Far from being light it was David announced the densest thing I've ever eaten - it's practically anti-matter

Far from being light, it was, David announced, "the densest thing I've ever eaten - it's practically anti-matter".My bread-and-butter pudding was completely ordinary, and served cold, while Clare's apple tart came topped with a hair-net of golden spun sugar, and a side order of home-made Bailey's ice cream, a concoction which seemed perfectly to symbolise the gastronomic ambitions of Arkles. When it came to puddings, David again allowed himself to be persuaded by James, in a triumph of hope over experience, into ordering something he didn't really want, barmbrack parfait, which he was assured was like a fruit-cake, and "very light". There seemed to be nothing particularly Gaelic about it, apart, perhaps, from the accompanying potato cake, an unexplained substitution for the advertised creamed potatoes. David was happy with his substantial helping of roast pheasant, though he would have been happier if it had come pink, as requested, and he was sure the potato cake that accompanied it wasn't colcannon, but actually a latke.My own main course of Gaelic steak arrived in a cantilevered tower, topped with a single vulvic oyster, and it was perfectly good, though not exceptionally so. All Clare would say about her main course of grilled halibut and monkfish was,"at least they've cracked the hot thing", before launching back into a eulogy on Ruud Gullit's time- space concept.

My sauteed Dublin Bay prawns were well prepared and presented, but at pounds 12.50 for a moderate-sized portion, they should really have jumped out of their shells and peeled themselves.It was proving difficult to get too much detailed criticism out of my companions, though, because by now they were lost in debate about whether Zola had finally regained his confidence. Meanwhile, Clare was thrown by the indeterminate temperature of her sea scallop terrine, which she described as "dumbed-down, like airplane food". David's goat's cheese, served on impregnable soda bread croutons, was only "ordinary", and he began to curse himself for being so suggestible. But so persuasive was James's patter, that he abandoned his plan and went for the Inagh goat's cheese as recommended, together with a pint of draught Beamish, which is the restaurant's stout of choice (leading us to wonder whether we'd unwittingly unearthed yet another manifestation of the old Bates/ Harding rivalry).In the event, the starters didn't live up to the pre-match build-up. There's nothing humble, though, about the prices - a starter of smoked salmon with soda bread is a hefty pounds 10.50 and most of the main courses are in the pounds 20-pounds 25 bracket.David had planned to begin with oysters and Guinness, as a tribute to Matthew Harding, Chelsea's late vice-chairman, who famously enjoyed the combination in a local pub before every home game. And the rack of lamb comes from Wicklow, where I'm from meself." Before long, we were totally disarmed, and ready to follow James wherever he led us.The menu is long, and makes inventive use of fresh Irish ingredients.

Starters range from the humble - potato and cabbage soup - to fancier concoctions such as chicken consomme with poached quails' eggs, and the main courses are heartily reliant on meat and game. The advance publicity describes James as "fervently courteous", which turned out to be an understatement. Settling us at our table, and plying us with delicious fresh-baked soda bread, he kept up a murmured stream-of-consciousness commentary on the forthcoming delights of the menu. "Now, the goat's cheese is from a little village called Inagh, now dat is super. Leaving the stadium shoulder to shoulder with an ecstatic crowd after a resounding 3-1 Chelsea victory, we erupted jubilantly into the restaurant, only to find it almost deserted, apart from a few tables of besuited businessmen who didn't seem to have been at the match.The second surprise was the decor, which owes nothing to modish conventions of minimalism and restraint. In fact, if you were designing an exhibit specifically to illustrate all the no-nos of contemporary restaurant design, you might well come up with something that looked like Arkles. As my football- mad friend Clare and I settled ourselves in the shiny splendour of the West Stand, we found we were surrounded by the soccer equivalent of the chattering classes.