There's no doubt about it, there's nothing quite like recognition of your skills to put a strut in your step, a bounce in your heart and a song on your lips. There's a new magazine out there called 'Hospitality Ireland', which I'm told has just ranked Ireland's restaurant reviewers. I positively puffed with pride when I was told I was number three on the list. Imagine that, third best in Ireland. I'm not sure what criteria were used to arrive at this judgement, but history obviously plays a big part. Being a naturally curious person I wanted to know who was there in first and second place, and answer came back that top dog accolade went to my TV companion Tom Doorley and second place went to Louise East. Do you notice anything that these two have in common? No, no, don't guess, I'll tell you. Neither of them are writing restaurant reviews at the moment and haven't done so since last year. Which means that by default, I guess, I must get pole position. Heady stuff.

Obviously I'm not going to let that plaudit go to my head, I'll just concentrate on continuing to be the same humble and self-effacing reviewer that you've come to know. And so, on with the job. There are times when a kind of communal voice is raised about certain restaurants. In the space of a month I'll hear the name from loads of different people, all asking me have I been there yet. The new Indian restaurant in Glasthule is a case in point - since before Christmas my foodie friends have been talking it up. Sooner or later you have to succumb to pressure like this, so this week I went to Rasam.

My guest was Maeve Deeney, whose natural habitat is north of the border, but who's in Dublin doing a degree in Trinity College. As we pulled up in Glasthule we noticed that the façade of Rasam changes colours prettily as the outside lights run through the spectrum. The restaurant is on the first floor and it occupies the space that until recently was 'Duzy's'. Once you reach the dining room the first thing you notice is the décor. Clearly a lot of money has been spent on the refurbishment and it's been done in an elegant and understated way. Silver plays a big part: there are heavy tables in the bar area that are made of hand-chased silver filigree and in the dining room itself there's a huge silver elephant. Behind the table where we sat, intricately worked doors were a feature on the wall, carved from teak and laminated with thick silver. This rather ornate high Raj style is moderated by the quiet simplicity of the rest of the room, plain pastel walls, a simple but effective open fire and, incongruously, a room divider in a Greek key motif. I'm taking longer than usual to describe the interior because it's very much a plus point of Rasam.

The wine list immediately endeared the place to me. It's not particularly long, some thirty wines in all, but it's very reasonably marked up. Increasingly I'm finding that restaurants are using their wine list prices as way of gauging more money out of the consumer with mark-ups that verge on theft. Here you feel that the prices are fair. There were plenty of good wines to choose from in the €20-€30 range and I chose a sparkling South African from Graham Beck, priced at €26 and very good too. You can get a decent Chilean Chardonnay from Cono Sur for just €16 and big bottles of Badoit are €3.50.

The menu is long and, interestingly, gives the provenance for each dish, so most of India's regions are represented. The starters are priced between €5 and €8 and there are ten of them, with duck, lamb, beef, chicken and prawns in various combinations. Maeve and I were both drawn to the page of vegetable dishes, all priced at either €4 or €4.50, and eventually we chose our starters from here - a Gatta curry for Maeve and Bagare Baingan for me. Maeve's dish was described as gram flour dumplings and I have to admit that word 'dumpling' rarely evinces much enthusiasm in me. What she got were delicate little flour balls in a yoghurt gravy flavoured with coriander and anise. Really tasty. My dish was small aubergines cooked in a sauce of many ingredients, but peanut was the only one to stand out.

For our main courses we'd asked for advice from our waiter and he'd steered us to the section marked 'Thali'. There are two listed, one with meats and one for vegetarians, so we had one each. This turned out to be a good choice on several counts, firstly because each thali gives you a selection of five different dishes, and secondly because the presentation almost begs for a photograph. The thali is a monstrously heavy silver dish (it's that element again) which is a combined plate and holding bay for five very heavy silver bowls which contain the food. I've never eaten off a silver plate before and let me recommend it to you. It's a just a glimpse of what gracious living in the Raj must have been like. Anyway, apart from being beautiful to look at, the food was also very good. As is so often the case, this enormous argentine spread left us both too full for a dessert, so we ended with a coffee for me and a fresh ginger tea for Maeve.

So apart from having Maeve's delightful company and being very well fed, there was another big plus still to come. When I got the bill I had to read it carefully to be sure there was no mistake. €83.50, and it was right, even though that included on of the more expensive wines. Great value, good food and pretty surroundings make Rasam a winner.