I'd spent the first half of the week in London, and so hadn't seen my wife for a few days. Because I was coming from Dublin and she was in Wicklow, we arranged to meet in Greystones which seemed like a good half-way house. Several friends had suggested that we try the Royal Park, a Chinese restaurant in Greystones' main street, so it all fitted together nicely.

I've mentioned it before, but it does no harm to say it again. Even allowing for sterling differentials, eating out in London is significantly cheaper than Dublin. A few days earlier I'd eaten in a Thai restaurant on the Uxbridge Road in Shepherd's Bush which was really excellent. Three starters, two main courses, two desserts, coffee and a bottle of wine came to £34. If you were handed a bill that size in Ireland you could be forgiven for thinking there'd been a mistake. Perhaps one day someone will enlighten me as to why this should be the case, but until that happens I'll persist with my belief that it's simply a question of what the market will bear. The fact is we're used to paying upwards of sixty pounds for a dinner for two and just accept it.

Anyway, now that my whinge is out of the way, Susie and I met up in the Royal Park. It's a large, spacious room on the first floor of a new building and it overlooks the main street. Although the dining room is large it's been welldivided with free-standing wooden partitions so that no table is without a partition or a wall on at least one side. There's polished brass and ebonised wood, which is not unusual in Chinese restaurants, comfortable chairs and big, roomy tables. There's a definite sensation of space, which is enhanced by the fact that the tables are placed quite far apart. The tables are set with good, heavy cutlery and linen.

We ordered a bottle of mineral water and began looking through the bills of fare. I chose the Wolf Blass Chardonnay, a fruity Australian varietal which can hold its own with spicy food. Before these Australian wines were on the market, the only choice in these conditions was a Gewurtztraminer, but thankfully our options are now more varied. The menu is a long one divided into starters and then main courses by content: beef, seafood, duck, chicken, chop suey, curry, chow mein and rice dishes. And when you've worked your way through that lot there's Chef Specials as well. The starters are all between £3 and £5 and include all the dishes you'd expect; spring rolls, barbecued spare ribs, prawn toast and satay dishes. Main course are priced between £9 and £11 and there's at least ten in each section so it took us a while to make a decision. In the end Susie chose a Satay Special, which is a mixture of prawn, chicken and beef, and I chose the salt squid. Susie followed with king prawns with ginger and spring onions. Our waitress suggested that I might enjoy the beef fillet with black pepper sauce and I was happy to take her suggestion.

I've always found service in Chinese restaurants to be efficient but slightly cool - something that is noticeably out of the ordinary in Ireland, where over-familiarity is perhaps more common. What was striking about the service in the Royal Park was its charm, from all three of the waiting staff who served us. Helpful, prompt and attentive combined with pleasant smiles. If only that was the norm in every restaurant. It was the kind of service that can normally only be found in restaurants that cost a lot more than this one.

Our starters came and we wasted no time swapping mouthfuls. Susie's Satay was very good, and my squid was well-made, cooked just right and it was salty, just as its name implied. I rather liked it - I can't think of any other dish I've eaten that has made a virtue of saltiness; it's more likely to be considered a fault in European cooking. It was well-judged - salty to the palate, but not so much that I had to spend the evening drinking water in vast quantities. And all the while our water glasses were kept topped up, our wine glasses replenished and ashtrays changed.

Main courses came with that spectacular sizzle that Chinese restaurants are so fond of. Superheated iron platters arrived and were placed on the table heaters making an impression with their decibel output. I don't know if it makes any difference to the flavour of the food, but it sure makes a dramatic entrance. I wondered if this might be the Chinese equivalent to Crepes Suzette, that once omni-present dish that needed to be flambeed at the table. Obviously it would have tasted just the same had it been prepared in the kitchen, but somehow the added theatricality made the dish a popular one. We'd ordered egg-fried rice to accompany our main courses and we helped ourselves to some of each of them. Susie's prawns were big and fresh and my beef, which came in little strips on a bed of stir-fried vegetables, was good. I found myself relaxing and enjoying the meal, which is, after all, what's supposed to happen when you go to a restaurant.

By the time we'd finished the bulk of the food on the table Susie wasn't up to a dessert, but I was. The dessert menus are great, there's a picture of each of the desserts so you can see what you're going to get. What is almost certainly the case though, is that these are not produced in-house but are bought in. No harm in that, because they're priced very reasonably at £3. There was a lovely photo of a tartufo nero (not a black truffle but an ice-cream) which made me think of Italy. It's probably one of the commonest ice-creams in Italian bars and the one I nearly always pick. What I got was nice enough, but it wasn't the one in the picture. Pity.

Our bill came to £55.70 which included a 10pc service charge. As I said earlier on, these days that's towards the lower end of the price scale, so with the impeccable service, good quality settings and a pleasant room, it felt like good value. To be honest I've always thought there's something formulaic about many Chinese restaurants, but this was a meal that I enjoyed - and I was able to park right outside the door.