The Irish country house is a culture in itself. It's a sociological icon that probably started with Somerville and Ross - who, apart from the Irish RM, also wrote The Big House of Inver, further exploring the genre. Molly Keane popularised it again this century with books like Good Behaviour, so there's a literary corpus of stories and legends associated with them. The Big House is more likely these days to be owned by a software millionaire than by a scion of an ascendancy family, but the ethos of the Big House lives on in odd pockets and wherever it does I'm happy to be there. A couple of days before I went to review Kingswood House I was in a Big House in the depths of Wicklow at a dinner party that encapsulated what I understand this Irish phenomenon to be about. Just after our meal had ended we were introduced to a beautiful, fluffy, silky bantam hen called Frances, who strutted her stuff on the table. Shortly after her appearance our host introduced us to his horse. Not in the stable, you understand - in the dining room. It's the stuff of legend and another brick in the structure that makes the Irish country house a way of life.

If I have an image in my mind it's this; a long, gravelled drive, possibly beech-lined, leading to the house. Five or seven bayed, it should ideally have an air of decrepitude about it, a sense that not only is the rendering in need of attention and the windows draught-proofing, but also that the heating and plumbing should be centred somewhere in the mid-nineteenth century for its technology. Flushing loos just about scrape in. One warm room where the party gathers and endless freezing corridors with interesting little rooms leading off them, like gun rooms and boot rooms. These should be filled with ancient fishing rods and reels, waxed jackets that have lost all their newness to brambles and furze, wellies with patches to keep out the leaks, old leather riding boots and a selection of vaguely amusing huntin' and shootin' prints. Good furniture with tatty coverings patterned with dog-hairs should fill the public rooms, bedrooms should be the temperature of a supermarket chill-display and the only bathroom should be down a flight of stone steps miles from anywhere. All over Ireland people who had houses like this turned them into Country House Hotels, where for the price of having strangers in your home, you can have a roof that doesn't leak, real plumbing, centrally heated warmth and the opportunity to keep the house.

Armed with these prejudices and pre-conceptions I set off to meet Marian Kenny who had agreed to accompany me to dinner. 'Where are we going?' she asked. 'Clondalkin,' I replied. 'Why so far?' she asked. 'Because that's where Kingswood House is.' Marian is something of a whizz at tax consultancy and our dinner was intended to show her what a whizz I am at picking restaurants. I'd wanted to find somewhere good, somewhere smart, and somewhere outside the city centre where I could avoid the ever-increasing Christmas traffic. From all that I'd heard, Kingswood House fitted that bill. It's just beyond Newland's Cross on the Naas Road and must have been the big estate that gave its name to the Kingswood housing developments all around it.

Because it's now surrounded with houses and industrial estates it has lost most of its land, which means that after you've parked at the back of the house you never get a view of the facade. We walked in through a small glass-house which serves as a sort of porch where we were met and shown to our table - a small, round linen-covered table set at a doorway between two dining rooms. It was Marian who voiced something that I was only dimly aware of; namely that it has the feel of a busy hotel dining room rather than a country house. Thinking about it now, I put that down to not having an owner anywhere in evidence, something that personalises an evening and gives you the feeling of being in a house rather than in a busy commercial enterprise.

There is only a set dinner menu which is priced at £26.95 plus 12.5% service charge. It comprises two soups, starters, main courses, puddings, coffee and petits fours. There was nothing remarkable listed - main courses include things like sirloin steak, crispy duck, Irish stew and rack of lamb - all good, solid, reliable dishes. This is a menu designed for consistency, not brilliance: I'd be prepared to bet that no one has had a bad meal here. But I was left with a feeling that what I was looking at was an upmarket Cooper's, where very large numbers of people were being fed well-prepared but standardised food. There are several dining rooms here on two floors and it was a busy Friday night, which could account for why the service was not so much attentive as very brisk.

The wine list is very reasonably priced and is similar to the menu in that it contains plenty of solid, reliable wines. As Marian drinks no red I chose the Louis Latour Macon Lugny, priced very fairly at £17.50. A litre jug of mineral water completed the drinks. Neither of us had soup, so Marian started with the Clonakilty black pudding and I had the fish cakes, both of which were good. To follow, Marian had chosen the Irish stew and I had the rack of lamb, and again, both of these dishes were good, but somehow a little dull. Perhaps that's the result of how the menu is designed - as I said, more for consistency than flair. Looking around us it was clear that business is done here, and for business meals consistency is more important than possible brilliance or possible disaster.

We followed with a chocolatey pudding between us and I had a weak coffee, espresso not being available. If I've sounded less than enthusiastic it's because we were in the wrong place for what we wanted. This isn't a restaurant for a quiet meal for two, and the fact that by eleven o'clock it had largely emptied makes the point. It's not a place that encourages lingering, because it engenders a feeling of busy rush. I can see why it should be so successful, it's found itself a niche both in a culinary and in a geographical sense and what it does it does well. The bill came to £85.35, which included the service charge.