I've been wondering whether or not to tell you this, but I think I have to, even though it makes me look less than clever. A couple of months ago I set off for Sandycove to see my old pal Antonio Breschi playing in the Purty Kitchen Loft, but sadly got the night wrong, arriving a day too early. Well he was playing again this week, and in the Purty Loft too, so off I went to see him with my friend Alexis, my son Rocco and his friend Sam. We decided on a drink first downstairs, and there, just inside the door, was a big poster announcing the concert. We read it a couple of times, but there was no getting away from it. The concert was the next night. 'That's twice you've done this,' said Rocco, more in pity than in anger.

So there we were, four people in search of a concert, standing in the long room of the Purty Kitchen with no concert to go to. And I suppose it was around then, as my eyes scanned the room looking for inspiration, that they lit upon a sign listing the seafood specials of the day. 'Maybe all is not lost,' I said, 'if nothing else, we can at least eat here.' We found ourselves a table and within moments a friendly waitress had brought us a menu, which is a longer one than you'd expect for bar food. There's plenty of choices, from finger food, to snacks, to sandwiches, to full main courses. In the end only Rocco and I had two courses - calamari followed by fish and chips for him and prawn cocktail followed by a seafood quiche for me. Sam and Alexis chose just one dish each, tortellini for Sam and Thai chicken for Alexis.

If you're like me, you'll harbour a vague suspicion that food served in pubs is rarely up to restaurant quality. That's partly because it's cheaper of course, but partly because it tends to be a secondary thing in a pub. The food is often just an adjunct, something that is designed to fill your belly quickly so you can stay on the premises and go on drinking. But then, that's what makes life such fun - you can get surprised. Rocco got a large white plate covered in calamari rings. They were perfectly cooked because they were tender. Cook squid properly and you don't need your teeth - overcook it and it becomes really chewy, like an inner tube. We really liked these ones. Now in front of me was not quite the traditional prawn cocktail with tiny prawns served in a Martini glass on a bed of lettuce, but jumbo prawns in a pink mayonnaise with the salad to the side. These prawns had their little tail bits still on, great when you're picking up grilled prawns, but a little messy when they're covered in mayo. I was thinking about the old days when the prawn salad came on the bed of shredded lettuce when I remembered what we used to say back then, you'd tell the waiter 'I'll have the prawn cocktail, but I'm allergic to lettuce.' This ensured that they couldn't bring you just a few shrimps on top of a glass full of lettuce, it would have looked altogether too mean.

Anyway, our main courses arrived and they were every bit as good as the starters. Alexis had the Thai chicken, nicely presented with a splay of spring onion on top flavoured with lemon grass and a mild chilli. I'm usually shy of chicken breasts, I find that frequently they verge on the bland, but cooked like this they were very good. The really surprising dish was Sam's tortellini, which came with pieces of potatoes. Now I'm nothing if not a traditionalist when it comes to things Italian and the sight of potatoes coupled with tortellini cut to the very core of my sense of culinary values. Potatoes with pasta? That's like serving rice with pasta, I mean you take your carbohydrates one at a time, not all together. Sam maintained that none the less his dish was tasty, and with some reluctance I decided to give it a try. To my amazement he was right, the dish actually worked rather well. I'm not sure that I'll adopt it into my pantheon of pasta dishes, but still it was a revelation to find that my prejudices could be overturned.

Rocco had picked the simply named fish 'n' chips, but again on his plate something rather more sophisticated arrived. Crisp goujons of cod were laid artistically over a bed of golden chips, turning a plain and pedestrian dish into something more like a cook's artistry. I'd picked a simple seafood quiche, but what I got was a beautifully light and fluffy quiche, delicately flavoured with pieces of seafood and with just a hint of spices in the background. Really excellent.

With the meal we'd been drinking beer, but we'd been paying for them as we got them from the counter so they didn't show up on the bill. The food for the four of us came to €59.10, which I thought was really good value. And before you ask, yes, I went back the next night with the same group to see Antonio play. But a word of caution, I'd been so pleased with my quiche that I ordered it again the next night. You wouldn't have believed the two dishes had come from the same kitchen. The second time it was flat and tasteless and the pastry seemed to have been re-heated more than once. Just goes to show what I'm always saying - I could have a fabulous meal one night and you could have a less than brilliant one in the same restaurant the next night.