Okay, I didn't read the invitation properly. I just saw the words 'lunch at Number 10' and set off for Kevin Arundel's excellent restaurant called Number 10, Longfield. I got lucky, found a meter and stuffed it with coins, ran through the pouring rain and met Kevin in his entrance hall. He couldn't have been more welcoming - except that I was in the wrong place. I think I did the goldfish impression - the one where your mouth just opens and closes wordlessly for a moment or two. 'There is another Number 10,' he suggested helpfully, 'it's on the quays. Maybe that's where you should be.' And indeed after a couple of phone calls we found out that that was exactly where I was supposed to be. Number 10 Ormonde Quay, to be precise.

Number 10 Ormonde Quay is an exquisitely restored early Georgian house that you can hire out for events. Beautiful furniture graces the rooms and the walls are hung with some very fine paintings, from the eighteenth century to the twentieth. This particular event, for which I was only just on time, was a lunch hosted by Tesco to show off their range of ready-made meals and foods which are sold under the name 'Finest'. Very nice the lunch was too, and some bits, the French onion soup for instance, was very good indeed. With food this good easily available at your nearest supermarket, it got me thinking about pre-prepared meals; who buys them, why they buy them, what dishes they buy and are they any good. And then it hit me. No major epiphany, just a little thought about social change. As I write, early next year is the proposed advent of a smoking prohibition. What, I wondered, will committed smokers do when they can no longer smoke in a restaurant? Not smoke at all is one answer, but another might be to make alternative arrangements. Like buy in the pre-prepared food and eat it at home in a miasma of blue smoke, where no one can tap you on the shoulder and say 'Oi, you, put that out!'

I had arranged to go to dinner with Susan Hunter, who being a Sutton girl, was keen that we go out somewhere on the north side, like Howth, for instance. As is so often the way of these things, her suggestion as to where we should go fitted in perfectly with my newly emergent thoughts on pre-prepared foods. 'There's a new place opened in Howth called 'Cibo' and they sell ready-to-go meals. My friend Helen Seymour has an apartment overlooking the harbour, so we could buy our dinner and eat it at her place with some decent wine.' Sounded good to me, so with weather warnings all over the radio promising 'severe storm force 11', we set off for Howth harbour. Naturally all the fishing boats were in, the rain seemed to be horizontal, the wind seemed set to remove a roof or two, and we ran into Cibo dripping wet.

Inside it's very purposeful: there's a big chill counter set up with all the food stuffs on display in containers that are designed to be put either into an oven or a microwave. As I studied the arrayed foods I got a glimpse of the small town reality of Howth village and its surroundings. 'Hello, Susan,' said the man behind the counter. She hadn't seen him for twenty years - not since schooldays - but they recognised each other at once. So while they reminisced I checked out the counter. Three beef dishes, three chicken dishes, three fish dishes and three vegetarian, six starters or side-orders, and six desserts. As a rough guide to prices, starters were €3.95, main courses €6.95 or €7.95 and puddings €3.95.

I went to work and picked out a chicken and mushroom risotto; monkfish with green beans and an anchovy and onion sauce; and a smoked haddock, sweet corn, pea and mashed potato pie. For starters I picked out some garlic bread, a crab and Gruyere tartlet, a goats' cheese tartlet with pesto and red peppers, and gratinated scallops with mustard and breadcrumbs. I let sweet-toothed Susan pick out the desserts: a chocolate biscuit cake, some chocolate nut squares, a lemon and mascarpone mousse and some tiramisu, just to be sure that we wouldn't go hungry. A bit over €50 spent, and there was enough here to feed a small army.

Thankfully Helen's apartment was close by, so in a moment we were happily ensconced, a glass of wine in hand and the food in the oven warming up. Twenty minutes later, as per instructions, we were tasting it. I have the results of the three-person jury in front of me now, and the voting went as follows: for the starters the winner was the Gruyere and crab meat tartlet, a really exceptional mix of flavours. Close behind came the goats' cheese tartlet, and after that the scallops. These last were a very generous portion that could have fed two. If I had a reservation at all, it was only that the tartlets had been baked blind and then filled, rather than baked along with the filling, but maybe that's the only way to keep the casings crisp.

The main courses were every bit as good, and once again the jury chose a unanimous winner - the haddock, corn, pea and potato pie. The chicken risotto came a close second with the monkfish a close third. It was nothing other than gluttony that kept me going after this. There were still four desserts to savour and here there was less unanimity. I really liked the lemon and mascarpone mousse, while the girls preferred the chocolatey things.

It seems to me that if you want a meal in a hurry or if you want to entertain people at home but don't feel like cooking, then a pre-prepared meal is the answer. By the way, 'Cibo' means 'food' in Italian and it's pronounced 'chee-bo'.