It's undeniable. The general quality of restaurants in Ireland, like the economy, has been on a steeply rising graph. It's happening all around the country as well - in the past few months I've had some excellent meals in the country's extremities, but there is a caveat. What is still below the Continental average of cuisine is the cooking of fish. I've heard it said that that's a relic of penitential fish on Fridays, that fish has always been viewed as a lesser alternative to meat. That might explain much, because it's very hard to find a restaurant in Ireland that does fish well.

Actually I should be more specific. It's hard to find good fish on the east coast. On the south and the west coasts just about any roadside pub can serve you well made seafood that seems to have come to your plate directly from the sea. I really can't think of any reason why this isn't possible on the heavily populated east coast, but apart from a couple of notable exceptions, our capital is sadly underserved with good fish restaurants.

Ok, you can reasonably ask me 'what do you mean by a good fish restaurant?' Well, let me answer that by saying what I don't want to find on the menu. Farmed salmon, farmed sea-bass, farmed rainbow trout and crab claws in garlic butter for a start. Here we are surrounded by water, probably the richest waters of sea-life in Europe, and we get offered farmed fish and dishes that are such clichés that you'd wonder why imagination and cooking fish can't go together. What I'd like to see is fish fresh from the sea and a variety of them as well. I'd like to see some simple dishes that rely on the freshness of the product as well as a few more complex dishes that lets the chef show off a bit.

So it was in a spirit of investigation that I decided to try a restaurant that specialises in fish, this time Wrights of Monkstown. It's in Monkstown Crescent, a stretch of road that probably has more restaurants than any other in the metropolitan area. I arrived at the door at exactly the same time as my dinner companion, Alexis Mitchel, did. Talk about timing. Inside you find a large horseshoe-shaped bar counter and the dining tables are set out on three sides around it. It's a warm and welcoming place, a feeling that gets reinforced by friendly staff, and we were shown to table and given menus within moments of entering.

The menu isn't a long one, it comes on a large laminated card and has all the old favourites. While Alexis was looking through that, I read the wine list, which lists about fifty wines and has a very reasonable mark-up. There were about the same number of reds as whites, but since we'd decided to have a fishy evening I was studying the whites. My first choice of a New Zealand Sauvignon was unavailable, but I was happy enough to take the Pinot Grigio, which was listed at €23.75. A couple of bottles of mineral water completed our drinks order.

Before the starters came we got a plate of bread rolls, two soft white ones and two rock hard brown ones. Alexis had ordered the seafood chowder to start, which came in a pretty mini marmite and was really good. It was stuffed full of a variety of fish and shellfish and the seasoning was nicely judged, one of the better chowders that I've tasted. I'd ordered the mussels marinere, which were plentiful, although the accompanying sauce was unexceptional.

For her main course Alexis had chosen the sea trout, which came as a pan-fried fillet. It was simply done and was a little overcooked to my taste but alongside it was a helping of really delicious creamed spinach, which Alexis was kind enough to let me taste. I'd ordered a daily special of brill, which was also pan-fried. Good thing I like butter, because it came immersed in it. It was tasty enough, but I thought the dish was spoiled by what came with it. The menu had said 'with saffron rice'; my plate had a helping of brilliant white rice that apart from not having seen any saffron, hadn't been salted either. Three florets of unadorned broccoli were also on the plate, and that was it. I suppose I could have asked for a side order of something, but I do feel that when you're paying €25 for a main course it really ought to be complete in itself.

We decided that we would share a dessert between us, so we chose a bread and butter pudding which we finished with some pleasure. We ended our meal with a couple of good espressos and the bill for the night was €119.24, which included a 10% service charge. Wright's has a genuinely friendly feel to it, the room is comfortable and the service is efficient - but as a fish restaurant it hasn't altered my view expressed at the start of this article. Neither the choice of dishes nor the execution of some of the ones we ate would have converted a meat eater to fish. Perhaps as Irish people increasingly holiday abroad and taste fish as it can be done, someone sometime will open a fish restaurant to satisfy even the most demanding diners.