SHEENA Lawson likes the column, anyway. Beset by Hear All Sides correspondents alleging more froth than a pint of Whitbread, it is good - like Lady Windermere - to have a fan.

To the point, the carpists claim to suffer from indigression - more Two Ronnies than two Rennies, it is to be feared.

Like Rip van Winkle, it's as if they have been in a 100-year sleep, as if Othello had reached 16 - which is how long the Eating Owt column's been chewing on - before someone noticed he was black.

This column could digress for England, holds a Bell, Book and Candle in Discursiveness, goes round the houses even more circuitously than the 213 bus to Sunderland. If you want to know why, it's chiefly because "half decent" doesn't take up a hell of a lot of space in a column the size of a bath mat.

Lots of places are half decent, and that's as all right with me as with the many who appreciate their cheapness, their conviviality or who simply have expectations no greater. Since relatively few are either so coruscatingly good or so outrageously awful as to warrant extreme measures, however, a little extra filling may be necessary in criticism's meat paste sandwich.

Without further procrastination, therefore, let us return to Sheena Lawson. She is, it may be recalled, our most prolific restaurant researcher, wholly unpaid if not entirely unsung and a lady who distinctly knows her onions.

Until last Thursday we'd never met. It was time to stand lunch.

Sheena, who lives in Guisborough, suggested Tosca's, in Great Ayton, that pleasant North Yorkshire village south of Middlesbrough that hitherto had been best known gastronomically for Suggitt's ice cream and Petch's pork pies. Sheena's also very partial to the seafood salad at the Royal Oak.

Tosca's not only maintains that good food tradition but warrants further exploration. That it succeeds is manifestly down to the up-front enthusiasm, personality and love of food of Gianni Addis, the Sardinian owner, and Gari Rais, his singing chef.

Gianna has a nice line in throwaways, too. "All young Italian waiters are obnoxious," he said. "I know, I used to be one."

That Sheena hadn't told them we were coming was evident in that they played local commercial radio, but that record's getting a bit stuck.

She was accompanied by David, her long-time partner, looks a bit like the Princess Royal, works in Barclays Bank. They were "fussy eaters", she said, which meant that they appreciated quality. Tosca's is a frequent haunt.

There's a main menu, a lunch menu, happy hours and a specials board that leans heavily on fresh fish from Hartlepool and meat from the celebrated Mr Petch. All, suggests Gianni, are but a basis for negotiation. He'll add, subtract or simply make it up as he goes along.

Thus when we proposed two starters instead of a main course he suggested two small portions - in Tosca's "smallness" is distinctly relative - from the main menu. Both were pasta dishes.

Gnocchetti Umberto had salami, spicy sausage, onions, courgettes and Bolognese sauce, and cannelloni grattinati topped with bechamelle and cheese. The first, particularly, was full of vivid flavours.

Sheena and David had arrived early, ordered before we arrived. She merely had a chicken sandwich, attractively presented, he knew the tagliatelle carbonara of old and was delighted to make its re-acquaintance.

More adventurous dishes demand an early return. Chicken "Lady Natasha", perhaps, with chopped shallots, fresh sage, dry sherry and cream, or lamb steak marinated in olive oil, garlic and herbs or king prawns wrapped in parma ham with a lobster sauce.

Inevitably, we mentioned the radio. Italian music was boring, said Gianni. The only decent Italian singer only ever sang about cocaine. The chef was singing anyway, actually and metaphorically, and - so far as translation allows - not about cocaine.

That lunch for three, with a couple of huge ice cream bowls and four or five soft drinks amounted to £21 the lot. It's a real find. Need we say more?

l Tosca's, 113 High Street, Great Ayton, (01642) 724204. Lunch and dinner Tuesday to Saturday, plus "English" Sunday lunch. Upstairs and therefore unsuitable for the disabled.

MR David Nichols is also anxious to get his teeth into Eating Owt. His letter will doubtless appear in Hear All Sides once the queue subsides.

In short, however, he claims that the column fails to live up to his taste and that "the conspicuous figure of Mr Amos" has people "running round pandering to his every taste".

Mr Nichols, familiar in the Darlington pub trade, now runs the George in Bondgate. "I would like to invite Mr Amos to come to try our hotpot," he writes. Unannounced, if not entirely inconspicuous, we went - again.

Things for: cheap beer (£1 25), a barmaid with her act together, the music sometimes stops. Things against: no real ale, most of the time the music doesn't stop, double negatives.

"Sorry," said the cook, "we've not got no hotpot, anyway."

A FEW yards up Bondgate, the Tap and Spile has re-opened after a major re-fit but without food for another month or so.

The lengthy guest ale board has gone, the four hand pumps offering staples like Theakstons, Bass and Charles Wells's over-promoted Bombardier.

We sat in the corner and tried to work; the usual suspects insistent upon interrupting. Perhaps pubs should issue "Do not disturb" signs, as well.

NOT everyone's knowledgeable about tapping and spiling and other mysteries of the beery trade, which may explain a comment at Cleveland CAMRA's festival - a big success, they reckon - at the Arc Centre in Stockton. Sensibly, the lads periodically spray the casks to keep the temperature right - not, as one innocent abroad in all seriousness inquired, as a precaution against foot and mouth disease.

WHY Bath Olivers, we'd asked? Because of Dr W Oliver, replies John Briggs in Darlington. Dr Oliver was an eminent 18th Century physician in Bath, treated many of the posh folk taking the waters and cooked up a rich, sweet bun which his patients adored. Unfortunately they knew little of moderation, over-indulged, and undid all the good work. The good doctor then came up with a plain biscuit, reckoned less fattening but just as delicious. At Spa shops to this day.

...and finally, the bairns wondered if we knew what a hedgehog likes with his pork pie.

Prickled onions, of course.

Published: Tuesday, March 6, 2001