Last week I was at party and conversation turned, as it often does in my company, to food. 'So what's your favourite restaurant, then?' I was asked, not for the first time. It's a question that always makes me pause, ponder and then hum and haw. I've got a favourite Italian restaurant, a favourite Japanese one, a favourite expensive one, a cheap and cheerful, a busy and noisy, a quiet and romantic, and so on down a long list of categories. But an overall favourite? Not really, it depends on my mood. So having started along this line of conversation, it followed on like this; what's your favourite kind of cooking? Italian? French? Thai? Frankly the answer's much the same; it depends on the mood. There are times when what I really, really want is a cheeseburger and chips. There are times when there's nothing on the planet that will please my palate except a perfectly cooked foie gras in a classy and chic French restaurant. Other times only a plate of pasta cooked by Roberto will do the trick.

I'm not unique in this, we all have our favourites in different categories and the great thing about a vibrant restaurant culture such as Ireland now has, is that you can always find a menu to fill the particular bill on the day - even comfort food. That's a category that you don't often think about, but it's a category none the less. Let me define it: comfort food is food that makes you feel comfortable. It varies from culture to culture, but in Ireland it's made up of dishes like steak and chips, fried onion rings, lamb chops, roast beef and a hearty stews. It takes a while for a new dish to get onto this list, but I'd suggest that deep-fried brie is probably there now. Mussels in garlic butter and Caesar salad are almost there too. And most of dishes can be found on the menu of 'Sayers', a restaurant that is definitely aimed at comfort foodies.

Oddly the name 'Sayers' didn't make my wife feel comfortable at all. As soon as we realised that the portrait over the fire was of Peig Sayers - the poet of the Blasket Isles that generations of schoolchildren have studied - she remembered the strain of it. 'Oh, God, all those poems about the driving rain on the Atlantic Coast. We wanted to be the flower children of the sixties, and Peig Sayers seemed a long way from what I meant by 'the West Coast culture.' We were sitting next to a log-effect gas fire that blazed away comfortingly. A semi-circular dividing wall of wood and glass separated us from the main dining room, which is approached by passing the table at which we were sat. It looks a little like the dining area of one of those dark wood and brass pubs: sturdy and comfortable chairs are placed around solid, wooden tables. All very familiar and, well, comforting.

The menus came along with a jug of iced water which was replaced each time we emptied it. Funny, few weeks ago I was whinging that you never got jugs of water without asking, now its happened three times in five weeks. It would be nice to believe that this is a pattern. The menu has all the comfort foods listed that I've mentioned and from it Susie picked a Caesar Salad to start and a sea-food crepe to follow and I chose the deep-fried Brie and then the pork schnitzel. Many of the starters are under £5 and there are main courses for under £10, which puts 'Sayers' very much in the affordable range. The wine list is also reasonably priced and long enough to satisfy most tastes, ranging from classic French wines to New World. With white meat for me and fish for Susie white wine seemed to be the right choice, so I chose the spicy Gewurztraminer from Alsace at £19.50.

The service throughout the meal was excellent and even though we weren't in the main body of the dining room, we were never overlooked. When the starters arrived Susie was looking a little dubious as she surveyed her Caesar salad, which didn't look like the classical dish much. But as she ate it she became converted, and in the end finished it all. My Brie was fine - cooked crisp enough to leave the cheese inside nicely runny - and it came with a small salad as garnish.

The main courses were simple but good. Susie's crepe was rolled around a lot of sea-food, both fish and shell-fish, and was nicely presented. My pork schnitzels, or Wiener schnitzels as they are more often known, were perhaps a little more cooked than I would have liked, but were none the less generous in size and tasty. Both of these dishes came with potatoes of choice and vegetables, which I wish was the norm. I'm getting increasingly cross with finding main courses hovering around the £17-£18 mark and then being asked to pay more for vegetables and potatoes. One thing is sure; if you come to 'Sayers' make sure you bring a big appetite with you.

Once again the size of the portions had left Susie unable to even contemplate a dessert, so I picked the hot nut sundae at £3.45, which sounded good. It was big, and came in a fluted coupe. The sight of it made Susie's appetite return and between us we finished it. They do a passable espresso here so that's how I ended the meal.

A bill for £55.15 is not a big one these days for dinner in Dublin. You can easily pay twice that and get food that's no better. Sayers isn't offering you haute cuisine, it's offering you simple, honest food at very reasonable prices. This could well account for the fact that even though we were there mid-week it was very busy. Good value seems to have a way of attracting people.