What have the Russians ever done for us? Apart from space exploration, endless chess champions, women weight-lifters of indeterminate gender, athletes and gymnasts, the winter palace in St. Petersberg, Faberge, enough great novels to fill a large bookcase, St Basil's cathedral, Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky, an indecipherable alphabet and iconic art, what, I asked myself, have the Russians ever done for us? Oh, yes, they gave us practical Marxism. And caviar. And vodka. You think about these things as you walk towards what I think is Dublin's only Russian restaurant, the Tsar Ivan, which is at the rear of the Westbury Hotel.

I was taking Isabel Smith to dinner, and one of her pet likes in this world is Russian vodka, so going to a Russian restaurant seemed like a perfect compliment. The restaurant is on the ground floor and was once, I think, an Indian restaurant. The décor has the sort of feel that you get when invention is in greater supply than cash. It looks for all the world like a hotel dining room - it's got those big upholstered dining chairs that hotels seem so to admire, but there's a Russian influence here. On just about every ledge there are little Russian dolls in varying sizes, dressed in traditional costume. Actually, as it turns out, these costumes are pretty much what the waitresses wear, and as far as I could tell they were all genuine Russians, as were the waiters.

All this is most encouraging when you hope to embark upon a Russian culinary adventure. The menu, pleasingly for Isabel, began with a page of vodkas. These Nostoykas turned out to be fruit-flavoured vodkas, which was not what Isabel had in mind. However, pure, unadulterated Stolichnaya was available, and that hit the spot. On the promise that she would help me with the wine, I looked through one of the most reasonably priced wine lists I've seen in this city. Four pages of listings, almost all under £20, and plenty of good wines with a modest mark-up. £17 for a bottle of Bankside Shiraz was good value, so we had a bottle of that.

With that choice made, it was back to the menu. It's quite jokey in it's way: it's priced in roubles, and there's a note at the bottom of the page that explains that here in the restaurant the exchange rate is one rouble for one Irish punt. That makes calculating the bill a whole deal easier, but I suspect you'd get a better rate than that from any street trader in Moscow when you're paying in hard currency. The first page of the menu proper explains that we're in the fourth department of the Kremlin canteen, approved by the General Secretary of the communist party, so that should assuage any remaining Leninist leanings you might have. The starters are all less than £3.50 and main courses can be had from £8 upwards, so by Dublin standards it's not expensive.

Now if, like me, you have pre-conceptions of what Russian food is about - you know, that it's wholesome, filling and honest, then the Tsar Ivan won't change your mind-set. Isabel and I decided not to choose anything from the menu that didn't have a specifically Russian connotation. On that basis we started with Siberian pelsemi for Isobel and blinis for me. The pelsemi were dumplings, ten of them, that came poached in a broth. 'Exactly the sort of thing you'd want at the end of the day, if you'd been trekking through the Urals,' mused Isobel. Nothing subtle about these dumplings. Strongly flavoured and dense, you just knew they were designed to combat Siberian winters by supplying you with enough carbohydrate and protein to survive a night or two of minus 50 Celsius. I'd picked blinis because I like them. They're pancakes essentially, and traditionally they come with caviar and sour cream. Now at £4.95 you wouldn't expect to get Caspian Beluga or Sevruga, and what's more you don't - but I did expect my blinis to be made with a yeast base. What I got was the classic pancake of pancake Tuesday, not with sugar and lemon however, but with a red roe. Pleasant enough, but not my idea of a blini.

For the main course Isabel had picked the cabbage rolls, which were cabbage leaves rolled and stuffed, on the same principle as Greek dolmados. I'd chosen the Tzyplenok, which was a small chicken, like a poulet de Bresse, which was served flattened out. I'd been offered a choice of chips or new potatoes, and I chosen the new potatoes. There were enough on my plate to feed a small army, and Isabel's cabbage rolls, although not so immediately forbidding, were as filling as her dumplings. Actually, they didn't taste very different from them either, I suspect the filling was much the same. I wouldn't describe either of these dishes as haute cuisine, but they were tasty and filling.

You'd need a big appetite to get through three courses here, but I'm nothing if not a trier. Despite these Gargantuan dishes we looked at the dessert menu. It's one of those that has the pictures of the various desserts - the kind that you find in Indian and Chinese restaurants. Nothing very Russian about any of these bought-in desserts, but the pictures were very tempting none the less, so tempting that I couldn't resist ordering the chocolate coupe. It arrived just like the one in the photo, in a fluted glass, and between us we slowly nearly finished it.

You won't find an elaborate cuisine in the Tsar Ivan - honest and simple are the epithets that spring to mind - but you will find generous portions, efficient and friendly service, and good value both on the menu and on the wine list. We finished up with a couple of coffees and the bill came to £62.95.