Glancing through the windows of the many restaurants in the city, it is easy to see the effects of the economic crash. Diners seem to be on the endangered list with the Christmas party downgraded to a dinner, and the office dinner downgraded to a lunch or just a few pints.

On a drizzly evening in early November it felt as if we had disturbed the Celtic Tiger in the middle of a feeding frenzy.... Roly’s Bistro in Ballsbridge was heaving with people and we seemed to be the only people in the "cheap seats". It was like travelling back to 2006, the place was bustling with a large staff feeding a well heeled clientele.

A friend had told me that the restaurant was doing a special wine tasting evening menu, where you could get a four course meal with an endless supply of wine for €45 plus a 10% service charge. We decided to call it a Christmas gathering and check it out.

We took our table and were brought bread - baked daily on the premises - and water.
Straight on to business, we selected our wine, Marquis de Goulaine Sauvignon Blanc and Merlot. The Goulaine family have been producing wine in France’s Loire valley for over a thousand years. So, if they hadn’t got the hang of it by now, it would be impolite to suggest a career change. As promised the wines were excellent and plentiful.

Now, I am an argumentative man, and sure enough, my companion and I fell out over the fact that the wine was screw top, which it seems, used to be associated with cheap or inferior wines, the natural cork being the only true way to cap a bottle. This keeps the world’s relatively small population of cork oak trees going. These trees can live up to 100 years and thrive in the hot, arid soils of the Mediterranean, mainly Spain and Portugal. They protect the soil from drying out and provide shelter to a wide range of wonderful animals.

Some rare creatures such as the Iberian Lynx and the Imperial Iberian Eagle depend on these cork oak forests for survival. The problem with the natural cork is that they can allow for a bottle of wine to become "Corked"; that is, a musty taste and smell develops in the wine caused by the substance used to sanitise the natural cork prior to bottling. Plastic corks have an unproven track record at keeping oxidation at bay for any real length of time and so limit the shelf life. Screw caps may not be the most environment-friendly choice, but they do the job and do not mean bad quality.

For starters, I had the chicken liver which came with a fig and onion chutney which I found a little strong. My dining companion had the smoked haddock fishcakes with a rocket salad which was delicious. For a main I had the rack of lamb with mashed potato, broccoli and mashed carrot, which was tasty and ample. My co-diner had the goat’s cheese tart with mixed salad and seemed very impressed with it.

The deserts were tiramisu with a coffee collection for my companion, this involved coffee cheesecake and a coffee pastry, essentially three deserts in one and very tasty indeed. I had the ginger sorbet with Crème brûlée, also delicious. All in all, it proved good food and good value. There was even a celebrity spotted... a radio presenter whose huge hair makes him look like the owner of a small chain of hairsalons in Dublin... in the eighties.