McGrattan's in the Lane, 76, Fitzwilliam Lane, Dublin 2
Tel. 01 661 8808

Rickshaw Chinese Restaurant, Kill Lane, Deansgrange, Co. Dublin
Tel. 01 289 1331

It's been a busy week of dining, so I'm going to get straight down the restaurants. I hadn't seen my old pal Michael Colgan for a while, so a meal together was a chance to catch up on news. We met in the Shelbourne, where the hot news was that the Marriott Hotel chain was the new owner and that the Shelbourne name was thankfully to remain unchanged. A short walk from here took us to McGrattan's In The Lane, which occupies a space that I once knew as Zhivago's. For the young among you, Zhivago's was one of Dublin's first night clubs and I remember going there as a pale youth, dancing under the spinning lights in my flares. Ah, what I dash I cut, my shoulder length hair falling carelessly over the collar of my Afghan coat, my Day-Glo, tie-die T shirt shimmering in the ultra-violet lights - but I digress.

Inside you find a big space: a bar is the first thing you come to and leading off from here is a long 'L' shaped dining room, the high ceiling seemed to be exactly as I remembered it from those halcyon days. Although it's a big room, it's been divided up by wood and glass partitions, which give an effective screening and a sense of privacy. Although we had no reservation, we were instantly greeted and shown to a table and promptly handed menus and a wine list. What was consistent throughout our evening here was the professionalism of the service, always attentive and very courteous. This high quality of service coupled with large tables, good napery and fine glassware makes a good impression, but this was dented a little by the bread basket, which apart from some fresh rolls contained sliced brown bread in a sealed plastic wrapper and butter pats wrapped in foil. This would have been more in keeping with lunch-time diner than in a restaurant with aspirations to fine dining. Still, a small point, so on to the menu. It's fairly strong on fish, which suited both Michael and myself, he professing to be far from hungry. In the end Michael decided on a main course only, the Dover sole, while I chose the sea-food chowder to start and the hake to follow.

You get to make a lot of choices here, Michael was offered his sole in a variety of ways and I was given the same choices for my hake, so he chose to have his sole a la meuniere and on the bone, while I had the hake simply pan-fried with a dash of lemon juice. With those choices made, the I turned to the wine list to find a white wine. I found a fairly pricey list, wines you might expect to see at €19 are listed at €29, so there's not much around the €20 mark. I picked out a Sardinian Aragosta, but sadly it was out of stock. Our waiter suggested a Pinot Grigio not yet listed, and it made an acceptable alternative.

Michael regaled me with words of wisdom as I ate my excellent chowder in solitary splendour, leaving me with these bons mots: 'always be nice to people on your way up - you're never going to see them again'. I digested the wisdom of this along with my chowder and our main courses arrived, when Michael's sole was expertly de-boned at the table leaving him with just white flesh. I liked both of our dishes, but for my taste the fish was rather more cooked than I'd have liked. I know that many people like fish cooked to the point that it flakes easily, but I do prefer it firmer than that. To accompany the fish we had a bowl of leaf spinach and a bowl of coddle.

A couple of friends joined us briefly before we moved on, so a we ordered a couple of glasses of house wine for them. A bill of €126.36 seemed a lot for what we'd had - one starter and two main courses came to €65.50 - the wine and coffees making up the difference, although that total did include a €14.06 service charge.

The next day I was in Dean's Grange to meet another Michael, this time Lowsley by name, in a Chinese restaurant called the Rickshaw. It's a pleasingly decorated room, bright and airy with simply upholstered chairs and wooden tables. Unusually for the daytime, I noticed the effective lighting. Obviously having eaten plenty the previous evening I wasn't driven by hunger, but between us we chose starters of skewered beef Satay for Michael and honeyed prawns for me. To follow we picked Szechwan prawns for Michael and salt and chilli squid for me, with egg-fried rice for both of us. Michael likes the German Bend in the River Riesling, so we had a bottle of that, which was listed at €17.

I've never had honeyed prawns before and they're exactly as described, crispy prawns with a honey glaze, which makes a really tasty dish. We did a little trading and I found Michael's Satay beef really good as well, the taste of peanut not overpowering as it can often be. Despite proclaiming my lack of appetite, I did almost single-handedly finish the basket of prawn crackers that sat on the table.

Michael got his main course of Szechwan prawns, large fat and juicy, while I managed to eat all of my salt squid, which had been perfectly cooked and was tender enough to cut with the edge of my fork. No doubt, when Chinese food is good, it's very good and I really enjoyed my meal here. This time the bill of €75.90, including the service charge, seemed like good value.