Eating Owt

FOLLOWING a brief and somewhat querulous review of his establishment in the summer of 1998, Mr Colin Ellwood rang with gentlemanly good grace to acknowledge certain shortcomings and to invite us to return as his guest.

The column didn't work that way, we said - never has, never will - but we'd be happy to pop back some time.

As they used to say in the Guinness commercials, some things take a little longer...

Colin and his wife Joyce have the Friar's Head at Akebar, on the main road between Bedale and Leyburn in North Yorkshire, ingeniously converted from old farm workers' cottages 15 years ago and now a warmly welcoming pub.

On the bar, as well as four real ale pumps, stands a little slate on which the "Thought for the Week" is written.

One side was some nonsense by a Canadian dame about women having to work twice as hard to be noticed half as much; the other offered the Rev Sydney Smith's regretful aphorism that England had no amusements except vice and religion.

The good Mr Smith also claimed, in 1838 admittedly, that he had no relish for the country as it was nothing but a healthy grave. It is perhaps not the sort of thing to put on the bar of a rural pub: they haven't got over the miserable August yet.

The site also embraces a golf course and huge caravan park, with lawn bowls and croquet also available. Though there was undoubtedly a monastery in the vicinity, the name comes from the Ellwood ancestral home, near Skipton.

"The Friar's Head could become habit forming," it says on the menu. Not every six years, it couldn't.

The barman, important first impression, was young, confident and friendly; the bar, appropriately, had some church pew seating and several little nooks; the large and convivial conservatory restaurant was really rather remarkable.

It was hung with so much greenery - plants and vines and things - that the next Tarzan film could have been shot there, or a Victorian explorer emerge and ask for three ha'porth of snuff and the nicotian sootherer.

Blue lit and semi-concealed behind it all was one of those new-fangled devices which zaps all flying things except Jet Provosts from RAF Leeming, usually accompanied by a slightly disconcerting little death row crackle.

It is probably not advisable to be eating a fried egg at the time.

The Boss, in any case, doesn't believe in such technological fly traps, preferring to despatch the pesky blighters with the business section of the Sunday Times.

The tables are stone topped and candle lit, the floor flagged, the effect terrific after dark and even better when the fire starts blazing in the bar. The menu was said to be "summer and autumn", though this was decidedly autumnal - rain stinging staccato off the conservatory roof.

The menu was also topped with Moliere's comment that it was good food and not fine words which kept him alive, though since the same fellow also claimed that a man who lived without tobacco wasn't worthy to live, he may be considered a philosophical French scallywag and disregarded.

The specials board was strong on fish from Hartlepool, the lady of the house at once angling for the scallops and for the lemon sole with lemon butter and herb sauce. The main menu had variations on gruyere, ricotta, mozzarella and parmesan but no obvious sign of Wensleydale.

Mainly vegetarian starters included "Greek village salad", twice-baked cheese souffle and seared scallops with spaghetti and saffron cream sauce.

All, good idea this, could be converted into inexpensive main meals with the addition of salad or of potatoes and vegetables.

We began with a nicely crisp duck salad, dressed for October, with mixed leaves, followed by stir fry pork with water chestnuts and things and an oyster sauce. There may never have been a classic stir fry, but this was a very good one.

Other main courses included slow braised chump of lamb and herbs with minted redcurrant and port sauce, chicken madras with tiger tail prawns and a sherry and cream sauce, medallions of venison with spiced pancetta and a sloe gin and redcurrant sauce. Vegetables were simple, well cooked, but hardly imaginative.

A single baked pear and ginger cheesecake, two cups of coffee and we were almost homeward, well pleased, when the owner himself ambled in wearing the full fig for foxhunting.

The Bedale had been over to Birkby, East Cowton way, and seen off a brace. "I can't help it if people don't like foxhunting," he said, though prints and other indicators that the hunt's afoot have been removed from the walls.

He proved the most engaging of chaps, capable of charming the birds out of the trees if not the foxes out of their holes and happy to stand another pint of Black Sheep.

There was no need for recompense: last wind blown Wednesday the Friar's reputation was abundantly redeemed.

l The Friar's Head, Akebar, Leyburn (01677 450201). Open lunchtime and evenings until 9.30, seven days; children not allowed after 7.30pm unless dining with parents; no problem for the disabled. Three courses for two, between £35-£40.

YOU know when something's not very good and it's even more disappointing because you've really been looking forward to it? Thus with the offering last week at Fields' fabled fish and chip shop in Esh Winning, the North-East's last coal-fired chippy. Hitherto they've been very good: last Tuesday both elements were barely lukewarm, too long out of the frying pan. Hitherto they've been Elysian Fields; this time they were WC.

LAST week's column promised a copy of CAMRA's 2005 Good Beer Guide as a competition prize, so we'd best pose a relevant question. By noon on Friday, and by e-mail or post, readers are invited to name CAMRA's recently announced North-East pub of the year.

The winner will be the first out of the hat; others can obtain copies of this truly invaluable volume from bookshops for £13 99.

CAMRA's North-West Yorkshire branch, meanwhile, holds a beer festival in Richmond Market Hall from October 15-17. Twenty real ales, music on Friday and Saturday evening, traditional and decidedly unusual pub games provided by Keith Thomas of Darwin Brewery in Sunderland.

It's also the finishing point of the Richmond 10k road run that Sunday morning. "By that stage," says CAMRA man Vince Rutland, "they're usually very pleased to see us."

AMONG many visitors to Prague of late, Sunderland FC fan John Walton discovers the "authentic gourmet" Restaurant Arzenal, almost right up the column's street. "Given the international nature of the Arsenal squad," John adds, "its description as a 'cross-culture junction' seems somehow appropriate."

...and finally, the bairns wondered if we knew the most fearsome dinosaur in Northern Ireland.

Tyrone O'Saurus, of course.

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