The Green Tree, Tudhoe, Spennymoor (From Durham Times)

Hearty helpings of homemade fare

4:17pm Friday 26th August 2011 in Eating Out

EATING out can often be a bit of a lucky dip but with our latest dining experience I think we may have hit the jackpot.

We had never been to Tudhoe Village before The Green Tree was recommended to me so it was a little bit of a case of venturing into the unknown when decided to go out for dinner.

But I should not have worried, we were in very safe hands.

After a long week at work we were starving by the time we arrived so it was quite a relief to see it wasn’t too busy.

We received a warm welcome from the start and we were quickly shown to our table by a lovely waitress, who I have to say was excellent from start to finish.

Normally I know exactly what I want when I look at the menu but after having a sneaky look around to see what other diners were eating I was left very much undecided.

All the meals were homemade and looked delicious. Eventually after changing my mind quite a lot I settled on the creamy garlic mushrooms with garlic bread for my starter while Andy settled for the chicken wings in a spicy jerk bbq sauce.

They were both delicious and couldn’t be faulted on taste, however Andy said his portion was far too big for a starter.

For our main courses I went for the cottage pie while Andy chose the steak and ale pie from the specials menu. Both came with chips, vegetables and gravy, although there were other options available.

Now I have always loved my food and it is good not to go home feeling hungry but there was never any danger of that happening.

We could not doubt the food. It was extremely tasty and it was clear the chef had taken his time to make our meals and not just put them in the microwave.

However, the portions were massive – probably too big. We managed to leave two clean plates at the end because the food was so lovely but we both admitted we were too full.

Despite eyeing up the dessert menu when we sat down, we both had to admit defeat and reluctantly forgo something sweet, although I think they would probably have been as big and delicious as the rest of our meal had been.

When we walked into the entrance there was a framed newspaper cutting about Sex And The City actress Kim Cattrall tracing her roots back to Tudhoe Village.

She talked proudly about being connected to the area and I think The Green Tree should be proud to be a part of it too.

We had a lovely meal and left vowing to return. The only criticism we can have is we had too much food but with two starters, two mains, two diet cokes and pints of Black Sheep bitter costing £36 we are certainly not going to complain too much.