The general slow down in the economy has left a lot of people in the catering industry wondering exactly how next year is going to pan out. Costs have gone up far more than inflation in the past year, while consumer spending is a lot less frantic than it was. Scarcity of trained personnel has pushed up wages by some 30% and the foot and mouth crisis doubled the cost of meat. Restaurants are asorbing some of these costs, while the rest is passed on to us, the consumers. Certainly after ten years of boom and consumer spending, there's going to be some belt-tightening to come.

One can hope that this kind of market shake-up will leave us bereft of bad restaurants with only the good remaining, but my native pessimism in these matters leaves me unsure. The boom has been good to we consumers; it encouraged restaurateurs to take risks, to try new formulas and cuisines, and above all to do it all around the country. Many years ago I was involved in the export of cattle from Ireland to Italy and it involved travelling around much of the island. Outside of Dublin I found good restaurants in Cork, but apart from the odd isolated point of excellence, most of the country was a gastronomic desert. Brown Windsor hotels that smelt of boiled cabbage and serving overdone vegetables were the norm. The only criteria for judging a restaurant were whether or not it was capable of giving you a steak cooked the way you like it and whether the chips were good.

It's hard to remember those days as you look around the modern Ireland. The growing sense of self-confidence and the prosperity is reflected in the presence of good restaurants in most provincial towns. But what makes Ireland different from other countries is its capacity to take on other cuisines from around the world without prejudice. Most of the world's great cuisines are available to us in most regional centres, something you'd be hard put to find in other countries. All this came home to me as my wife and I sat in a Thai restaurant in Naas.

Lemongrass is just behind the main street of Naas; it's new, it's pretty to look at, and the food is very good. Luckily for Lemongrass it has a big car park right next to it, which is always a plus. The building in which it's situated is modern and is faced in a faux granite, which gives it something of a clasical look, even though there's lots of glass and stainless steel. Outside, a few continental-style café tables and chairs looked a little forlorn in a chilly wind. Inside it's warm and welcoming and it's been well-designed. The seating area has been split into two levels, so you don't get the feeling that you're in a huge soulless room. Lots of wood and very attractive lighting make you feel comfortable, even if like us, you're sitting at a table for two in the middle of the floor. A big window in the back wall allows you look into a shiny stainless steel kitchen where you can watch the inner workings.

Apart from the décor, which I liked a lot, the same attention to design can be found on the tables themselves; little glass vases hold sprouting twigs of lemongrass, there's good glassware, solid cutlery that isn't the usual gold-coloured bamboo design that you find in Thai restaurants and very attractive plates. The menus themselves come on a large sheet of what I think was rice paper, with a hand-made look. It's a big menu with a long listing of dishes, so many of which appealed appealed to Susie that she was having difficulty making up her mind as to what to choose.

The wine list is short enough, listing some thirty wines, but it's reasonably priced and there are plenty of wines in the sub-£20 category, and many at less than £15. However we both decided that this was a night for beer and there's a list of Asian beers to choose from, all around the £3 mark. Susie went native and had the Thai Singaha beer, while I chose an old favourite, the Indian Cobra beer. A bottle of mineral made up the rest of the drinks order.

To start Susie had chosen the chilli rice spring rolls, while I had the ordinary ones. They came served on large, almost square, white plates and with the rolls was a salad with a spicy chilli dressing and a twig of lemongrass cut to look like a little brush. The service in Lemongrass is friendly and very brisk, and before long the starter plates had been cleared and our main courses arrived. In front of Susie was a bowl of rice and a bowl of green chicken curry, while I was confronted with the Nasi Goring - a timbale of rice, chicken and vegetables with a fried egg crowning the dome. My dish was very good and very abundant, I managed about two thirds before defeat. What kept me nibbling even when hunger was no longer an issue was Susie's green curry. This was a real winner of a dish, the flavours perfectly combined and very well judged. 'The best I've ever eaten,' was Susie's simple comment. When she'd had enough, I took her plate and picked at it some more. I'm a convert to green curry now.

Despite our lack of hunger we forced a dessert upon ourselves, a ginger tartlet on a biscuit base, which we shared. Good enough, but it's hard to follow really interesting savoury flavours. We finished with a couple of espressos and a Cointreau for Susie and collected a bill for £56.10, very reasonable for such good food. Lemongrass is the sort of place that you can dip into for a quick snack or linger over a more elaborate meal. For me it's a formula that works well.