It's yet another indication of how the restaurant business has mushroomed of late. Restaurants can now be found almost as easily outside the centre of of the city as once they were in the middle of it. Rodney's Bistro is a case in point. It's in Cabinteely village just of the main road, it's quite small and it serves good food.

I went there with Hannie Blake, who despite her surname, is a tall, elegant and aristocratic Dutch lady. Hannie came to Ireland pretty much at the same time as I did, so she's as much a native as I am now. Conversation with Hannie is full of surprises, but more of that later. This is not the first time I've tried to get a table in Rodney's, on two previous occasions it's been booked to capacity which made me all the more curious. They must be doing something right if they're that busy, I thought. When we arrived we were offered a choice of tables, one just inside the door, or another at the back of the restaurant which is the one Hannie opted for. The young waiting staff were polite, helpful and welcoming. From where we were sitting I couldn't see much of the restaurant other than the tables immediately beside us, but from what I did see it's a plain enough room with no instantly memorable features.

The menu comes in two parts, the part that you are handed and the part that's up on the wall on a blackboard. Starters are clustered around the £5 mark and include things like warm salad of grilled cajun chicken, warm goat's cheese in filo pastry, a rosti of fish cake and a tempura of calamari. Have you noticed how words like tempura are increasi ngly common on menus? I'm just wondering when I'm going to see 'tempura of cod with deep-fried julienne potatoes' in my local chipper. Anyway, main courses have a similar flavour: fillet of beef with caramelised onions, rack of lamb with roasted garlic, roast crispy duck and escalope of veal. They all include vegetables in the price which is rough ly between £13 and £15. We were so engrossed in conversation that it took me a while to notice that the blackboard of specials was right behind Hannie on the wall. It had a few additional dishes such as black pudding, terrine of smoked salmon, and roast monkfish with mustard seed sauce as a main course. Our choices eventually came to these: a mi xed leaf salad with bacon and parmesan to start and then crispy duck for Hannie, the tempura of calamari and lambs' kidneys for me.

The wine list is what you might expect in a bistro, it's not very long, there are wines from most countries - both New and Old World - and the bulk of it is priced at under £20. Hannie was in the mood for white wine so we chose the Omaka Springs Sauvignon Blanc from Australia priced at £15.95, which we both really liked.

While we waited for the starters we were presented with three good breads: fennel bread, Indian spicy bread and treacle bread. Bringing a selection of breads is something that's becoming increasingly common in restaurants and it's something that I like to see, since good bread is an integral part of a meal. The starters arrived and were just right . The salad was simple but well-dressed and my calamari were perfectly cooked in a crisp, dry batter and accompanied by a good salsa. When it came, Hannie was delighted with her crispy duck in an orange sauce and I enjoyed my lamb's kidneys cooked nicely pink. Although they're in season now, Hannie pronounced the duck farmed rather than wild and I 'll take her word for it, because for all her elegance and savoir faire Hannie is at heart a country girl. She lambs 600 ewes every year on the estate where she lives, she was once one of the best clay-pigeon shots in the country winning a bronze at the world championships in 1985, and can boast of having caught fourteen salmon this year alone. That's the kind of country cred that I can only aspire to.

To celebrate the fact that we were both going to eat desserts I chose a half bottle of Beaumes de Venise for our pudding wine. Hannie chose the Grand Marnier creme brulee and I had the nicely astringent lemon tart - both were served with ice-cream and both were good. We followed with coffees that didn't impress me overmuch, but then I'm fussy abou t that. The total bill, including a 10 pc sevice charge came to £77.40.

Despite the fact that I found myself in good company and the food had been good, two things took from my enjoyment of the evening. I've sat at some small tables in my time, but Rodney's had me at the smallest ever. It was so Lilliputian that each time something was brought to table everything else had to be re-arranged or stacked to make room. I c an accept tight spaces when I'm paying little money, but at the upper end of mid-range restaurant prices I'd expect a little more comfort. I'm aware that tables for two present more a problem for restaurants than fours or sixes, but when there isn't enough room for what's being served - let alone my own bits and pieces - then the table is clearly too small. This is the kind of discomfort that is easily avoidable and really ought to be addressed.

Lastly I have another gripe but it's not unique to Rodney's - I've come across it more often than I'd like and it's this: I believe you can either have a service charge added to the bill, or you can leave tipping to the customer's discretion. What you can't have is both. Once I've had service added to my bill I don't want to see a space left for gratuities on my credit card slip. It's a clumsy attempt to bully me into tipping twice and it irks. If you want to argue that doing this allows me to add something extra for exceptional service then I'd answer, what if I thought the service stank? Would they leave me a box to deduct from the service charge? I've heard all the arguments both pro and contra over the years but I'm still convinced that tipping ought to be left to the customer's discretion.