A long time ago I spent a couple of years involved with exporting cattle to Italy. It was more fun than you might suppose, and I got to know much of Ireland in those years. At the time I had a flash little Italian sports car, and when I got out of it in various far-flung marts wearing my Biba gold lame wellies, the various tanglers and dealers were entirely unsure as to how to treat me. Normally I ended up being treated as a friendly visitor from another galaxy, which meant the haggling got interesting at times - especially when they were able to tear their eyes away from my sparkling wellies. Although the roads were a great deal less crowded than they are now, they weren't as good as they are now. A drive to Waterford or the southern tip of Wexford was almost a major undertaking, it took plenty of time, even in my sports car. I was remembering all of this, because this week my wife and I set off for Kilmore Quay on the southern shores of County Wexford. What we discovered is that as our roads get better, Ireland is shrinking and a drive down south isn't the pain that it used to be.

Our destination was a sea-food restaurant called The Silver Fox, about which we'd heard good things from Susie's sister. We got to Kilmore about half-an-hour earlier than we expected to, so we had time to take a little wander down to the harbour and marina. It was a perfectly still evening, hardly a ripple marked the sea's surface. I was struck by how pretty this part of Wexford is; everything seems cared for, everything is neat. It was Susie who pointed out to me that if it only takes a couple of hours driving now to get to somewhere as pretty as this, perhaps we should do it more often. We wandered slowly up from the harbour to the Silver Fox, which was as full a restaurant as I've seen and we sat for a while in a waiting room until a table was ready for us in the annexe to the main dining room.

We were sitting in a high-ceilinged room painted in a restful ochre. It's not an elaborate décor, plain wooden tables and chairs are simply set, and unusually every table is set with a jug of iced water - something I'd like to see more often. A tray of good breads arrived with a few foil-wrapped pats of butter, along with the menu and wine list. Although the restaurant was very busy, the ladies who were serving were fast and attentive and we were never kept waiting, even for a moment. I started with the wine list, although Susie had already decided that beer was be her choice this night. In all there were thirty-four listed wines, France covered by its regions and then a representative few from New Zealand, Australia, Spain, Germany, and Italy. The house wines were very reasonably priced at £12, but with Susie drinking beer I was looking at the half-bottle listings from which I chose a South American Chardonnay at £6.50.

The menu is naturally heavily weighted towards fish, but if you were a committed carnivore there's plenty to choose from - chicken dishes, duckling, steaks and a curry as well as five vegetarian options, more than most restaurants offer. There were some specials on the night; pan-fried cockles and mussels on a salad, prawns with garlic and pepper, hake with shell-fish and pan-fried lemon sole. The menu itself is long; it begins with a page of sea-food starters in the £5-£7 range with dishes like smoked salmon, prawn cocktail, coquilles St Jacques, calamari with lemon mayonnaise, prawn vol-au-vent and hot buttered oysters. Main courses listed a long selection of different fish: black sole, turbot, brill, scallops, salmon, sole, scampi, goujons of monkfish, cod and a river and sea special. A menu like this is designed to send my wife into raptures - her idea of culinary heaven is fish followed by fish. I decided that being where we were I really had to follow suit, after all the scent of the sea was still in my nostrils, so Susie picked prawns to start followed by the sole special, while I picked the sardines to begin, and followed with the scampi.

Susie's starter looked wonderful; served on a big plate, the Dublin Bay prawns came with a garlic and chilli sauce. I had three large Portuguese sardines, firm-fleshed and quite strong-tasting, they reminded me of days spent long ago on the Portuguese coast. As we were finishing our starters the restaurant began to empty a little, which allowed us the hear the guitarist who had been playing at the far end from where we were sitting. I discovered his name was Gerald Lacey and he plays classical guitar beautifully. I even got hear two of my favourite pieces - Lagrima by Tarrega and Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez.

And so to the main courses; Susie was presented with a large white plate on which was her sole, buried underneath a plethora of shell-fish - mussels, shrimps and scallops. Even for sea-food fanatics it's possible to have too much of a good thing and she was unable to finish the dish. No harm, as I was there to help after I'd finished my scampi, which had come with a Tartare sauce. They were good, but not as good as the sole dish, which if I'm ever there again is what I'll have. Even with both of us tucking in we couldn't finish it, so the long list of home-made desserts remained untried by two completely sated people.

We finished our meal with a herbal tea for Susie and an espresso for me. We agreed that what you find in The Silver Fox is a homely and welcoming atmosphere; an easy and relaxed feeling; good food that's well-cooked, and prices that don't empty the wallet. No wonder it's so busy. My bill for £53.25 proves the point.