It was one of those days that men need to be strong for - I was planning to spend the evening with the three women who share my surname; my mother, my wife and my daughter. As any will tell you, this combination can make a formidable bloc. The occasion was my mother's eightieth birthday, which is the sort of milestone that you really need to celebrate. As it happens it was something of a red-letter day for my daughter as well, since she was trying her hand for the first time at modelling clothes. This meant that we were all in the Café Samsara in Dawson Street at midday for Lainey Keogh's fashion show in aid of the Mayur Foundation. I'll admit that going to fashion shows isn't very high on my list of 'things to do', but I really enjoyed it and it raised more money for the rebuilding of post-earthquake Morvi in India.

It seems that parading on catwalks is more tiring than I'd have imagined, because my daughter elected to sit on a sofa and watch TV rather than come to dinner with us. I'd been introduced the Brasserie Na Mara a few weeks earlier, when we celebrated a friend's birthday and I found myself delighted with the meal we'd eaten. Given that, and the fact that mother enjoys fish, it felt exactly the right place to be for the Big Event.

The building itself is of the neo-classical variety, stone-built, and rather attractive. Inside you find a nicely-proportioned room with a high ceiling divided into two main eating areas and a bar. The classical feeling continues with the table settings, which come with starched linen, good glassware, cutlery and accoutrements. The tables are well-spread so there's a sense of space even when the room is busy, as it was the night we were there. Even the menus and wine list are of good quality card and are presented well. It occurs to me that since the menu is one of the first things that you get in a restaurant, it's surprising more restaurants don't take more care with them. There's no doubt, first impressions can colour an evening.

There's both an a la carte and a table d'hote menu, the set dinner priced at £22.95. The set dinner gives you a good idea of the sort of dishes on offer; peppered tuna salad, marinated chicken and tomato and mozzarella tian as starters; Guinea fowl, plaice and sea-trout as main courses. Although the a la carte does lean heavily towards fish, there are choices here for carnivores as well, such as duck. Plenty of different fish to choose from; yellow-fin tuna, prawns, crab, smoked and fresh salmon, monkfish, swordfish and the special on the night, scallops. The starters are priced in the £5-£7 range, the main courses around the £15-£18 mark.

The wine list is long enough to find plenty of interest, lots of wines in the under £20 bracket and plenty more over that for those with fat wallets. After a lot of deliberation I eventually settled on an Italian Pinot Grigio called 'La Vis', which is one I haven't tasted before, priced at £15.95 and which turned out to be excellent. Two large bottles of Brasserie Na Mara's own-label mineral water completed the drinks - these last two pricey enough at £3.85 each, especially when you can add 12.5% service charge on top of that.

Mamma began with the tomato and mozzarella tian, nicely presented and made with a top-grade mozzarella. I can't say this often enough; if you do something as simple as this it'll only work if you use the best ingredients. This was as good a mozzarella as I've tasted in Ireland. Susie had chosen the Tiger prawns which, although simply presented, were cooked to perfection. I'd chosen the duck terrine as my starter and it arrived as a slice; the different meats - dark and light - marbled like a mosaic.

After three really good starters, if you're me, you start to worry. A pessimist when I dine, I'm always expecting inconsistency. I needn't have worried. Mamma had ordered the grilled plaice with which she was delighted, Susie had chosen the monkfish, and I'd gone for the Chef special of the night, which were scallops. There was a simple purity both in the presentation and in the subtlety of flavouring which showed a gifted hand in the kitchen. Despite its reputation as penance food, fish when properly cooked has to be the finest of nature's bounty. Each of our three plates were finished to the last - well almost, mother left a teaspoonful of mash behind. What I haven't yet told you is that the service throughout our meal had been excellent; attentive, prompt and informed. Add this to faultless food and you can see why I was beginning to get enthusiastic about Brasserie Na Mara.

It's possible, as Susie pointed out, that although these portions were exactly right for us, that a large and hungry man might have found them a little on the girly side. But then again, none of us had chosen a meat main course, and possibly they come with more calories on board. Even so, we were only up to two desserts between the three of us and it was no easy choice. Mango mousse, vanilla and white chocolate crunch, warm chocolate truffle with raspberry ice-cream, a chocolate fondant with hot sauce, various sorbets and strawberries and cream in puff pastry. We chose a vanilla crunch for mother and raspberry and basil sorbets for Susie. After I tasted the basil sorbet I could see what Susie had been enthusing about. Unusual and very good.

Two espressos finished this excellent meal. I had a lot riding on it; a mother's eightieth birthday is a major event and I wanted a fine meal to mark it. Brasserie na Mara did the job to perfection and a bill for £127.52 including two bottles of wine and a 12.5% service charge seemed reasonable for the ambience, the good service and the fine food.