The plan was to have dinner with three women who share my surname; my mother, my wife and my daughter. It's a combination in most men's lives that's fairly formidable, but I was feeling up to it. The occasion was my mother's birthday, so we were out to celebrate. Pressure of study took my daughter out of the equation at the last moment, so in the end we were down to three.

We'd been to the Hugh Lane Gallery for the launch of Robert O'Byrne's biography of the great man, which left us close to eight o'clock and a little peckish. Somewhere nearby was clearly necessary. A while ago I'd been to the re-vamped Jameson Distillery in the Smithfield and I'd noticed a restaurant with the unlikely name of Kelly and Ping, which looked interesting. Once I'd ascertained that my mother was happy to eat Asian fusion we were on our way.

Smithfield is looking pretty good these days. You could argue that the loss of the horse market meant a loss of heritage, but at least it's been replaced with something imaginative. The tall street lights are truly impressive and all the renovations and building have been done with a sensitivity that's all too rare. My god, there's even places to park. We walked past the brick tower and followed the finger-posts for 'Duck Lane' and Kelly and Ping, walking past the smart new apartment blocks and finally a huge copper vat that dominates the little square in front of the restaurant.

Once inside there's a long bar counter with tables and chairs for those who come for a drink. We were greeted immediately and warmly and shown to our table further inside. The decor is definitely tinged with Japanese, but not quite as austerely minimalist. I was reminded of a cartoon I'd seen years ago which showed a Japanese couple sliding open their rice-paper door to be confronted with a room completely bare except for a small vase with a solitary flower in it. 'My God,' the woman is saying, 'for a moment I thought we'd been robbed and then I remembered we were Japanese.' The room we sat in had a clean, uncluttered look; good-sized tables with padded bench seats around the walls and handsome but hard wooden chairs elsewhere, wooden floors and interesting ceramics on display. Needless to say the seating was arranged so that I got the hard chair.

The menu is a bound affair and includes a wine list. It's a not a long list, but it's well-chosen and there's plenty to choose from in the under £20 range. The mark-up is average, and I chose a Macon Lugny for £18.50, since my guests wanted white wine. They don't sell big bottles of mineral water so I ordered three small ones, which came at £1.50 each.

Most of the starters are in the £5-7 pound range and main courses are in and around the £12-14 mark. The menu is long and there are some interesting dishes to choose from. Enough to keep us looking at the menu for quite a while - our waiter had to come back twice before our minds were made up. This he did with charm and grace, which turned out to be entirely in keeping with everyone else involved in serving the customers. I became aware of something unusual; there appeared to be no demarcation. Several times a waiter or waitress passing our table changed the ash-tray or removed empty bottles; it wasn't left to the waiter who took our order. What this means is that the level of service was far higher than you might have expected. Not only professional, but friendly as well. It's when you get service like this that you realise how careless it can be in other places.

All of which had the three of us in good moods when our starters arrived; a spicy duck wrap for mamma, crab claws for Susie and squid ring tempura for me. I watched mother carefully - she's a very fine cook and not easily impressed or pleased. She pronounced her duck to be delicious, and then gave up trying to use the chopsticks and so did I. Susie, being somewhat more deft, used hers and thoroughly enjoyed her crab - as much, I suspect, as I enjoyed the squid which was tender and nicely cooked.

The wine was getting lower in the bottle and another bottle would have been too much for us, so I gallantly left the wine to the ladies and ordered a Kirin beer for myself. After three good starters I begin to fret. So often the starters are the high-light of the meal, so when the main courses arrived I was apprehensive. A cod fillet special for mother, a mediem-hot prawn curry for Susie and a steak for me. Now I know that sounds unadventurous on my part, but it was described on the menu as char-grilled sirloin with Wasabi Hollandaise.

Some years ago in Ballymaloe I first tasted horse-radish mayonnaise; something very simple that tastes divine. The genius is in the thinking of it. Wasabi is that strong, green Japanese mustard and the idea of using it to flavour a Hollandaise tickled my fancy as an example of fusion. Although mother's cod fillets were excellent and Susie's prawn curry was equally good, nothing prepared me for the taste explosion of the Wasabi Hollandaise. It was quite simply remarkable and the fact that the meat was tender and cooked exactly as I like it - blue - was an added bonus. Both my mother and wife helped themselves shamelessly to my ever-decreasing piece of meat and agreed that it was a star dish. Perhaps we should use that New York phrase and call it a 'signature dish'. 'I'd come back just for that,' said Susie.

Once again we went to the menu to look at the dessert listings. A selection of fruit sorbets, mango and pear crumble, banana bread pudding, lemon grass tart and a chocolate and orange pudding all priced at less than £4 were on offer. All good-looking enough, but not enough to tempt us to more food. I was quite happy to keep the taste of my Wasabi Hollandaise on my palate.

I had an espresso to finish, possibly the best-made espresso I've had in a while, but unfortunately made with a rather indifferent coffee. A bill for £84.65 seemed very reasonable for the three of us and I'm looking forward to a return visit.