One thing we've all noticed is that restaurant prices are remorselessly rising. I've argued elsewhere that that's not entirely the restaurateurs' fault; huge increases in insurances, government levies on employment, high wages, high VAT rates, expensive raw materials and ever-increasing excises on alcohol all combine to add to your bill. But it's also true that the general quality of food in restaurants is rising. Wherever I've been around the country the standards in restaurants are vastly higher than ever they were. I won't bore you with tales of meals encountered in previous decades, I'll just say that I'm glad that the days of over-boiled cabbage and flour-thickened ox-tail soup are gone the way of the dinosaurs into a deserved extinction.

That's not to say we don't have contemporary culinary clichés. Occasionally I'm tempted when a waiter asks me 'Would you like to see a menu?' to answer 'No. No thanks, don't give me a menu, let me guess instead. Give me whatever you've done to the goats' cheese, then whatever you've done with the duck and I'll finish with whatever you've done to the crème brulee.' My guess is that that would work in most restaurants.

Interested observers of restaurants and food fashions can enjoy watching how culinary styles move around the country. Often, but not always, new ideas about food, presentation and style begin in Dublin and then filter around the country by some sort of osmosis. You get high, Priapic food one day in Dublin, the next week you'll find it in the remotest regions of the island. This effect seems to apply to general standards as well - as they rise in the capital, they rise in the provinces, and I'm glad that they do.

People whose job requires them to travel around the country often tell me that there's a dearth of places for the weary and hungry traveller to eat. Let's be specific here; what they're looking for is somewhere on a main road with easy parking where the food is good, in fact, what they're looking for is that thing that used to be known as a 'road house'. Put it like that and you can see that not many places fill the bill. Looking back over six years of reviews I can find two, but now I've found another.

My old friend Hugo Jellet was staying out of Dublin this week, in Grangecon, to be exact. I happen to know where that is because I've reviewed the excellent Grangecon Cafe before. Despite this, we met up in Tutty's in Hollywood and then set out for Castledermot, where The Old Schoolhouse is under new management. In fact, by the time you read this it may have already changed its name to 'ffrench's'. Ffair enough. So if you were travelling by car to Carlow or Kilkenny from Dublin, you'd be going right past it - but be warned, it's easy to miss as it's on a bend.

Inside the front door you can turn right and go straight into the dining room, or you can turn left and find yourself in a very comfortable sitting room that's filled with some nice pieces of furniture and various bucolic prints. We sat here drinking mineral water and going through the menu. It's not a long menu, but it changes continually, so some of the dishes I describe here may not be there should you visit. Starters are reasonably priced, none of them costs more than €6.75. We were faced with a choice of lettuce and mint soup, fresh salmon fishcakes, cheese croquettes or home-made pork sausages.

From this list Hugo chose the salmon fishcakes and I picked the cheese croquettes. For our main courses, which started at €17.50 and ran up to €21.95, Hugo picked the poached monkfish and I picked the mushroom risotto. Given these choices we thought a white wine would go well so I turned to the shortish wine list. Almost half the whites were Sauvignon Blanc varietals, so just for a change I picked a Pinot Grigio which was listed at €21.75.

After a while we were called to the dining room, which has walls of a pleasing yellow ochre, fish-eye mirrors, some antique tables and chairs and a wonderfully aged knotty pine floor, where the knots stand proud. I liked the atmosphere of the room with its well-spaced tables and gentle lighting, sitting I'd guess around thirty-five people in comfort.

While I did enjoy a forkful of Hugo's salmon fishcakes with their hot, jalapeno chilli sauce, I thought my cheese croquettes were much nicer. Creamy and soft inside, crisp and golden outside, I selfishly almost begrudged letting Hugo have a taste. There were also very good breads on the table, which we nibbled on as well.

The main courses came and we settled happily into them. Three chunks of gently poached monkfish were on Hugo's plate, very lightly cooked so that they retained their meaty texture. My mushroom risotto was good, but since we're well outside the mushroom season the mushrooms were cultivated, and so didn't quite have the flavour of their wild counterparts. Still, it was a well made risotto and I enjoyed it.

There were plenty of desserts to pick from, all of them priced at €5.50 and Hugo and I shared the strawberry cheesecake which we followed with coffee. All in all a very pleasant meal in comfortable surroundings. You get a sense of enthusiasm here, both from the kitchen and from the front of house, which is always nice to find. If you were to find yourself travelling the N9 on a Sunday, The Schoolhouse also does a set Sunday lunch at €25.