Houndgate Café, 1 Houndgate, Darlington (From Darlington and Stockton Times)

Houndgate Café, 1 Houndgate, Darlington

11:53am Friday 12th June 2009

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In need of something extra

LET it never be said that the people who bring you this weekly assessment live a life of unrelenting luxury, moving from one fancy dan restaurant to another.

For Sylvia is sitting in front of me, tucking into a large fish finger butty – and very good it is too. Made with good quality fish fingers, two large slices of white sliced bread and tomato ketchup, it is let down only, in Sylvia’s opinion, by the absence of some butter on the bread. Purists, of course, may argue that nothing else was needed.

We are in a café, in Darlington and, to be fair, fish finger butties are not entirely typical of the menu. The Houndgate Café, at 1 Houndgate no less, has been open a year and in a town more than adequately served by this type of establishment, does a good trade during the day, serving breakfast, lunches, teas and coffees. It is not a “continental café”, as the Imperial Express might be described, and neither is it a greasy spoon. It is also providing evening meals on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, and, having enjoyed eating there during the day, an evening visit was called for.

The “evening grill” menu is simple – based upon whatever can be char-grilled – and includes sirloin steak (£10.95), various burgers (beef, chilli, chicken, £6.95- 8.95) and two veggie options, including stuffed peppers (£7.95). In addition, there are blackboard specials and the daytime menu, which is where the fish finger butty (£5.50) came from.

We were a foursome, accompanied by Gordon and Jean, lovers of Spanish food who were happy to select startersized tuna, spring onion and feta frittatas (£4.95).

Although what came to the table found favour for its freshness and flavour, it was not frittata, more like a number of individual omelettes rather than the thick eggy wedges they expected.

For our starter, Sylvia and I chose to split a beef salad in Thai dressing (£7.95). This was notable chiefly for the spiciness (on the bracing side of hot) of the tender beef strips and the plentiful mixed salad they nestled in.

For their main course, Gordon and Jean stuck with the Latin theme in choosing chicken fajitas (£8.45) plus a side order of chips. Again, these were considered well prepared and presented but Gordon felt they might have been a marinated or spiced up in some way. The accompanying tortillas were nicely floury but would have been better served rather warmer.

The freshly-made chips, which also came with Sylvia’s butty and my Texan chilli burger, were excellent.

The burger (£7.95) was OK. In what was emerging as a bit of a theme, there seemed to be something missing. It was certainly made with lean beef, was a good size, but on the dry side and lacking something, perhaps just seasoning.

It was also only moderately spicy, at least it seemed so after the Thai salad. The accompanying salsa was fresh and light but otherwise unremarkable.

Desserts were limited to the sorts of cakes that go well with morning coffee or afternoon tea but didn’t seem too appealing as a post-meal sweetener. Coffees were fine.

The bill for four, including a number of drinks, was £63.

Service was sweet and charming but by the time we were half-way in to our meal we were the only folk in and had the undivided attention of our waitress.

Loos were upstairs in the cafe’s gallery and it struck all of us that this upstairs space, used during the day as an extension when things get busy downstairs, made for a much better area for an evening meal. The problem with eating downstairs on an evening is that the atmosphere is no different from the day.

Like some of the food we ate, the ambience was not unpleasant but neither was it particularly special.

Damming with faint praise perhaps, but a recommendation to eat at the Houndgate only extends to daytime hours.

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