The Masons Arms, Fishergate, York

PUB grub ain't what it used to be.

Long gone are the days when the landlord served up pork scratchings or a meat pie with a pint.

Today, many pubs are just as concerned with what comes out of their kitchens as what pours from their taps.

Increasingly, pubs are going up market, offering gourmet menus to compete with the finest restaurants.

Thankfully, plenty of hostelries still have their feet firmly on the ground, where the catch of the day is haddock rather than halibut and the puddings come with custard rather than crme anglaise.

Which takes us directly to the parking lot of the Masons Arms, a traditional pub gracing the inner ring road at Fishergate.

The Masons Arms prides itself on no-fuss, homely fare served in big Yorkshire portions and at hard-to-knock prices.

A warm welcome greeted us when we arrived at 6pm on a snowy Thursday evening between Christmas and New Year. We grabbed a table in the non-smoking dining area, next to a coal-effect gas fire.

A friendly barman served drinks and told us the kitchen would be open for business in ten minutes or so.

The menu is chalked up on giant blackboards in the pub's two main rooms. It was comprehensive, featuring everything from fish and chips and roast dinners to chicken curry and scampi.

A children's menu offers fish fingers, burger, chicken nuggets, beef dinner or pizza for £3.80.

Joining me for dinner was my husband Nick, father-in-law Mike and my daughter, Eva.

Nick had eaten a heavy lunch, so opted for a lighter-sounding snack: hot beef sandwich (£6.70). The rest of us picked a main meal: haddock and chips with mushy peas for Mike (£7), pizza and chips for Eva (£3.80) and chicken with Thai coriander sauce (£7.50) for myself. The barman asked if I would like rice or chips or both with my chicken and I sided with rice.

As we waited for the food to be freshly prepared, we basked in the warmth of the fire which by now was also defrosting a party of Americans, who I spotted later tucking into giant plates of roast dinners with Yorkshire puddings.

Our meals arrived and drew gasps at their sheer size. Nick's 'snack' was a finger roll the size of a man's arm stuffed with thick slabs of roast beef, drenched in hot gravy. "It's like having a roast dinner sarnie," was Nick's comment.

Eva's pizza was a fair size for a child and looked like a pre-bought variety with lashings of extra cheddar on top. It came with chips and a salad garnish. She polished off the pizza and salad, while I ate the chips (for some reason the chip-obsession gene has passed her by).

My meal was dominated by a sea of yellow rice. The chicken had been bashed, butterfly-style, and pan fried so that its exterior was nicely browned. The sauce was green and its dominant flavour was chilli. It reminded me of a stir-in sauce that you might find at the supermarket and while it was pretty tasty, it wasn't that authentic.

But the catch of the day was Mike's fish and chips. The platter covered the end of the table and was filled with a massive piece of fish, freshly battered, and deliciously moist. As Mike cut into the crispy coating, the white fish glistened. The chips were home made and the mushy peas rounded off a perfect meal.

"You couldn't get better in Whitby," said Mike.

By now, the pub was filling up. At a table behind us, a couple were tearing into two steaks, which came with mounds of chips, crispy onion rings and salad. They looked fantastic and I realised that good old-fashioned pub grub was what the Masons did best.

The dessert menu boasted half a dozen home-made puddings (all £2.75) of the old-fashioned variety: treacle sponge, spotted dick and the like.

I picked Bakewell tart with custard and savoured a pure school-dinners moment as I greedily tucked into the almondy and jammy sponge swamped by bright yellow Birds custard. It was delicious.

Eva had an ice cream sundae which came in a plastic cone, but was pretty decent, featuring chocolate and vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce and cream. The only mix up was that we had asked for the strawberry variety, but she seemed to have forgotten that and tucked into chocolate without complaint.

With a gin and tonic for me (£2.85), a half pint of bitter (£1.20) for Mike and a melon and apple J20 juice (£1.40) each for Eva and Nick, our bill came to £37.35 - brilliant value and well within our budget.

The Masons Arms, Fishergate, York. Tel 01904 646046

Food: homely

Service: friendly

Value: very good

Ambience: warm

Disabled access: No

Maxine visited on Thursday, December 29, 2005.

Updated: 15:36 Friday, January 06, 2006