I've often been asked just how I set about choosing a restaurant to review. You could be forgiven for thinking that I take a pin and stick it into a Golden Pages listings, but actually there really are some criteria for the choices. Firstly I try as far as I can to spread myself geographically, and secondly I try not to review several restaurants of the same type within a short period. You might also think that I have a chauvinistic penchant for Italian restaurants, but if you check any restaurant listing you'll see that as an ethnic type there are more of them than of any other kind.

PR companies are very good at keeping me informed of when a new restaurant opens, but word of mouth is perhaps the best overall guide. Friends in Kildare have encouraged me to try some of their local restaurants and over the past few weeks I've tried to book into them without success. Perseverance eventually paid off and I booked a table for my wife and myself in Berney's Restaurant in Kilcullen. It's a drive over the mountains from where I live, but it was a dry evening and there were stars twinkling in the sky as we drove over the Wicklow Gap into Hollywood.

From here the road to Kilcullen takes you past the perfectly kept walls and hedges of some of Kildare's big studs, like Ardenode and Ragusa, where the road is lined with impressive mature beeches. In the past I've often stopped briefly in Brannockstown to admire the travelling chapel, which seems to live there. It's a chapel built onto a van complete with a steeple. The first time you see it you really do a doubletake. Unfortunately there was no sign of it - perhaps it was working its peripatetic way elsewhere around County Kildare.

We arrived in Kilcullen's Main Street and found Berney's easily. It's a large pub, brightly lit, and the restaurant takes up much of the ground floor. The entrance is through the pub which has a pleasant enough lounge. It was at around this time, as I thought of having a quick one in the bar, that I put my hand into my pocket and found no wallet. The wave of panic abated as I found a cheque book in my pocket and then came back again when I realised the cheque card was in my missing wallet. And I had only two cigarettes. 'Now what?' said Susie. 'We'll tell the truth,' I said, pushing open the plain, brown door marked restaurant.

We walked into a warm and cosy room with a fire blazing at the far end and were greeted at once by a charming and friendly lady. I wasted no time. 'Before we sit down I should tell you that I've come with a cheque book, but no cheque card.' She looked at me and said, 'I'm sure that'll be fine.' and showed us to our table. I must have an honest face, I decided.

The restaurant has large, linen covered tables that are well spaced; half-curtains on the windows that look out onto the pavement; a russet-peach pastel paint on the walls and some rather nice cutlery. As we looked at the menus and wine list we drank mineral water and ate some of the home-made breads on the table. The menu took me a little by surprise. Starters are all around the £6 mark and main courses run from just under £15 to £22. Desserts are £4.25. You could spend £30 a head here just for the food, no bother. That puts it very definitely in the upper echelons of price. Yet I was aware that I was sitting in a room off a provincial lounge bar. These two facts seemed slightly at odds with one another, but I decided to wait and see what the kitchen would provide.

Starters included things like soup, pate, scampi and melon, and main courses included rack of lamb, sirloin steak, fillet steak, salmon, black sole, chicken breasts and kingsize prawns. Good, honest-looking dishes, but not at the cutting edge of gastronomic experimentation. No harm in that; personally I'm a big fan of cuisine grand-mere so I had no difficulty in choosing pate with Cumberland sauce to start and veal in a Roquefort sauce to follow. Susie had decided that her appetite was slight this evening and therefore she chose tomato and avocado salad to start and then asked if she could have the scampi from the starters as a main course. 'No trouble at all,' said our charming waitress.

The wine list was exactly the kind of wine list that I like. Thirty or so reds and thirty or so whites ranging in price from just under £12 to £50, but 90 pc of the wines are under £20. The mark up is an average 100pc, and the very few wines over the £20 barrier are good value: a Chateau Giscours 1993 at just over £30 is a very good price. Because Susie was on fish and I was on veal, white seemed the obvious choice and there was one on the list that leapt out at me. Madfish Unoaked Chardonnay from Australia at £18.50. I know that the variants of Creuzfeld-Jacob disease are being found in kangaroos and domestic cats, but Madfish? The mind boggles. It arrived with an interesting label of aboriginal art that depicted what I think is The Great Turtle, whose egg made the world. It was a stunning wine, and I'll be looking out for it from now on.

The starters arrived and were very nicely presented on plates with a neo-artdeco design. Good, home-made pate for me and a simple salad for Susie. The main courses were also good: Susie's scampi being probably about as interesting as scampi can get, with a good tartare sauce, while my veal was really excellent. Thin slivers of veal in a perfectly made cream-reduction sauce flavoured with wonderful Roquefort - a very good dish. Small flats of vegetables and potato came with it.

We struggled with the idea of a dessert, me pressing for profiteroles as a shared pud, but Susie was having none. In the end she finished with a peppermint tea and I had what was described as an espresso which may be the most watery demi-tasse of coffee I've ever been given. Berney's gave us good, uncomplicated food and excellent, friendly service in a cosy room. By Dublin standards it's expensive for what you get, our bill came to £73.75 excluding service, but if you live in Kildare you can eat well here without a long drive, and that's got to be a plus.