You may wonder how it is that I rarely write reviews where the vitriol drips metaphorically off my pen. I like to think that it's all down to careful preparation, gathering intelligence, assimilating facts, reading reviews and surfing the net before choosing a restaurant to dine in. That's the road to avoid disappointment. Oh, yes, that and luck. You see, although it's easier to write a review that bristles with anger, a wounded palate and little self-righteousness, I'd much rather get a good meal in the first place, and that's where luck can come into the equation to help me avoid the bad meals. I remember someone once asked Napoleon what characteristic he most wanted in his generals. 'I want them to be lucky,' was the emperor's considered reply. Luck will get you through some pretty rough situations at times, and do it better even than skill or preparation. But there are times when despite the efforts of men and mice, the luck runs out and the best-laid plans gang agly.

You can't say it often enough. This is becoming a very expensive country to dine out in. There's a lot of reasons for this and I won't delve into them here and now, but for me the bottom line is this: when I get charged over €100 for dinner for two that includes a medium to low-priced bottle of wine, I think I have a right to expect good food, good service and pleasant surrounding. Once the bill goes into three figures you should be able to assume that you're in the hands of professionals - that's part of what you're paying for. Of course, you should expect exactly the same when the bill is under a €100, but you can balance your critical faculties against how little you pay. In other words if I'm paying €60 instead of €100 I'll be more forgiving of faults.

My wife and I were in Wexford, a town where I've had some good meals over the years, but I wanted to try somewhere new. That's where the research comes in and where it can let you down - the place I most wanted to try was closed, so it was now down to luck again. Well, not quite. A dog-eared Bridgestone Guide was in my car and under Wexford we found Forde's entry - 'wise, flavourful cooking'. Sounded okay to me, although 'wise' seemed an odd epithet to apply to food.

Now here's a brief aside on 'catastrophe theory', which is an attempt to explain sudden transformations. Things don't always proceed in a predictable sequence; some events lead to huge changes, hence the 'catastrophe'. An example: take a bendy ruler and squeeze it between your palms until it deforms, either forming an upward arch or a downward arch. It's stable like this as long as you keep the pressure constant. Now ask someone else to push against the curve of the ruler. It will gradually deform into a sideways 'S' shape until suddenly - and that's the point - suddenly it will flip and form the opposite curve. That's the moment of catastrophe, a sudden flip from one state to the opposite one. It happens in restaurants too, little things going wrong slowly deform your mood until if there's enough pressure and enough events, your mood flips and suddenly everything displeases.

So to Fordes, which lives above a pub on Wexford's Crescent Quay. The stairs lead you up into a moodily lit room; downlighters in the ceiling, candles on the walls and oil-lamps on the tables which in combination produce a pleasing light, but not so great for reading the menu. The room is divided by partitions, the tables are reasonably well spaced, all seemed right with the world. The menu reads like a gastronome's fantasy - grated potato cakes with Parma ham and Parmesan, ravioli of chicken, a rustic salad of crumbed gravadlax, beignets of fresh crabmeat flavoured with ginger, fresh prawns in filo pastry, roulade of lemon sole, roast fillet of monkfish with a bacon and crab risotto, pan-fried lemon sole garnished with vine tomatoes and prawns, prawns, prawns, which was prawns done three ways. You notice, even in my shortened version, it has all the right-on, up to date, fusion words in there. Hints of Mediterranean warmth, French skill, Irish ingredients. It looked interesting enough to make me feel almost optimistic.

Crab fritters for Susie and deep-fried gravadlax for me were the starters. The best I can say about Susie's fritters is that they were unremarkable. But I'll tell you now why you don't see deep-fried gravadlax on other menus - it's not because it hasn't been tried, it's because it's been tasted and found wanting. There are two things wrong with this dish; one, oily fish like salmon shouldn't be deep-fried, and two, the dill weed that flavours gravadlax so strongly doesn't improve with the application of heat.

For main courses Susie had gone for the trio of prawns, while I'd allowed my inner glutton to choose the suckling pig. Nothing offensive about the prawns, they were as good as poor-grade ingredients could be, but my saddle of piglet suffered from not being cooked properly. The soft crackling slid over the undercooked fat beneath when I tried to cut it, I found myself imagining that it too had been deep-fried. Simple vegetables accompanied these two dishes, as well as puree potatoes deep-fried in filo pastry.

We had a couple of desserts; a chocolate bread pudding and a jasmine and lime parfait, both of which were good. Throughout the meal the two waitresses who served us were courteous but amateur, and that's management's fault for not ensuring proper training. Our bill came to €103.50 and didn't include service. I left a tip and we made for the door, where we found our own coats and where no one came near us to say thanks or goodnight. As we walked into the cool night air we mused that if that's the new Ireland - high-priced and mediocre - perhaps it's time to make a stand.