Even with something as mundane and pedestrian as writing restaurant reviews, there are times when you find yourself in a moral dilemma. Actually, when I think about it, it's surprising that this particular set of events hasn't happened before. So in something of a philosophical cast of mind, let me tell you about it. It all began with an email, a message from a good friend, who is also an excellent chef. 'There's a restaurant you should try in Wicklow town, it's great value, the food is wonderful, the service friendly and professional.' Granted the respect I have for this friend's cooking skills, what else could I do but go? Not only that, but armed with information like this, I decided to ask John and Isabella Boorman to come with my wife and I, since such good food near at hand was on offer.

And that's perhaps part of the story; when you set out with expectations high, the chances are the gods will ensure that no good will come of it. Maybe once a month I'll get an email from a reader that goes something like this: 'we went to the restaurant you recommended last week and had a vile meal. How do you explain that?' My answer tends to follow the same line; a good meal in a restaurant is composed of many variables and food is but one of them. And when I say variables, I mean just that. All the component parts, things like ambience, service, your own mood, the company, and of course the food - none of these are constants.

Probably the hardest thing to maintain in a restaurant is consistency. Service is an excellent example; how many times have you sat in a restaurant and had a really good waiter or waitress looking after you? I'll bet that when it does happens, you'll remember the meal as being a good one. And sometimes, then, you go back and find someone less able looking after your table. Things get forgotten, you feel neglected, resentment builds up and you say to yourself 'this place has really gone downhill.' Perceptions of a good meal, as I said, are composed of many different inputs.

So what has all this got to do with this week's review? Okay, to begin at the beginning. Just as it was described to me Pings is small, intimate and snug. There's good linen on the tables, comfortable chairs surrounding them and a warm welcome when you arrive. The menu is much as you'd expect; several pages beginning with set dinners offering a variety of combinations at varying prices, followed by the a la carte. The wine list is average in length, some thirty or so wines covering most countries and it has a moderate mark up. We were given a decent-sized table to sit at, prawn crackers came quickly, as did some mineral water and the bills of fare. These are exactly the sort of beginnings to an evening's dining that put me into a benign mood. Everyone in the restaurant is keen to do their best and please the customer, and me the customer is eager and expectant of pleasures to come.

The first thing we did was sort out our drinks. Isabella wanted to stay on water, John wanted Chinese tea, Susie wanted wine and I had my heart set on Tiger beer. A half bottle of Georges Duboeuf house white got Susie sorted, and we all had our drinks before us while still going through the menu. Both John and Isabella are fans of Chinese food, maybe Isabella slightly more so, as Sinology was one her majors. We eventually picked what we thought was a good spread across the menu, a taste of many of the kinds of dishes on offer.

When the starters arrived we were a little taken aback. The look of the plates was amateurish; undressed and coarsely chopped iceberg formed the backdrop to all of it. In itself that's no great hardship, but when you couple it with prawn wantons that were mostly pastry and still glistening with the cooking oil; pancake rolls that were covered in a batter thick enough to sole your shoe; soft-shell crab presented as an unadorned slice on the ubiquitous lettuce bed and an extremely salty wanton soup, we looked at each other in wonder. 'You're sure this is the place?' asked Isabella, who knows my memory isn't always reliable. 'Definitely, this is it.' No doubt, it was a puzzle, but the main courses were still to come, so judgement was suspended.

It turned out to be much the same story with the main courses. The stir-fried fish came encased in the same thick batter sitting atop stir-fried vegetables; the sweet and sour king prawns came in a red sauce that tasted oddly commercial, a vegetable chow mein that was fine, and lastly my choice of spicy squid - the only spice I could find being salt. I worked my way through every one of these dishes, determined to find the exquisite tastes I'd been told about. Even with this almost unhinged enthusiasm of desperation, eventually I agreed with my companions. What we had before us was not Chinese food as we understood it, it was some amalgam developed for Irish palates. Still, we were nothing if not determined. We ordered three desserts: two lychees and banana fritters. Nothing wrong with the lychees, they were as good as you can get from a tin, but the fritters came in batter so thick that my original pancake roll seemed positively delicate in comparison.

Is there a moral? If there is it might be this; inconsistency in restaurants is a constant. I'm as puzzled as my friend who recommended it. Possibly there's more than one chef and mid-week it's the less gifted. Who knows? But this much is true; Pings is not expensive. A bill for four of €108.20 is remarkable.