TRUST me to choose to eat out on the night of a UFO landing! It meant that parking in the centre of Holmfirth was at a premium on a cold and wintry night.

Having circled the town centre for 10 minutes in the vain hope that a space would become empty, I eventually settled on the town’s main car park at Crown Bottom.

That meant a trudge through the ice and snow in minus 5 degree temperatures.

But it also meant there was a cracking atmosphere in the Old Bridge Hotel right in the centre of the town.

The UFO in question were not aliens from another galaxy.

They were the English rock band of the late 1960s who were stopping off on their world tour with a gig at The Picturedrome.

And, given that the stage door was just a stride away from the entrance to the Old Bridge bar, it was hardly surprising that music fans packed into the hotel for a pre-concert drink.

Many had also chosen to eat at the Old Bridge and two hours later, I knew why.

To say we were stuffed is somewhat of an understatement.

This is traditional, hearty Yorkshire food that is well-cooked and well-served.

And we are talking hearty portions as well. More of which later.

The Old Bridge hotel has a restaurant but that was booked out for a Christmas party on the night we called.

But we were more than happy to find a table in the cosy bar, with its beamed ceilings and views over the River Holme and Holmfirth Parish Church, as the UFO fans drifted out for a close encounter with their heroes.

There were plenty of staff hard at work behind the bar on a busy night and they served up a superb pint of Black Sheep bitter and a glass of red wine for us to enjoy as we waited for a table.

The UFO throng gradually dispersed and we sat down to study the menu.

Saturday night, it turned out, was billed as steak night with seven or eight specials on the board, in addition to the extensive menu.

We’d worked up quite an appetite what with the walk through the winter’s night, and what a good job that was.

I toyed with soup, with mushrooms and with pate as a starter but eventually plumped for something a little out of the ordinary.

The sauteed lamb kidneys were almost a meal in themselves.

They came in a rich red wine and mushroom sauce, served with two large chunks of warm crusty baguette and a pile of rice.

Linda opted for a goat’s cheese and red pepper tartlet and was well pleased with the results.

The cheese was moist and creamy and the accompanying salad was obviously freshly-prepared. The one small gripe was that the pastry could have perhaps been a little firmer.

Both options were brought to us by the very friendly and affable young staff who were more than happy to return with more drinks as our glasses ran dry.

Main courses posed even more of a quandary.

The steak night specials were in addition to a fairly extensive regular menu and there were several favourites in there.

In the end, I opted for a lamb steak from the specials board.

Cooked medium, it was a huge piece of meat taking up half the plate and superbly seasoned and cooked.

It came with the usual steak trimmings of mushrooms, tomatoes onion rings and chips. And boy, what chips they were.

We are talking good, old-fashioned real potato chips, with crispy edges and soft middles.

Across the table came the biggest surprise of the night.

Linda ordered the fish platter, expecting to be served with a few choice morsels of several different sorts of fish.

What she got was a huge dish, with cod goujons, two different types of prawn, scampi, fried kalamari and two fishcakes.

It was a trawlerman’s dream catch but one to which she finally had to concede defeat.

Both dishes again came with side salads, which were again fresh and crunchy.

Stuffed to the gills, we sat and chatted over drinks for another 30 minutes – unable to contemplate the walk back to the car for a time.

Good food, good drinks, good atmosphere, reasonable prices. No complaints.