It was the week leading up to Christmas. So apart from the seasonal stress-inducement factor of that time of year, it's also a time when every restaurant is filled to capacity and sometimes beyond. I'd managed to book probably the last table available in the Beaufield Mews, a restaurant I was last in with my parents at least twenty-five years ago, or possibly more. My memories of it were dim, but I remembered that you could also buy the table you were sitting at, since it was an antique shop as well. That much still seems to be the case.

My guest for this festive evening was Sally-Anne Robertson, an old friend from college days. We'd driven in from Delgany and because she hadn't yet seen the new St. Helen's Hotel, we went there for an aperitif before making our way to the Beaufield Mews. Our table was booked for half-past eight and we arrived at 8.25. We walked into a large and very busy building. There was a big, central bar which was flanked on two sides by a dining room. After a while we walked into the dining area and found a waitress. 'Hello, we've a booking for 8.30.' 'You'll have to talk to that lady there,' she said, pointing as she turned away. We went over to that lady there, who took us back to where we'd been and sat us at a small Victorian pod table. We looked around at what could have been a Berni Inn from the seventies. Matt-black faux beams, red drapes, bent iron lamps and Windsor chairs. A tuba and a euphonium hung from the ceiling, a few saddles were mounted on the walls. 'Why saddles?' I thought. Of course, it was a mews. A pig rode a tricycle on the far wall.

At 8.30 we were handed menus and a wine list. I started by looking down a very reasonably priced list with a much lower than average mark up. Good wines at modest prices. A Cote Rotie 1994 - a great Rhone Valley wine at £27 from Guigal, a good shipper - looked like value for money. A tenner or so more than I'd usually spend, but hey, Christmas was coming. I was looking at the rest of the list when the waiter returned. 'Are yez ready to order?' 'Not quite yet, thanks, I'm still looking at the wine list.' A few moments later a waitress brought us some brown bread.

When our waiter returned to us at 9 o'clock on the dot we were definitely ready to order. We'd eaten all the bread, had filled an ash tray, and were hungry. He was clearly rushed and was almost hopping from foot to foot in his urgency to take our order. Sally-Anne chose from the a la carte, crab claws to start and venison to follow - he turned to me. I don't like being rushed, especially after waiting thirty minutes to order my food. I took my time while he bobbed beside me. 'I think I'll have...umm,' my finger pointed vaguely around the starters, 'maybe I'll go for the... no, wait, I'll have the umm...' and so on. Eventually I picked fish cakes to start and roast loin of pork to follow from the table d'hote menu, which was priced at £20.25. I also ordered the Cote Rotie. At 9.10 our waiter paused briefly at the table to tell me he was warming my wine. The restaurant was filling fast. Sally-Anne and I talked and watched the ash tray fill. At 9.30 exactly SallyAnne was presented with nine tiny, pre-pubescent crab claws, and I was handed a fish cake (singular) sitting on shredded lettuce on a very small plate. All attempts at cutting into it left lettuce scattered around the plate. I discovered it was nearly cold. I caught a passing waitress and asked for a hot one. Still no wine forthcoming.

At 9.40 my fish cake (hot) arrived, and very shortly afterwards so did the wine. It was chambreed all right, marginally on the cool side of blood-heat, but then forty minutes in a warming oven will do that. As an aside, if you heat wine from cellar temperature too quickly and too much, you'll get tiny bubbles forming around the meniscus of the glass when you pour it. The taste is not improved either. I tasted the wine in my glass. 'All right? Will I pour? Temperature OK?' 'I think you've over-chambreed it.' He looked taken aback. 'Will I change it?' he asked. I thought about this. I'd waited an hour and a quarter for a glass of wine, did I really want to change it for one that was too cold? Better a bird in the hand.

I told him to pour. Worth noting that this particular act of service cost me 12.5 pc of the cost of the wine, or £3.37. By the time the main courses arrived we'd amassed quite a collection of mineral water bottles and empty glasses. I'd been idly stacking them at the edge of the table wondering if anyone would notice. Our plates were put in front of us and as the waiter was leaving I handed him the ashtray wordlessly. As it happens the main courses were perfectly nice - Sally-Anne's venison was rather good. But is that what I remember from this evening? What sticks out in the memory? Of course not. What I'll remember from this meal is the awful service. Slow, careless, perfunctory and at times almost aggressive. Those of you with long memories will know what I mean by the old CIE school of waiting - the one where the customer is a hindrance who needs a bit of bullying to keep him from answering back.

For dessert I ordered the home-made Christmas pudding with brandy butter, seeing the season that was in it. It was OK, but a little dull. We ordered two espressos, which arrived bizarrely in two ordinary coffee cups that were filled to the top. Espresso? Gimme a break. While we were sipping them, Sally-Anne's daughter Rebecca joined us for a drink. After about fifteen minutes she saw a waiter across the room and waved him over to order a drink. He came up to her and said 'Couldn't you find a passing waiter?' There are several answers to this question, and none of them are printable here. But this little exchange is a perfect example of what was making me cross.

My bill came to £77.90 onto which was added 12.5 pc service charge making a grand total of £87.64, to which I did not add a further tip. I'd guess that here the waiters get the service charge, which, being automatic, means they don't have to try to please. And do I resent paying the guts of a tenner in a service charge? You bet. I was mugged.