Mainsgill Tea Room (from Darlington and Stockton Times)

ACALLER to the D&S office recently had a very good point to make about one aspect of our reviews.

We do tend to write about meals eaten in the evening, because most of us are at work during the day and the legendary era of the journalist's mostly liquid lunch is long, long, gone.

But as the caller pointed out, a good proportion of readers never eat out in the evening for reasons of digestive comfort. Many find heavy meals late in the day difficult to deal with, so chose to eat out at lunchtime instead.

Although your reviewer wouldn't consider himself elderly as yet, he has got to that stage in life where he is less able to eat, say, a spicy curry late in the evening and feel like a fully-functioning human being the next morning.

So we had sympathy with the caller's point and, suitably chastened, vowed to do more lunches, starting last Saturday at the Mainsgill Farm Shop and Tea Room just off the A66 near East Layton - five miles from Scotch Corner.

Mainsgill was opened by Anthony and Maria Henshaw as a farm diversification exercise almost seven years ago and, after a tough early period dealing with the impact of foot-and-mouth disease in the area, it has gone from strength-tostrength offering an ever-widening range of goods. The tea room has built up a clientele of customers from the shop, combined with travellers who find it a welcome change from the usual roadside fare on the motorway network.

We had been before some five years ago and recalled a pleasant enough sandwich and sore temptation in the farm shop which you have to pass through to reach the tea room.

That's still the case. There's a veritable cornucopia of local produce on display and, as it happens, a particularly fine weekly newspaper.

So I gently coaxed Sylvia past the meats, cheeses, preserves, cakes and breads to the tea room counter to order watercress soup, beef stew and a baked potato.

Finding a table proved tricky because the place was heaving, which we understand is generally the case at weekends.

Successful eventually, we settled down to enjoy the fine views across Holmedale to the Yorkshire Dales beyond and, rather closer, the rheas (ostrich- like birds) in the nearby field.

The long-necked rheas seemed to have a spring in their step and my watercress soup was certainly an early taste of summer, being beautifully fresh and fragrant. It came with an equally fresh brown bread roll and creamy butter.

This was followed by a blast of winter. As a brief wintry shower sent the rheas scattering, almost as if on cue, my beef stew with dumplings arrived. The beef, from the farm's own herd, was flakily tender and had been cooked very slowly with the usual winter vegetables.

The two dumplings were perfect mounds of gravy-absorbing suet but surprisingly light.

Sylvia's baked potato was very good, which might not seem much an achievement but we are constantly amazed by some establishments' ability to ruin them, either by cooking them in a microwave, burning them, or keeping them warm for hours until they resemble shrivelled ancient meteorites.

This one was perfect and topped with plenty of good quality grated cheddar cheese and a side salad.

Mainsgill also provides a range of sandwiches and quiches and home-made desserts, one of which - a rather sumptuous-looking rhubarb pie and ice cream - we spotted being carefully shared by a couple (well, clearly good friends) at the next table.

Severely tempted, we abstained only to be well and truly mugged by the array of goodies in the shop so that our lunch bill of £13 was dwarfed by what we spent on the home-reared lamb, bacon and free-range poultry.

Oh well, the fridge freezer is well stocked with first-rate meat and other goodies, a lasting reminder of a trip along route 66.

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