When I was a young man and offensively flash, there was a phrase, 'the circuit of Stephen's Green', which was something I remember that me and other flash gits thought was fun to do in our sports cars, especially late at night. The year pass and now, older and far more sensible, I've discovered a new meaning for the phrase. The varying twisting strands of kismet have found me eating on two different sides of the Green in recent weeks, the north and the east. When I found myself on the west side for dinner I began thinking about a gastronomic circuit of the Green. Perhaps there's scope here for designing the dining equivalent of the Tour de France - a kind of restaurantbased food crawl that takes you to good places all within easy walking distance of one another. It's a thought.

Perhaps celebrate isn't the right word, but it was the end of the tax year and I was meeting Marian Kenny for dinner. She dislikes being described as my tax advisor, but I can't think of a better description so it'll have to do. Her office is in Leeson Street, so the Shelbourne was an obvious place to meet. On my occasional forays into the Horseshoe Bar I've looked into the dining room and often wondered what a meal might be like in there, so this evening seemed to be a perfect opportunity to find out.

It's no exaggeration to say that Number 27, as it's now called, has to be one of Dublin's most elegant dining rooms. It's a beautifully proportioned room with high ceilings decorated with intricate plasterwork, three huge chandeliers, five large mirrors on the wall opposite the windows, and it has those pleasing dimensions that fit the human scale so well. Warm yellow walls, big, heavy, swagged blue curtains, a deep carpet, and tables so well spaced that even if you wanted to you'd never hear the conversation at another table.

As we were shown to ours Marian told me that she'd been there for lunch a few days earlier and that she had been the only woman in the room. We looked around and noticed that all the other tables that were already sitting were composed entirely of men. And as the evening went on, although two more women arrived, the proportion remained heavily weighted in favour of men. I mention this because it's unusual; nearly everywhere I go women outnumber men by at least two to one, but here it was the opposite. My best guess is that Number 27 is perceived primarily as a venue for business lunches and dinners, or maybe it just needs a corporate pocket.

I'd expect to find a heavily marked up wine list in a dining room of this level of grandeur, but looking through the extensive twenty-six page list I was struck by the modesty of the prices. You can drink a bottle of house wine for £13.50, which is the sort of price you can find in any mediocre bistro, and even the good wines are similarly pitched. Since Marian drinks no red wine we settled on a bottle of the fine South African Plaisir de Merle at £24, which really is one of the world's great wines. A bottle of mineral water completed the drinks order.

There is a set dinner menu at £28.50 and an a la carte to choose from. We decided that I would choose from the set dinner and Marian would choose from the menu. The a la carte starters were entirely seafood with the exception of a salad and were priced above and below £10. Since Marian is allergic to seafood this appeared to leave her with not a lot of choice, but the mushroom risotto from the set menu appealed to her and that's what she chose. It was then that we learned there was also a special, a warm pate de foie which was exactly what I needed, so I chose that. For main courses I chose a simple fillet of beef on the advice of our maitre, and Marian chose a vegetable lasagna. Before the starters arrived we had an amuse bouche of apricot wrapped in Parma ham with a cream cheese sauce. Very nice. When the starters arrived we swapped tastes and Marian was completely won over by the warm pate, so much so that I did the decent thing and handed her my plate while taking the risotto instead. The risotto was good - a timbale with Parmesan shavings on top, but there's no doubt she got the better part of the deal. Next came the soup, which only Marian had ordered, a vegetable soup that was full of interesting flavours, but none that we could specifically pin down. Our main courses came under silver domes and when they were whipped off in unison I was hit by the wonderful aroma of truffles. My fillet was on top of a bed of potato puree with chives protruding rather like a cat's whiskers. On top of that were two pieces of crispy bacon and a solitary sprout topped the lot. Surrounding it was the jus which was flavoured with truffle oil and was quite simply delicious. Marian's vegetable lasagna was filled with char-grilled vegetables and was very much to her liking although I didn't taste it as I couldn't bear to lose the taste of truffle from my palate.

By the time we were ready for desserts neither of us had much appetite left, but in the spirit of investigation we chose the strawberry parfait between us. This was one of those criminally good calorie bombs called a strawberry parfait, which we slowly demolished. Maurizio, our Italian waiter, then made me an excellent espresso which finished the meal beautifully.

When the bill came I quietly gulped. £122? My face must have given me away. 'Euros,' said Maurizio. I'd better get used to this in the coming couple of years. In punts the bill came to £96 including 15 pc service, which considering the room, the service, the food, plus a good bottle of wine, made it as close to good value for money as any meal can be for that price. I turned to Marian. 'What do you think?' I asked. 'I think your jacket's horrible,' she replied.