August had taken its toll on me. Too much wine, too much food and too much sun. I'm not looking for sympathy here, because I doubt I'd get any, but there we were back from Italy and in my case, a few kilos the heavier for it. Four days of driving across Italy, France and England with stops for more food left us back home without a lot of urge to eat. Still, duty called and it was time to get back on the road and find ourselves a restaurant to review. I needed a break from French or Italian food, but a sunny day left me hankering for something with a tinge of the continent, just for nostalgia's sake.

My wife and I had done the road from Wexford just a couple of days before, but in the other direction, on our way home. I'd discovered the delights of the Arklow by-pass, which has taken a lot of grief out of the journey, so when I got an email telling me about a restaurant in Wexford, I knew an hour and a bit would get us there. A pleasant drive south had us arriving in Ferrycarrig with still a bit of evening sun and I turned off the main road to follow the estuary into Wexford town. Ah, memories. The last time I drove this road I was young, had a white Italian sports car, and spent my days taking Italian cattle-buyers around the country. Fond memories of my old friend Guido Schiavi and me driving along this road flooded back.

Wexford is a pretty little town with narrow streets that are about as congested with cars as any town I've seen anywhere. Having made great time getting there we spent twenty minutes in heavy traffic doing the last half mile. Eventually we found the Mirabeau just off the harbour road next to the half-moon where Commodore Barry is commemorated. Talking of memories the name 'Mirabeau' comes with its own set. Sean Kinsella's Mirabeau in Sandycove was famous for excess - both in quantity of food and in price. Come to think of it, it was ahead of its time: that's precisely the sort of style that our booming economy seems to be encouraging. As we walked towards the restaurant I was hoping that the pricing policy didn't mirror the old Mirabeau.

Its a cosy room, the walls painted in a yellow ochre, cloth covered tables, curtained divisions between the tables making each one into a kind of booth with its own privacy, faux beams hanging from the ceiling into which small halogen spots had been set. This gave a kind and gentle light, which really ought to be a fixture in all restaurants. Comfortable chairs made me feel at home at once and we started with sparkling water, menus and a basket of bread which came with a spicy garlic butter. There is almost a page of specials, which included crab claws, roasted goat's cheese, diced veal in a mushroom sauce, sea-food terrine and Toulouse sausage. The menu proper is, not surprisingly, heavy on the sea-food, something that's dear to my wife's heart. The prices are very reasonable, the dearest starter is under £5 and there are some for under £3. Susie was looking at the sea-food main courses which included black sole and fillet of sole, while I was looking at the meats which included duck, beef and veal.

I turned to the wine list which is at the back of the menu. It's short, a page of whites and a page of reds, and it too is very reasonably priced - a bottle of the house red is a tenner. Only one white, a Gewurztraminer, was over twenty pounds, and the reds included a couple of decent wines but none of which took my fancy. In the end we decided on a white since we were moving towards a sea-food fest. A Verdicchio di Castelli di Jesi was the final choice. It arrived in a bottle reminiscent of a skittle, clearly decorated by a designer on whom the concept of restraint was lost. The wine inside the bottle turned out to be quite classy, which for under £14 is almost miraculous.

Between the starters and the specials there were so many sea-food choices that both Susie and I wanted, that we decided there was only one solution: we ordered three between us. A spicy chilli squid dish, a sea-food terrine and crab claws in a garlic sauce. Beautifully cooked and nicely presented, all three of these dishes vanished with a staggering rapidity, considering we'd both decided that food intake was now to be strictly limited.

For main courses Susie had ordered a sea-food platter with wild rice, while I'd asked about the 'egg mushrooms' which appeared a couple of times on the menu. It seems that this is another name for chanterelles, one of my favourite kinds of mushroom. The lady who was looking after us so well - who I later discovered ran the restaurant with her husband the chef - suggested that escalopes of veal with a sauce based on the chanterelles would be good, and I readily agreed. She was right, it was perfectly delicious. Susie's sea-food platter was a vast affair of all manner of fish and shell which all but had her defeated. When we'd finally cleared our plates there were still two dishes sitting forlornly on the table, a bowl of wild rice and my bowl of mixed vegetables. When our hostess came to clear away the plates she asked if we hadn't enjoyed what was left. 'Too full,' was my answer, but then feeling a little guilty for not eating my greens, I speared a mange-tout. I'm glad I did, there was an extraordinary mix of flavours in the vegetables and I ended up nearly finishing them all.

It was time for dessert and there was an enormous temptation to go straight to coffee, but sheer professionalism won out and we ordered a lemon and vodka sorbet between us. This was probably a mistake, as the sorbet was too icy for my taste and the vodka was in liquid form around the icy bits rather than incorporated into it. No great tragedy as we were well fed at this point and we moved to our coffees, a mock Irish for me and a decaff for Susie.

This was a good a meal in pleasant surroundings at a price far removed from some of Dublin's greedier hostelries. I liked the Mirabeau, and I liked the moonlit drive home.