THEY serve filthy dirty food in the Varsity bar.

I know this because it says so on the menu, right next to a snarling cartoon dog with the spiked collar.

One of the dishes is pictured reposing in the dog's bowl. It is called Dirty Dog's Dinner (£3.99), and consists of sausages, smokey bacon, chips and beans.

Also available are your Dirty Killer Burger (£7.49), Dirty Hot Dog (£4.99), Dirty Chip Butty (£2.99) and Dirty Pud (£4.49).

I've known gaffs where filthy dirty would have been a fairly accurate description of the kitchen, cutlery and most of the staff, if not the food itself.

But I don't think the Varsity management are coming clean, so to speak, and throwing themselves at the mercy of the public hygiene authorities.

This is a bar that goes out of its way to attract the student element, who are not likely to be repelled by high cholesterol hangover food jocularly advertised as filthy dirty.

It would be interesting, though, to watch a couple of elderly matrons, grabbing lunch after a shampoo and set, casting a horrified eye over the Varsity menu.

Varsity is a modern, split-level lounge bar and restaurant, furnished in the style of the moment, which includes unfeasibly high tables and chairs which are definitely not for toddlers.

It replaced the tired old Hogshead, which itself took over the Percy Street site previously occupied by Louis Taylor's sale rooms.

The Son and Heir and I had been in Hanley on a hush-hush and largely abortive Christmas shopping mission. Herself always makes it crystal clear what she doesn't want, but she can be less forthcoming about what she does want.

After an hour's fruitless browsing, we gave up and ducked into Varsity for a tonsil-moistener.

Amused by the dirty filthy dishes we decided to check out the food, though without necessarily making our choices from that particular section of the lurid menu.

You can choose from Va Va Value Meals, Killer Burgers, Big Buckets, Little Buckets, Nachos (Mexican dog biscuits) and Chow Baby.

Chow Baby are main meals, from which I ordered peri peri chicken skewers (£4.99) with chips, salad and sour cream.

Before that, however, I ordered the Va Va Value seafood combo (£3.99), there being no starters as such.

I told the solitary waiter, who was also the solitary barman and, for all I know, the solitary chef, to hold the chips and peas that came with the combo and he apologised for having to charge me the full price. I have no idea how much this guy gets paid, but it isn't enough. He was like one of those variety artistes who used to keep plates spinning on top of several sticks at the same time.

The breaded seafood arrived hot from the kitchen with little or no delay, as did The Son & Heir's starter of cheesy garlic bread (£1.99).

My breaded goujons, scampi and scallops were tasty enough, with a good colour and dentistry-friendly coating, and gave off a bracing whiff of the ocean too. But the peri peri chicken skewers were simply overcooked pieces of chicken on sticks with none of the piquancy of peri peri.

The sour cream that was provided "to cool you down" was surplus to requirements.

"No need to go to the curry house when ours is this good," boasts the menu of Varsity's chicken tikka masala (£5.99), with rice and naan bread. The Son and Heir found the sauce pleasant enough, and the chicken lean and tender, but he said he'd have done better going to a curry house for the rice and naan bread.

I noticed as we left that the youth who served us was balancing a crate of Newcastle Brown on his head, pulling pints with both arms and operating the cash register with his toes.

Bravo, that man.