AN old-style English pub serving up good, old English, hearty grub at an affordable price. Very little could be finer and it is one of the things the atmospheric Hamilton Russell Arms, in Thorpe Thewles, near Stockton does. But it doesn’t stop there.

Among the classic British pub meals, the fish and chips, the beef and ale pies, there’s so much else on offer such as Indian and Thai, you’d think there must be a whole army of chefs slaving in the kitchen.

Printing the menu takes a full eight pages of A4. There are eight starters, 31 main meals (not including a special menu on Sundays).

You’ll find a children’s menu, a vegetarian menu, a steak menu, “from the sea” menu, light bites menu and a pasta menu even before you get to the deserts and liqueurs.

We were told it was a newlydesigned menu and, by any reckoning, it’s a seriously ambitious effort with the average price of a main meal around the £10 mark.

We arrived on a Tuesday night, apologising for lateness but were greeted with smiles by the girl behind the bar. Drinking in the atmosphere in this surprisingly big pub with our pricey drinks (£9.60 for a large wine and a pint of lager) we both relaxed.

There’s the wooden beams with the corny quotes “come and sup a while” written in flowery writing, the fire places, comfy seats.

It’s roomy with soft lights and has bags of ambience despite its large size.

Looking at the menu I go for the more classic, British pub options. I ordered mushroom and Stilton on bread for starters (£5.25) and pork and mashed potato with a creamy sauce for main (£10.50). My partner went for whitebait with horseradish (£5.20) and fancied something spicy and not-toobland for her main: hoi sin beef served with a “timbale”

of rice (£10.50).

My food, the more traditional pub fare, was well worth the price. The mushrooms were tasty, the Stilton wellmelted, the bread not overcooked or stale. My pork was thick and tender, the sauce surprisingly delicate.

My partner’s breaded whitebait was slightly over cooked, a bit too crispy but the horseradish was good: it seemed home grown and was strong and fiery, to our taste but probably a bit much for others. The strips of beef were slightly chewy, nothing fatal. The hoi sin sauce tasted, to me, like the kind of sauce you get in a packet, but that may be unfair.

Overall the traditional, every-day pub food was superior and recommended as very good value for money, especially the pork. The hoi sin beef was not bad, and we didn’t feel ripped off at the £10 price. Maybe the good atmosphere led us to expect more.

After all that we were full but decided, purely out of a sense of duty you understand, to have a pudding. It was getting late, about 9.45pm, but our one and only waitress, a friendly, hard-working young woman, still took time to ask how we were. However, she was busy. The manager came and started to clean up tables.

After some time we grabbed his attention and asked for the menu. More time passed, another 15 minutes or so. In the end I got up and went looking for service.

It was worth the effort. The apple and toffee crumble (£6.50) matched the pork’s quality, with a fine crumble, not too heavy, and there wasn’t too much toffee to make it stodgy.

As we eat the manager was trying to clean up tables around us, sighing heavily, and, to be fair, it was well after 10pm. We began to feel guilty. However, our waitress, smiley and helpful, took time to chat a little and lightened the mood. She informed us the new menu is possibly going to be trimmed down, which makes sense.

We ended the evening by strolling around this picturesque village and noted the fact that Thorpe Thewles has a second pub, The Vane Arms, serving what looks like high quality food. The villagers are much blessed.