I've written about it occasionally and wondered about it a lot; why are there no medium-priced restaurants? There's no shortage of restaurants that are happy to take a hundred squids off you for supplying dinner for two, but where are the cheap eateries and bistros of the kind that are so easy to find on the continent? Nice to be able to report that I was introduced to one this week, so they do in fact exist.

I'd gone into Dublin to meet Chacha Seigne in the pleasing surroundings of the Clarence's Octagon Bar. She was keen to introduce me to a restaurant called 'Gruel', a word once used to describe a thin porridge of boiled meal, or poor man's food. Chacha is best known as a model, and you might well think that 'appetite' and 'model' go together as naturally as 'arse' and 'elbow', but Chacha is that <it> avis rara</it> who enjoys her food. Not for her the diffident pushing around of a lettuce leaf on a plate while nibbling on a whites-only omelette, no, what she likes best is peasant food. I don't need much convincing of the virtues of that, coming from a peasant culture myself, so after a drink or two we set off to eat - 'it stops taking orders at nine' said Chacha as we marched down Dame Street.

Gruel has a counter inside the door that caters to the take-away trade and there are tables set up at the rear of the shop. The décor might best be described as 'canteen chic', simple tables - each different from one another of the kind you might find in a charity auction - are surrounded by a variety of chairs, of the hard-bottomed wooden variety specifically, and the far wall is decorated by the simple device of posters advertising forthcoming events. It also has a rather unusual feature, a mosaic floor. A couple of large oils in the naif/modern school adorn one wall, and a Mondrian-inspired coloured glass thingy decorates the other. The tables come already set with a jug of water, which I like. 'Can we get wine here?' I asked our waitress. 'Yes indeed, red or white?' Red it was, and a few moments later a bottle of Italian red from the Veneto was on the table at €20. That's the choice, red or white, a bit like the music in The Blues Brothers truck stop- 'we play both kinds, country and western'.

The menu is on a large blackboard and it's titled 'Supper Menu'. This, I was discovering, is an eaterie entirely devoid of pretension. You don't really come here to dine, to sit around picking at food wanting to see and be seen, you come here to eat. It's a distinction worth pondering on, because as I looked down the blackboard it became clear this is food for the stomach, not for the eye. On this particular night there were no stews or casseroles, but they often do them. Wholesome, tasty and filling food that comes to you at an average of €10 a plateful. They don't do anything prissy like starters and main courses either, but we had the smoked cheese pancake stuffed with spinach, which we divided between us, as a starter. It came with a nicely dressed rocket salad and some small potatoes that had been sliced and lightly roasted.

It was coming clearer to me what Chacha meant about this being like good, home cooking. It's not fancy, not haute cuisine, but it's honest. And when you think about it, finding a reasonably priced meal in Dublin isn't easy if you exclude pasta, pizzas and burgers. If you want real food and don't want to spend huge amounts of money, there aren't that many options. Here's the list of what we had to choose from: Thai fish cakes with dips, a goats' cheese omelette, tagliatelle with salmon and dill, smoked Gubeen pancakes (which we had as starters), smoked haddock fish cake with a poached egg, pork chop with a turnip mash, a steak sandwich and lastly, bangers and mash. The cheapest was €7.50, the most expensive €12.50. See? All good home cooking at a price not far off what it would cost you to make yourself.

A traditional sort of girl, Chacha, she chose the bangers and mash while I picked the smoked haddock fish cake. Very good both dishes were too, I particularly liked the mash that came with the bangers. I've rarely had much luck with fish cakes, I've almost given up on ordering them, but something made me give them one last try. I'm glad I did. Probably the tastiest fish cake I've had in a while and a perfectly poached egg atop with a runny yolk, which I let dribble into the fish cake. Delicious. Some leaf spinach accompanied this rather well.

Both of these were pretty filling dishes and we did leave some behind, but there was reason for this. I needed a tiny bit of appetite to try a dessert and we settled on a chocolate cookie between us. Didn't finish that either but we did finish the meal with a coffee each. Gruel is casual and easy going and the service is pleasant and well-meaning but perhaps a little slow. We were there on a quiet night, but I'd guess that if it were busy you could end up with long waits. So there you have it, and I rather liked it. My original suspicion that people come here to eat, not to dine, was borne out when by ten o'clock we were the last remaining diners. Guilt drove us out by eleven to let everyone go home after paying our bill of €63.75.