Art figured largely the night I went to the Ballymore Inn. But to begin at the beginning: when my wife Susan Morley started painting professionally the first exhibition of her water-colours was in The Lad Lane Gallery in 1974. The person who gave her this career break was Suzanne McDougald, who is now running The Solomon Gallery. Susie still exhibits with Suzanne, who has also taken a kindly interest in the incipient career of my son, an art student in Florence. She has also just moved from the city to the country, which is why, with the move to her new house in Kildare completed, she was free to come to dinner with me in Ballymore Eustace.

As it happens that's not very far from her new home, so when I suggested it as our venue she was glad not to have to drive into Dublin. I've tried to get into the Ballymore Inn on three occasions, but it's always been full. Certainly the word of mouth on this restaurant has been extraordinary. I've lost count of the number of people who have told me to go there. Apart from that it has won praise from other reviewers and an award from Georgina Campbell's Guide to Ireland, so my expectations were high.

I met Suzanne at her new house, the sort of idyllic country retreat that makes rural life so appealing. Not surprisingly the walls are covered with beautiful paintings, but what caught my eye was a petit point cushion emblazoned with the motto 'Money isn't everything, but it helps to keep our children in touch.' I thought of my son in Florence and smiled ruefully.

Expectations are the strangest things, almost by definition nothing ever really lives up to them. Maybe it's because when we hear an amazing report about a film, a book or a restaurant we unconsciously add a bit to what we've heard making it into what we would have liked to have heard. Looking back on it now I don't know why I didn't expect the Ballymore Inn to be in a pub - no one had told me otherwise - I just assumed it must be a room alongside or upstairs or somehow apart from the bar. When we walked in, there was a bar on the left, an open fire on the right with some tables and chairs around it, and then a low dividing wall that separates the actual dining area. I couldn't make up my mind if I was in a restaurant that had a pub attached or a pub with a restaurant attached.

We sat down at a wooden table with wooden chairs and I looked around. There are some lovely paintings hanging on the walls and Suzanne was able to tell me all about them, but since I didn't write it down there and then, I've completely forgotten. It's a cosy room, warm and welcoming, but not amazingly comfortable. It wouldn't be easy to sit on these chairs for a long, lingering dinner.

The wine list is short, but the wines are well-chosen and reasonably priced. There are eight house wines at £10.50 and then ten reds and ten whites, mostly under twenty pounds. As soon as I saw Chateau Vignelaure at £18.50 I looked no further. It's a chateau in Provence and it's owned and run by an Irishman, David O'Brien. I visited him there a few years ago and got to like his big, full-bodied wine. Finding it on so short a list was a real bonus.

We looked through the menu, a single page laminate. Starters range in price from soup at £2.20 to just under £5. Apart from chicken wings they were mostly different salads and Suzanne chose the Cos salad with a cheese dressing while I picked the sweet peppers. Main courses run from a chicken Tikka at £8.20 to fillet steak at £14.50. There's a good spread of dishes; duck breast, sirloin steak, a pasta dish, stir-fried beef and salmon. Suzanne decided that the excellent red wine needed some red meat so she chose the fillet steak and I had the duck breast.

While we waited for our starters we were brought bread which we ate while we talked about her upcoming show of ten Scottish artists, which includes such luminaries as Elizabeth Blackadder (yes, really) and John Huston. But this conversation took a back seat when our starters arrived. Suzanne's Cos salad had a really tasty dressing which was based on Cooleeney cheese; there was a good mix of flavours and it made an interesting salad. My peppers were not quite to my liking and I didn't eat them - not because of the taste, which was good, but because they weren't cooked enough. I'm a firm believer that peppers should only be ingested when they're cooked until soft and the skin removed, otherwise they can be horribly indigestible.

Our main courses came and with them a small flat of potato gratin which we'd ordered. They was also another flat with pan-fried vegetables which turned out to be extraordinarily good - crisp and flavoured with a little cardamom they were beautifully cooked and delicately spiced. On Suzanne's plate sat one of the biggest fillet steaks that I've ever seen in a restaurant, at least eight ounces, and cooked very rare, just as she'd ordered it. I wondered to myself could she possibly finish it. It was accompanied by a rather lumpy champ. My duck breasts came pre-sliced and were arrayed on the plate. A little over-cooked for my taste, but good none the less. By the time I'd got to the end of it Suzanne still had a huge piece of fillet left on her plate. I waited, trying to keep my eyes off it, hovering like a vulture. As soon as she said 'I don't think I can eat any more,' I moved like lightning and speared it with my fork, deftly bringing it onto my plate. There's no doubt that she made a good choice; this was a very fine piece of beef.

All the desserts were between £3 and £4.50 and Suzanne chose the apple and plum tart while I had the Irish cheeses. An espresso for me and tea for Suzanne finished the meal. In a way I wish I hadn't heard so much about the Ballymore Inn - it's hard to separate experience from expectations. I liked it and I found the food competently prepared, but I didn't leave believing myself to have had a major gastronomic experience, although the Cos salad and the pan-fried vegetables came close. Our bill came to £67.90 which would be upper average for a restaurant, but expensive for a pub.