A room full of sugar-mashed First Holy Communion kids and early morning RT� disc-jockey Maxi.

An odd combination. It's Saturday afternoon in Purple Ocean, Dun Laoghaire. We arrived around 2pm, looking forward to a bite to eat having just flown in on a hellish flight from Lisbon.

Lisbon had been an eye-opening culinary grand tour. We had stayed in Cascais, just outside the city and I can still taste the exquisite peasant dish, cozido � Portuguesa. The region's soft sheeps' milk cheeses, breads and the abundance of fish, fresh vegetables and the produce of their low-yielding vineyards are a must on your 'to try' list if you've tired of Spain, Italy and France. And the cultural sights aren't bad either.

Back home, I wasn't expecting to be mindblown by the prospective lunch but was at least expecting to find something enjoyable. The room warbled with the sounds of seven-year-olds getting restless. The d�cor was definitely unique but I didn't really buy it - a lot of it was for sale. All around us, on shelves and tables, in nooks: purple crystals, ornamental angels and other New Age knickknacks.

Hmmm, I thought all of this stuff had gone out with the lo-lo ball and voguing - apparently not. The nail in my New Age coffin was hammered home when a shop in the George's Street Arcade which was packed full of 'healing' crystals and dreamcatchers went on fire last year, taking down with it into its hocus-pocus inferno a neighbouring caf�: one of my favourite lunch spots, Honest to Goodness.

Surely a shop full of good vibe crystals would be impervious to such a thing happening? Apparently not, it like totally burnt to the ground, man.

We were given a table in what felt like a corridor - okay the restaurant was fairly full so we didn't mind so much and we could still see the pier from where we had been perched.

My lunch date, FK, one of Dalkeyland's most delectable dames, had just been diagnosed with a certain irritable syndrome and was understandably a little irritated by the news so I wanted to cheer her up with a good lunch and an encouraging pep talk.

'Worse things happen at sea.' 'Keep your pecker up.' 'Have some more wine.' That sort of thing.

We ordered starters: chorizo sausage salad for FK and a pear and Cashel blue cheese salad para mi. The tomato was a disintegrating mush. I wouldn't mind but Irish tomatoes had just come into season, so no excuse for this. The pear tasted like it had been raised by a kindly, yet influential, family of asparagus and the blue cheese was so scarce that I wasn't sure whether it was there or not. Bah! The chorizo salad was just okay. We ordered a glass each of ros�, which was cloudy and pizzazz free.

For my main, I laboured through an unloved Thai Green Chicken Curry, while FK had an unexceptional Sea Bass Fillet "presented" on a bed of Truffle Mash. It didn't wow, it didn't even produce a smirk of satisfaction. The sea bass tasted old and the mash was stodgy.

Alas, the food wasn't doing it so I had to turn on my best 'things aren't so bad' charm.

Meanwhile, parents sat swapping war stories while the kids had fun; behind us, Maxi gazed out the window in what seemed like an exquisite reverie - at least someone was feeling the love.

For desserts, it was profiteroles for me and ice cream for FK. Both were, again, just okay.

Purple angels, crystals, hokuspokus, New Age nonsense - it gets old fast. What's the point in investing time and effort into a frankly silly theme if you haven't got it sorted in the kitchen? Just get the food right and you might be on to something - and this location out on the pier deserves to have it right.

I accept that we don't have the finest culinary tradition here in Ireland and I didn't expect the standard to be anything near what we'd experienced in Portugal.

I also took into account that it was a busy day and the kitchen staff were probably under pressure.

But - as is being proved by, thankfully, an ever increasing number of Irish restaurateurs - it's not impossible to provide good food at a reasonable price in this New Age of Irish dining.

PURPLE OCEAN Saint Michael's Pier Dun Laoghaire Co Dublin Tel: 01 2845590