Try walking in off the street to La Marine, the bistro of Kelly's Hotel in Rosslare, looking for a table that night, or, even, a table for the following Saturday evening. Regretfully, they will not be able to help you. They would like to, they will put your name on a waiting list - unfortunately there are already 20 people on that waiting list.
Still, who knows? They could all get sun stroke or sprain something on the golf course and then you might get your table. Don't hold your breath, though.
It's a happy state of affairs for Kelly's and a sad one for anyone breezing through, looking for a bite to eat in an otherwise deathly dull little town - gastronomically speaking. No, to get a table at La Marine you have to book a good deal in advance, at least three weeks ahead for bank holidays. It's a situation which would have Dublin restaurateurs slobbering at the chops.
Midweek is a lot easier. I called two days ahead and got a booking for two for a Tuesday evening. There are two sittings and the later one, at 8.30 p.m., is better because you can sit on all night.
But . . . hello? Here's a restaurant called La Marine, in a hotel that's on the sea, and you don't even get a squint at the water. It's the same in the main dining room in Kelly's - a vast, plushly upholstered place, virtually windowless, that turns its back on the sea. Is this not bizarre in a seaside resort? Why not a big airy rooftop restaurant that's open all day where you can gaze out over the water to your heart's content, or sit on a balcony to watch the sun go down?
Of course, it's not only in Rosslare but up and down the eastern coast that you can hardly get a bite to eat and look at the sea at the same time. Plenty of expensive houses with sea views, but a pitiful number of cafes or restaurants with million pound views. But back to La Marine . . .
It was added to the hotel about three years ago to offer guests a more relaxed place to eat, although with its Art Deco-style tower trimmed in neon, it looks as though it has been there since the 1950s. Inside it's warm and cheerful with red banquettes, a big open kitchen and a fabulous glass-walled cellar.
We were seated a good bit away from the kitchen, not quite in Siberia, but with too much of a view of the main road to be totally relaxing. The restaurant and the bar were thronged with extraordinarily tanned, happy-looking individuals fresh off the golf course or out of the jacuzzi. The men were in pastel sports tops and blazers, and the women in floaty, white, sleeveless garments showing off pin-thin, mahogany arms and legs and plenty of jewellery.
Two elderly women sitting at the next table had the deep tans that you only get by having sat out from May to September for the past 30 years. They were beautifully dressed and coiffed. "Old Money," mouthed my friend Beverley.
In fact, everyone looked extremely wealthy and pleased with themselves and that included the teenage off-spring congregated at the bottom of the hotel stairs, who, even if they were eating sweets like ordinary kids, looked a breed apart with their golden tans and expensive combats. Not to mention the height of them! Teenagers are definitely getting bigger.
The head chef here is Eugene Callaghan, who used to own Eugene's restaurant in Ballyedmond, the place to eat if you holidayed in Wexford a few years ago. The holiday cottage we used for a few summers had the number written up on the wall - even though we telephoned three years in a row, it too was always booked out. His menu is short as you'd expect in a bistro and there are nightly specials. The check napkins say bistro, too, but the food itself is a step up, both in quality and price.
Beverley started with salt and pepper squid with a chilli, soya and coriander sauce. "This is the best squid I've ever had," she announced, "and that includes all the squid we had in Portugal where they were yanking it out of the water before our eyes." The squid had been scored, then rolled in sea salt and coarse pepper, then quickly cooked and served up with a dish of sauce that could have had more chilli in it - her only quibble.
My chef's salad was a bore by comparison - too much red onion, hard pellets of avocado, sauteed potatoes cut in too small cubes, and nice slivers of bacon, on lettuce with big wedges of chilled tomato. Altogether too much pronging of small ingredients when I could have been enjoying the seafood chowder or the grilled mussels.
All around us people were tucking into big soft slices of bread and butter, but we didn't get ours. Later, when a waitress went by with a pile of bread baskets, I mentioned that we hadn't had any bread yet. She looked appalled. "What, did ye not get any? That's terrible! God, your man will have a fit. You should have roared for it."
"Your man" could have been the headwaiter in the dicky bow or he could have been owner Bill Kelly, who was working the room assiduously. He has an incredibly calm demeanour but looked relaxed and in control - certainly, though, a man who would have a fit if things weren't just right.
Now duck, if it's right, is a splendid thing and I had a superb crispy duck confit as a main course. It came beautifully crisped on top, totally tender underneath, and sitting on a big heap of champ surrounded by a moat of gravy. There was too much champ but what of it. A great dish that, elsewhere, might cost a lot more than the £9.50 here.
Beverley had nothing but praise for her more sophisticated dish - tandoori baked monkfish with Asian noodles. The monkfish medallions were surrounded by strands of noodles interweaved with julienne vegetables. It looked very pretty and light.
The wine list printed on the back of the menu is surprisingly short, given the inspiring display of bottles in the cellar. Presumably, a far longer and more expensive list is on offer in the dining-room. All the wines are imported from individual wine growers, it says, which is all very well but it would be nice to recognise a name here and there. We asked the waiter what he thought of the Rully Gresigny - have the Chablis, he said, it's better. We took his advice - it was just £1 dearer, and found it pleasant and civilised when what we really wanted was something that would have us babbling and giggling.
For research purposes we had to have a dessert. We shared a Pavlova with Wexford summer berries and cream, a huge dish of berries in an utterly delicious freshly made coulis, with a very good meringue covered in a thin layer of cream.
Heroically we went on to cheese, and got three wedges of perfectly ripe, Irish cheese with biscuits, grapes and walnuts. Then, Bev had an espresso and I had a monstrously frothy cappucino.
After all that we strolled through the hotel admiring the truly eclectic collection of paintings on the walls. Everywhere we went there were helpful staff standing by to direct us, but one felt they knew one wasn't resident.
A few days would be most relaxing. "Any chance of a family room for a few nights next week, or the week after," I asked the receptionist, only half joking. After all people do cancel at the last minute, but, evidently, not from Kellys. "Well, we are booked out, she said without a hint of snootiness. It's really best to call in January."
The bill came to £65.58 including drinks at the bar before dinner, wine, mineral water and coffees
La Marine, Kelly's Hotel, Rosslare, Co Wexford. Open seven days. Phone (053) 32114
