New Board Inn, Hill Top, Esh, near Langley Park (From Durham Times)

New Board Inn, Hill Top, Esh, near Langley Park

2:25pm Friday 29th January 2010

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A first visit, but far from the last.

ONE of the establishments that hitherto had escaped our attentions is high on a hill overlooking Langley Park, former home of the late, great Sir Bobby Robson.

I wouldn’t like to have to walk or cycle to and from The New Board Inn at Esh but if I did I am sure I would burn up rather a lot of calories while giving my cardiovascular system a stern test.

Luckily I had a wheelsman, my colleague Gavin Havery, and such hideous exertion was avoided when we decided to pay a visit.

It truly is a fantastic location – a big stone-built hostelry with main bar and dedicated dining area behind it, although for the bar garden at the back, you might have to be quite hardy in the cold!

It has a country pub feel with paintings of horses and rural scenes, and the atmosphere is comfortable and warm.

We called on an early week lunchtime and it was quite busy – two girlfriends doing lunch, a ma with her toddler and a group of locals at the bar enjoying a pint and chewing the fat.

There is quite a menu that ranges from sandwiches, jacket potatoes and burgers through to salads, pasta dishes, steaks and classic pub dishes.

For starters, I opted for the homemade soup of the day, which was vegetable when we called in, and it came with brown bread and proved very tasty.

We got an extra order of bread and oil at the suggestion of Gavin who was well pleased with his Thai fish cakes.

I went to the classic mains menu and I chose chicken curry with boiled rice, which also came with chunky chips and a naan bread.

The curry was a rogan joshstyle tomato-tasting sauce that was mild enough. The chicken was a tad tough but it was a substantial meal – portions here are generous – and it defeated me as I had foolishly eaten too much bread with my starter.

Gavin decided to have his lunch from the grill menu and went for the trio of lamb cutlets, which came with chunky chips, thick onion rings, grilled tomato and a salad.

His chops were well done and tasty and he was well satisfied but the size of the portion defeated him.

We were determined to have a pudding come what may – it would have been too much not to sample something from a tempting array of waistline-busting treats from the sweet board.

Gavin had the sticky toffee pudding and was over the moon with the toffee sauce.

Having requested a doggie bag for the remnants of his main course, he nevertheless cleaned nearly all traces of his dessert clean off the plate.

Drinkwise, I washed my meal down with a perfectly serviceable pint of handpump Courage Bitter while Gavin slaked his thirst on a lager shandy.

The service was obliging and friendly and there was a nice relaxed feel to this hostelry.

We also drank in the view from the bar window – I could imagine that on a fine, sunny day in spring or summer.

It would offer an even more impressive prospect than on this slightly murky winter’s day.

This is one of the hostelries that I would like to come back to, particularly on a Sunday afternoon when you could linger a while over a pint or two and contemplate the horizon.

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