Going out for a review meal isn't the same as going out for a meal -- the purpose is different. When I go out for fun, I'm inclined to concentrate on the conversation and the interactions around the table, but when I'm dining in order to review, I'm concentrating on the food before me: on the tastes, the skill levels and the quality of the ingredients.

Most of the time, the people I go out to review dinners with are pretty much into their food, they have opinions and they help me to get an overall picture of the restaurant.

Occasionally I've dined with chefs, and that makes for an interesting experience. You see, chefs have a viewpoint that's different from the rest of us: when they look at a plate of food they mentally deconstruct it, examining the techniques used in its preparation. It's like an artist looking at the work of another artist -- their viewpoint is focused on the skill set, whereas you and I might just look at the painting.

I have a friend who's made his living making television commercials. Watching TV with him means that conversation flows all through the programmes, but he insists on silence when the ads are on. Then the commentary begins. "God, look at the lighting there -- it's awful", or, "the sound is dreadful, and did you see that clumsy cut?" Now, when did you last notice the lighting in an advert? I know, neither have I. The professional's take on another professional's work rests on things that others barely notice.

This week I was dining with a chef again, this time the telegenic Kevin Dundon of Dunbrody House fame. He was up in Dublin doing his bit on The Afternoon Show, so we met up after that for an early supper. The restaurant we went to is called Junior's, which is at the Shelbourne Road end of Bath Avenue. Kevin had been to it before, liked it, and thought that I might enjoy it too.

Junior's is small, the dining room seats about 30 and the kitchen, which is on full view, is barely the size of a kitchen in an urban apartment. I thought I spotted a six-ring gas range, which would mean that filling the menu for a full house would definitely be a logistical challenge.

The dining room is very plain, the tables and chairs are simple wood, and both the menu and wine list are short. Roughly speaking, the starters are around €10 and the main courses are around €20, so by some of the new pricings available in the city it isn't cheap -- and yet the place was packed on a mid-week night. Quite clearly people were coming here for a reason, and it looked as though that reason was the food.

It took a while to get a table, so we passed a half-hour or so in the pub next door until we were called. Space is a premium in Junior's, so the tables are closely packed. We got a table at the far end and settled in to read the menu. There's a continental flavour to the menu: starters include buffalo mozzarella and a tagliata salad; mains include linguini with clams, and courgettes and artichokes in a Provençal sauce. There are unusual dishes as well: squab pigeon and a chicken liver salad among the starters and a lamb rump main course. I thought the menu was well balanced between classic dishes and more unusual ones.

The wine list is very basic, listing about a dozen wines, and the cheapest of these -- Junior's red and white -- were €20. On the other hand, the prices don't go up very high -- the dearest wines on the list are €30. We chose a red; a Portuguese blend of several grape varieties listed at €25, which was pretty good, prompting Kevin and I to agree that Portugal is a good place to look for wine bargains.

We ordered the chicken liver salad and the pint o' prawns to start with, Kevin having the liver salad and me the prawns. I've always liked chicken livers; they're the secret ingredient in my Bolognese sauce, and these were very good, cooked just right and leaving Kevin a very happy chef. I enjoyed my prawns too and thankfully they weren't really a pint, but the large glass they were served in meant there were still a lot of prawns to eat. Between us, we eventually ate them all.

We were both a little puzzled by the 'homemade mayonnaise' that came with the prawns. It looked and tasted amazingly like a well-known commercial brand of mayonnaise. Whenever I make mayonnaise at home it always comes out yellow, rather than white.

It was after our starters that we were joined by Weekend editor Bairbre Power, who we persuaded to stay and eat something with us. So there were three main courses: the clam linguini for Bairbre, the lamb rump for Kevin and the scallops with a pea and mint purée for me. All three of these dishes were very well done, all the more remarkable once you've seen the tiny kitchen they came from.

Bairbre's clam linguini were very good -- substitute spaghetti for linguini and you've got the Neapolitan signature dish, spaghetti alle vongole. Kevin's lamb rump had been given a long slow-roasting, which means that it stays moist and so tender that you can take it apart with your fork. I thought that I'd got the winning dish, though; the scallops were perfectly cooked and the pea and mint purée worked well. So, between us, we'd sampled a fair bit of the main courses and we'd all eaten very well.

It was duty, not greed, that made us order a dessert, just one for the three of us to pick at. We chose Mississippi mud pie, a pudding that's very rich in chocolate. "That's normally served with ice-cream," said Kevin, and indeed he's right, but here it was served without. Still, it was very good, oozing unctuous chocolate in a muddy brown, Mississippi sort of way.

We were offered a Limoncello to finish our meal, a nice touch that we happily accepted. The bill came to €119.20, which included the two big bottles of mineral water that had been my drink for the night.

Junior's, 2 Bath Avenue, Dublin 4. Tel: 01-664 3648

Read Paolo at www.tasteofireland.ie

email: paolo@independent.ie

- Paolo Tullio