A TASTY AND HEALTHY MEAL - MONSOON STILLORGAN

There's one thing that seems to me to be common to all the Indian restaurants that I've visited - the service is unfailingly courteous. Monsoon is no exception to that: six of us arrived with no reservation, but within moments they'd re-arranged tables to accommodate us. I began explaining to the children that after the book 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' came 'The Restaurant at the End if the Universe'. This, I explained to them carefully, was not a place at the outer reaches of space, it was a time. The restaurant sits its diners down two hours before the universe ends. The diners watch this awesome spectacle over their meal, then massive time turbines bring the restaurant back in time by two hours ready for the next sitting.

Monsoon didn't look much like The Restaurant at the End of the Universe - and there were no alien species there that I could recognise either. It's a small room, up a flights of steps from where you can pick up your take away meals. There are nods to the sub-continent with beautifully carved wooden representations of Hindu deities on the walls, but otherwise the room isn't themed. As we've done in the past, we let Isabella do the ordering for us. She chose us a variety of dishes: a chicken Tikka Massala which the children like, a Kashmiri Rogan Josh - a spicy lamb dish that I'm fond of, a king prawn biryani which John and Isabella enjoy, a bowl of dal, a spinach dish called Paneer Methi Malai, and lastly a Banarsi Aloo. The starter portions are priced around €8 or €9 and the main courses cost between €15 and €18. To complete the order Isabella also ordered some Nan bread and Pilau rice.

There's a short wine list, but it's very fairly priced with a few wines under €20 and the majority of them under €25. We decided against a bottle wine, instead we ordered Lassis for the children, which is a yoghurt drink that comes either as a sweet drink or as a savoury one, and John and I had Indian beer.

The first thing to arrive were the night-light plate warmers on which the copper pots containing our various dishes were placed to keep them hot. Essentially what we'd ordered was three starters and three main courses plus some extras for the six of us, but by the time they'd all arrived the tables seems to be awash with food. Even a fairly strong appetite would begin to wilt after some of these dishes. I did manage to taste most of what was on the table and everything I tasted was very much to my liking, with the possible exception of the yoghurt drinks. The spices were all carefully handled, each dish had clean, crisp tastes.

By the time we'd eaten our fill there appeared to be as much on the table as there had been when we started, but our waiter sensibly suggested he'd pack up what was left and we could take it home for later - a suggestion we were happy to accept. A tasty and healthy meal for six that came with a price tag of €106.30, which I thought was very good value. Fittingly, we then drove home in a monsoon.