I drove by it when I was looking for it. Missed its minarets. Subtle, you'd have to say. Or maybe we're just unobservant.

It's a complex complex.

Along with areas for worship are a small supermarket with a halal butcher, a book shop, gym, enough parking for a large congregation and a restaurant.

Actually restaurant may give the wrong impression.

The look of it is more like a workplace canteen, a surprisingly small space given the size of the whole development.

There's a salad bar, a selection of hot food in serving dishes, soups, curries and a wider menu that bears a close resemblance to that of a kebab restaurant. Everything is available to take away in foil trays or, incongruously, in empty cornflakes boxes. There is a table full of cakes, pies and little baklava, every one of them a sticky concoction of pastry, ground nuts, syrup and some sort of fragrant flower water.

During the holy month of Ramadan, observant Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset. It's a moveable feast (or fast) and would be hard work in the long summer days of June in Ireland.

Marginally better in October. The restaurant at the mosque is closed during these hours and on the day we visited had opened at half-six. The meal that breaks the fast is a convivial event, a happy occasion where people share various treats and take their time over the one big meal of the day.

It was eight o'clock when we arrived and the restaurant was quiet, with the shell-shocked vibe of a place that had been through a significant event not long before, empty cups still rattling in saucers on tables.

Staff looked tired, vaguely overwrought but in good form now, handling the occasional customers with considerable patience and charm. The clientele when we visited were a couple of post-graduate students of something deep and serious from UCD, a family group of two elderly women with a young couple all determined to have a good time on unfamiliar ground and a table of Algerian men drinking mint tea and eating pastries.

We started with a large plate of mixed salads, a Middle-Eastern themed selection that involved vine leaves stuffed with sticky spicy rice, little cubes of feta in oil and herbs, very mild creamy hummus, lightly pickled vegetables and peppers and a nicely dressed green salad.

The main courses that were available were a variety of curry dishes, jalfrezi, roast chicken and a vegetarian special. We had a lamb curry, slow-cooked tender meat in a mild aromatic sauce with enough cardamom-scented pilau rice to satisfy someone fasting all day every day for a month.

Chicken came with green olives, carrots and onion in a saffron-coloured sauce, a simple stew that had been given enough time for the meat to be falling off the bone. Both were like homecooking, straightforward good food full of flavour with generous portions. We drank water and Shan, a very sweet, very fruity soft drink.

We followed this with a mix of baklava, all perfume and honey and nuttiness, which we had with very good strong Italian coffee, just the thing to cut the teeth-aching pleasure of the pastries.

The bill for this came to just over 25 for which two people were well fed and watered. All the salad ingredients were fresh and wellpresented, the main courses were flavoursome and substantial. They obviously care about what they do. It's not a plush place but the atmosphere is friendly and welcoming. A good value treat hidden in the biggest Islamic building in Ireland.