We'd had one of those magical days at Punchestown Races; the sun had shone brightly, the company was excellent, and everyone had won some money on the horses. Everyone that is, except for me - but at least I had that vicarious thrill that comes from sitting in a hospitality suite with a bunch of smug winners. I consoled myself with the philanthropic thought that just like casinos, race-courses can only survive through people like me - people who leave more money behind them than they take away.

This was also the day that I'd finally taken out my father's old car, which has been sitting in a garage for the last twenty years. It's a big brute of a motorcar with a huge engine and it was such fun driving it over the Wicklow Gap to Punchestown that I was determined to drive it some more before the day was out. By the end of the last race four of us had decided to go to Dublin in it and eat in Ocean. We got there about nine o'clock in time to watch a glorious red sunset over Dublin's skyline. As locations go Ocean has to have one of the best in the city. It's on a corner of the Grand Canal Basin, which has gone though something of a metamorphosis in the past few years. When I lived around the corner from here, it was the opposite of smart. Now the whole area is gentrified, prettified and is a perfect example of urban chic.

There are tables and chairs outside on the quay overlooking the water and an as yet unoccupied marina, but even though there was still a glimmer of sunshine when we arrived, sadly it was too cool to sit outside. There's a bar in Ocean, which is somewhat larger than the restaurant part and it's modernist in decor - all brushed steel, pale wood and designer lighting epitomised by the phallic ceiling lights. The tables are low with comfortable sofas and upholstered chairs surrounding them, and the walls are nearly all glass so that you sit in comfort and enjoy the view. A long bar counter with stools dominates the right-hand side of the room. There's a lot of blue in the lighting, a light that may not flatter everyone over thirty - but if you're in a tiger-cub lair like this, the suspicion is that the majority of its customers never even think about flattering or unflattering lighting.

One of our party, Sonia Thornton, was delighted to find her sister Miriam and a friend sitting at the bar, so we became six for dinner. Before we went to eat we took one of the sofa-surrounded tables and ordered a bottle of wine. The list has thirty or so wines and is reasonably priced - we picked a Marques de Riscal at £16. I didn't have any as this was a night that I'd decided to have no alcohol, the responsibility of that brute of a car weighing heavily upon me, so I got a taste of what some of my teetotal friend experience as alcohol begins to affect the others in the company.

After a while we moved to the restaurant which is decorated in a similarly Spartan style - plain internal walls, glass exterior ones, a pale wooden floor and more designer lighting. The effect is quite austere, and although the room wasn't full the noise level was high. I'd already decided that I wouldn't eat a lot, since we'd enjoyed a full lunch, but the most important thing you need to know about Ocean is that it doesn't describe itself as a restaurant, but as a sea-food bar. Now that's an important point, since as you look down the menu you realise that it hasn't been designed for people with big appetites. It starts with oysters, native and Pacific, there are a couple of cocktails like shrimp and langoustine, and then a lot of salads. It's the sort of menu that women with a size eight figure would like, tasty little bites that you can graze on. Feeling as I did, that suited me just fine.

A request from three of the party for a sea-food platter, which was not on the menu, was met with a 'Certainly we can arrange that,' followed a few moments later with the information that it would cost £17.50. I chose a half dozen Pacific oysters at £6 to begin, since the native variety was off that night. Katy, who likes oysters, decided on 18 of them and nothing else, Declan had the langoustine cocktail, I picked a crab salad for a second dish and we also ordered a couple of portions of the only carbohydrate that we could find on the menu - chips with aioli. Before anything arrived we were each brought an amuse bouche of a demi-tasse of gazpacho, tasty and garlicky. There was good bread on the table and we settled into our meal and company with growing ease. Personally I didn't notice it, but a couple of the party thought the wait for the starters proper was longer than it needed to have been, and similarly the pause between the starters and the next course. I'd guess this perception of time is directly related to hunger: the larger the appetite the longer it seems until the food arrives. Normally I'd always prefer an Atlantic to a Pacific oyster, but these Pacifics were unusually big and fat and there was a lot of happy slurping of these juicy bivalves.

When the second courses arrived my suspicions were confirmed. All the dishes were perfectly presented on good crockery, each plate showing the signs of a great deal of careful preparation and each plate containing very dainty portions. Although I'd chosen crab salad for a second course it was still essentially a starter-sized dish. I began to understand that this is a menu and a cuisine that is designed more for a palate-pleasing snack than for providing a big meal for the hungry - it is, after all, a sea-food bar.

I can't imagine a nicer place to sit on a warm summer's evening with a platter of oysters and a bottle of cool white wine to keep them company. Outside on the quay you're facing West, so the setting sun over the city becomes the backdrop to the harbour's waters. In fact, never mind the oysters, this is a great place to sit and drink a bottle of wine.