I can still remember the horror of it all; that ghastly moment that comes to us all when it's time to make your own living. Student days over, the hunt for accommodation and work that pays enough to keep body and soul together becomes the all-consuming goal. After the cosseting of a life at home, what can be worse than facing the cruel realities of the big, bad world? It was a nightmare for me, but these days the competition seems even more severe. These thoughts are prompted by my son, who's come back to Ireland after four years in Florence studying portraiture. An artist's lot is not an easy one, but I'm comforted by his boundless optimism.

It did occur to me, though, that sometimes it's as well to have choices. With that in mind I arranged a dinner for Rocco and me and my friend Miriam Thornton, who runs a recruitment agency. That probably sounds horribly calculating, but I can't think of anyone better equipped than Miriam to gently guide and subtly suggest. Still, like most best-laid plans, it didn't quite work out as I'd imagined. There wasn't a mention over dinner of work, jobs, recruitment, aptitude, goals or ambitions. Instead Miriam and Rocco explored the meaning of Art, Life, the Universe and Everything. Ah, well, I tried.

A few people recently have asked me if I'd tried the Ivy Court yet, to which the answer was no. However the idea got lodged and so finally I got around to it. It's on the Rathgar Road, so it's one of those suburban restaurants that caters mostly to the locals. It has a very pretty patio outside it with a gurgling fountain, which you can hear as you walk to the front door. Inside it has a open and airy feel; the walls are painted in a ochre colour and there are murals on them. I didn't get round to asking exactly who they represented, but to my eye they appeared to be paintings of mediaeval Dutch or Flemish peasants, of the kind you'd find in a painting by Breughel. As our table wasn't quite ready when we arrived, we were shown upstairs where we looked at the menu briefly before being brought downstairs again. Upstairs is also decorated with the same style murals, the see-saw eliciting murmurs of approval from Rocco.

The wine list has about fifty well-chosen wines, with plenty of them under €25. French wines dominate the list, which also includes wines from most of the wine-producing world. I don't often find a French wine I like at a price that I can afford, but on this list I found an excellent 1999 Crozes Hermitage from Chapoutier, called Les Meysonniers, at a reasonable €23.75. What's unusual about a Chapoutier label is that it's also imprinted in Braille, apparently an homage to a Chapoutier grande mere whose sight wasn't so good. My poor son now finds himself allergic to wine, but he was delighted to find that a good Italian beer - Peroni's Nastro Azzuro - was available.

The menu has real flair, although a pedant might enjoy spotting the typos, and some really interesting dishes were listed. The starters are mostly in the €6-€8 range and from them we chose a smoked duck salad, calamari in a tomato sauce and scallops in a pastry basket. It's surprising how often dishes that read wonderfully fail to live up to their promise, but here the starters were even better on the plate. Miriam's calamari were perfectly tender, the way they should be and often aren't and Rocco's smoked duck salad not only looked good, it was good. Slivers of smoked duck, like dark rashers, decorated the leaves in a very successful dish. My scallops - and there were plenty of them - came in a little pastry basket and had me enthusing as well.

So often I get excited by starters only to be disappointed by main courses, but not this time. Miriam had ordered the blackened sea-trout, Rocco had predictably chosen his fix of red meat in the shape of a sirloin steak, and I'd picked the veal scaloppini with a mushroom sauce. The sea-trout had that Cajun flavour and was cooked just right, Rocco's steak was big and tender and came with Cafe de Paris butter, while my escalopes of veal came in a well-judged and flavoured mushroom and cream sauce. You couldn't have had three happier diners by this stage; good wine, good food, good company and good conversation is a combination that's hard to beat. Only Miriam and I expressed a vague wish for dessert, so we chose the brown bread ice-cream to share between us. It was good, too, but I found the texture a little coarse.

Now this is the time when I enjoy the caffeine hit of a well-made espresso. While Rocco refrained and Miriam had a long Americano, I got a very good espresso. It went down easily and I just knew a second one would leave me feeling very happy indeed. 'Sorry,' said our waiter, 'the machine's been turned off.' I looked at my watch incredulously, 10.45 isn't late by my reckoning. Still, that was it. No more coffee for me. What I found strange, is that a little refusal like this went a long way to destroy the feeling of contentment that had been building up in me over the evening. I felt cross that such a simple request couldn't be met. Not for the first time in recent weeks I got the strong message that it was time to leave, and not for the first time it irked me. When you spend nearly €130 as we did here, and you're enjoying yourself, a sense that you should cut your evening short to accommodate the staff leaves a sour taste.