monument to sartorial sensibility - to places like the A66 Motel, the Travellers at Dalton and the Three Tuns at Eggleston.

The Spotted Dog was always the favourite, though - every dog, and all that - and before half the North-East screams "Here he goes again", before flinging the paper across the kitchen it should be said that we've just had a perfectly pleasant and extremely good value meal there.

It's just that the Spotted Dog is to sophistication what the late Iraqi minister of information was to swearing on the Bible. There are more frills on a flannelette nightie.

From the off, the barman seemed out of sorts with himself and the waitress spent most of her time humping round boxes of potato crisps, as if doomed forever to some sort of perpetual Generation Game. Since it was pouring down, the chap who came in carrying a watering can was perhaps the most curious of all.

There were no table cloths, no place mats, nowt like that. The menu was mucky, the condiments had to be sought - and were then empty - and the floor was as rolling drunk uneven as always we remembered it to be.

In a back to basics kind of a way, we quite enjoyed it, to be honest.

High Coniscliffe's a couple of miles west of Darlington, on the road to Barnard Castle. In zoot suit days it was a Whitbread grill house, now they sell Black Sheep and Darwin beers and offer, commendably, tastings of untried beers and wines.

They also offered Darwin Spotted Dog, 3.9 abv. We asked if it were available. "No," said the barman curtly. The Black Sheep was first rate.

On a well worn dresser sat copies of Darlington's crime prevention newsletter and information on the forthcoming Civic Theatre pantomime, starring someone called Lisa Riley who (presumably) is no relation to Old Mother Riley, latterly much featured hereabouts.

On the wall was the usual collection of instant junk, including carpet beaters, which must totally confuse the young. What on earth do they suppose them to be?

(In Darlington South Park, at least until recently, there was a set of bye-laws which included a prohibition on carpet beating before 7am, on Christmas Day and perhaps Good Friday as well. Maybe it's been repealed, maybe the borough engineer authorised a Hoover.)

The evening menu, different from lunchtime's but barely more expensive, embraces almost none of the pub food staples like prawn cocktail, lasagne and steak and kidney pie. Only one steak, rib eye, too.

The least expensive main course, lamb ragout with tarragon dumplings, is £5.80, the dearest the seafood medley at £7.25. Most are around £6.50, strong on stir fry and spices but with some unexpected and imaginative choices.

For £6.50 we also began with tapas for two, concluding while we waited that tapas was an anagram of pasta (and presumably vice-versa) and trying to remember the name of the spotty dog - the biggest spotted dog in the world, was it not? - in the Woodentops. It proved impossible. Heaven knows how we'd have managed with 101 Dalmatians.

Served generously on a huge dish, though without plates, the tapas comprised bowls of spicy beef, mussels with cheese, mushrooms with feta cheese and olives, something described as pork patties - like superior penny ducks, threepenny ducks, almost - and lots of garlic bread with sundry toppings.

It was excellent, honest. Add a basket of chips and a most agreeable dinner might have been had without further addition to the reckoning.

The Boss followed with salmon and stir fry vegetables, we with beef olives stuffed (it said) with black pudding and prunes soaked in brandy, both accompanied by chips, potatoes and a dish of brave vegetables. £13 for two.

She much enjoyed the salmon. The only problem with the beef was that it hadn't just been hung but drawn and quartered as well.

Having shared a starter, we shared a pudding: treacle sponge, two spoons, custard in a vessel that was not so much gravy boat as small tanker. Puddings are home made every day, they say, and this one was vibrant in its eat-me youthfulness.

We left still debating the name of the Woodentops dog. Was it simply Spotty, or something more subliminal? Since the daily help was Mrs Scrubbitt, perhaps the Woodentops didn't do subtlety any more than the Spotted Dog does.

Tails up, it was a good night, notwithstanding.

A GOOD bunch, as it were, Weardale Flower Club marked its 25th anniversary last Tuesday with dinner at Horsley Hall, near Eastgate, and by inviting the column to hold forth. Horsley, a three-storey manor on the south bank of the river, has been impressively restored by Liz Curry, whose previous jobs included cook at Durham School and catering manager at Glaxo in Barnard Castle.

The baronial hall restaurant is elegant, the food vivid and beautifully presented, the young staff seem not just to have been dragged in from the fifth form but trained before being let loose. The restaurant (01388 517239) is open to non-residents on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings and for Sunday lunch.

Liz also hosts day and residential cookery courses, from "Student survival" to "Stress-free entertaining". There's also a three-day course called Men Only - "All you need to know to impress your date". This one's impressed enough already.

TWO nights later to a posh do at the Gosforth Park Hotel, outside Newcastle - nice meal - and in company at the bar with the Rev Leo Osborn, chairman of the Methodist church's Newcastle district.

"Good God," said the chap next along, though whether a reference to the colourfully cummerbund chairman or to being asked £3 for a pint we were unable to discover. Probably the latter.

WINSTON Churchill, who once said that the Labour Party couldn't run a whelk stall and described Clement Attlee as a sheep in sheep's clothing, was clearly a viperish fellow - but was he really responsible, last week's column wondered, for that infamous remark to Bessie Braddock? Readers have few doubts.

Lady Astor is also supposed to have told Churchill that if he were her husband she'd put poison in his coffee.

"Madam," replied Winnie, "if I were your husband, I'd drink it."

The exchange with poor Bessie - "Winston, you're drunk"; "Bessie, you're ugly and tomorrow morning I shall be sober" - seems almost mealy-mouthed by comparison.

...and finally, since we've been discussing subtlety. The bairns wondered if we knew what you call a white Smartie.

Second hand, of course.

Published: 27/05/2003