Short orders (From Living Northeast)

Short orders

12:05pm Monday 30th November 2009 in

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Mike Amos pops along to give us the low-down on the Black Horse at Kirkby Fleetham.

WHILE doubtless it is ubiquitous, the word “pop” once chiefly meant either a bottle of dandelion and burdock or something which weasels did and no one quite understood why.

Later it assumed a musical tone, as in Top of the… These days, however, it’s become a sort of cheery euphemism, annexed with good intent by the medical and the catering professions.

Nurses no longer insert a rectal thermometer into the appropriate orifice, they pop it there. Have you noticed?

The same goes for saline drips, and procedures more fearful yet. “I’ll just pop this into your thoracic artery.”

Waitresses feel the same need to continue a running description of all that they do, in which every tenth word is “pop”. Plates are popped down, not laid; drinks are popped on the bill. It is populism gone mad.

The waitress in the Black Horse at Kirkby Fleetham was like that, and since she (and her colleagues) were very nice, it must not be supposed a criticism.

She was also just 4ft 10in tall, which at the sign of the Black Horse may be a considerable advantage, though before working there she may have been over 6ft.

Kirkby Fleetham’s east of the A1 between Scotch Corner and Leeming Bar, the Black Horse recently taken over by the Harrogate-based company which also now has the celebrated Black Bull at Moulton, a few miles north.

Among many recent landlords was David Morrison, perhaps better known as the cricket wicket-keeper with hands like a relief map of the Nile Delta. Among many recent chefs was Didier de Ville, the scarlet pimpernel of North-East gastronomy, but since he’s been everywhere that’s only to be expected.

The place has been impressively and quirkily transformed, an attempt to retain the village pub atmosphere evident in very inexpensive bar snacks and in the blackboard seeking to recruit darts team members.

Nominees include Dave Morrison, aforesaid, beneath which is written the name Dave Moron. Since Morrison’s a top bloke, they are clearly no relation.

What they haven’t been able to achieve, presumably lest the ceiling fall about everyone’s ears, is the removal of the low-flying beams in the bar – an ever-present danger for anyone over 6ft tall.

There are more pubs than this one – the Durham Ox at Crayke, the Old Horn at Spennithorne, the Cow Tail above Crook – at which similarly I have been felled like a giant sequoia.

It’s what’s called making an impression.

At the Black Horse they’ve stuck what appear to be tins from the cricket scoreboard along the length of the beam. The asinine “Duck or grouse” remains.

We went for Sunday lunch – two courses £12.95, three £15.95 – with local county councillor Carl Les and Suzanne, his partner. He’s also owner of the Lodge at Leeming, on the A1, and has recently participated in a BBC blog suggesting that in these straitened times the Great North Road may not be so great after all.

He greatly knows his stuff, though, knows how to equate quality with value and thus was much taken by the place and by its swish restaurant.

Sensibly short, the Sunday lunch menu offers four choices in each section. There are also four real ales – good on them – including a couple from the excellent Copper Dragon brewery in Skipton.

The emphasis, as Carl had suggested, was on local sourcing and quality ingredients. Paul Waugh, the chef, trained at Seaham Hall but could still have benefited from an hour with my late mother-in-law on how to make a buoyant Yorkshire pudding. A lone blemish.

Chicken liver parfait, light and well blended, came with sourdough toast and grape chutney. Roast beef rump, properly pink as requested, was accompanied by goose fat-roasted potatoes, good veg and that substantial Yorkshire pudding.

Carl, ever the pragmatist, noted that the condiments were in open dishes. “What if someone sneezes?” he said.

Other starters included vine tomato soup and red mullet.

Mains might have been roast chicken or a vegetarian dish that began with poached hens’ eggs. Little surprising, only the quality.

Four puddings, too: lemon tart, “very sweet” rice pudding, a cheese board and an ice cream sundae that really was sundae best, a silly thing richly redolent of childhood treats.

All four of us thoroughly enjoyed the experience, the bill with drinks £75. We’ll return – but for the moment, off we pop.

■ The Black Horse, Kirkby Fleetham, near Northallerton (01609-749010) Food served Tuesday to Saturday, noon to 2.30pm and 5pm to 9pm, and Sunday, noon to 8.30pm. Closed Monday.

Small and large plates of a la carte dishes; children’s menu. Under-fives eat free. Fine for disabled people.