Mrs Eats and I love a good walk before our scran.
It really sets you up for it - and you feel justified in stuffing your face and that relaxing with a pint is well deserved.
Well, in my humble opinion, there is one walk that is pretty hard to top: getting to the top of Captain Cook’s Monument in Great Ayton, which is a village near Stokesley.
The view across Teesside is breathtaking, and well worth a few mops of the brow.
It makes nearby Roseberry Topping look like a hill in the distance as you take in the wilds of the North York Moors national park.
So, after clearing our lungs on a trek up to the monument, we needed a nearby pub to round off our day.
The Dudley Arms is well known across Teesside - and comedian Roy Chubby Brown counts it as one of his very favourite places to visit.
It is a proper cosy country pub set in the idyllic village of Ingleby Greenhow.
Mrs Eats needed to spend a penny so to speak and noticed that the toilets have undergone a massive revamp. She was very impressed.
But we both agreed that the well-loved look of the pub itself would be a shame to lose. So we hope we don’t return to find it sleek and chic!
We were swiftly taken through to our table and seated. Mrs Eats liked the ‘ambience’ she said, added to by flickering candles.
We were very quickly brought fresh warm bread to placate our grumbling tummies. With a thick spread of the butter it was a simple yet welcome pleasure.
And so on to starters.
Mrs Eats went for the creamy garlic mushrooms and I fancied the homecured gravadlax on a green salad topped with dill mayonnaise.
Well it’s fair to say that the mushrooms didn’t so much as touch the sides. Mrs Eats didn’t even offer one to try.
But she said that they were fresh and the sauce was plentiful and tasty. And not too garlicky.
The gravadlax: I do confess I did have to ask what it was...A rare change for me but a welcome one.
For those as unenlightened as I am the gravadlax is a Nordic dish consisting of raw salmon, cured in salt, sugar and dill.
The salmon was a fresh as it could come and the dill mayo zinged. It wasn’t a dainty serving which can often be the case with salmon. Plenty there - which is how I like it.
The main event.
Mrs Eats took up precious eating time trying to decide what to have, eventually going for the pheasant.
“You won’t like it,” I warned.
But she thought that it “sounded a bit posh” and well worth a try.
I went for the roast loin of pork.
The dishes came and after Mrs Eats tackled the first forkful she looked cautiously up at me.
“Eddy?”
“Fine, I’ll swap.”
No surprise there.
But it was no tragedy. Although it’s (clearly) not everyone’s taste as the ‘hunters style’ pheasant was packed with flavour. It had a slow-braised taste to it.
It came in a deliciously rich gravy which oozed around the mushrooms, onions and white wine.
Mrs Eats, thank God, enjoyed my roast pork. Succulent and lots of it. And all topped off with a sweet apple sauce and a sage and onion stuffing. And not forgetting what we both thought has a starring role - perfectly crisped, mouth-watering pork crackling.
Both meals came with a lovely offering of veg: carrot and swede mash, peas, cripsy roasties, broccoli and mash.
There was also big door-stopper Yorkshire puds and lashings and lashings of thick gravy.
We had no room for afters, but that’s not to say that we weren’t tempted - sticky toffee pud and lemon cheesecake both jumped out at me.
Three courses from the Sunday lunch menu are £13.95.
And so, with stomachs well and truly filled, we decided to leave this lovely part of Yorkshire and head off home, all the happier for our visit to The Dudley.
And perhaps next time we’ll bump into Chubbs...
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