There's eating and drinking under the rocks

Take the road from Sandyford to Rathfarnham and half-way there, you find yourself gliding onto the new M50 extension that will soon connect the south city to all the places southsiders want to go.

Nestling behind a bend in the road is an incredible sight, an enormous thatched cottage with several football fields of car parking space around it. This is Taylors Three Rock, a pub, restaurant and craic agus ceoil venue that makes nearby Johnny Fox's pub look positively minimalist.

The size of a hotel, it has a choice of two bars, Taylors Farmhouse Bar, where you get all the Oirish paraphernalia you like, mostly in the form of old sepia photographs of long-dead people. Next door, about a quarter of a mile along the building, is the lounge and restaurant.

There's a notice warning Under 23s not to attempt to get in, and a team of friendlier-than-average bouncers in maroon sports jackets, with ear pieces plugged in, were out in force to make sure. Past the door is a big lobby with some very ugly carved benches scattered around, one of them occupied by a man playing a squeeze-box to no one in particular.

Prepare to be stunned by the lounge. It is a huge space, with a quadruple-height vaulted ceiling and walls piled high with several tons of boulders held back by wire mesh. The floor looks like cross-sections of trees set in polished cement and towering cement brick pillars hold up the straw-lined ceiling, and there, dangling over drinkers heads, are three huge rocks, suspended on chains as a nod to nearby Three Rock mountain.

Now most publicans would hate all that empty roof space where mezzanine drinking could be going on, but in this case owner Niall Mellon seems keen to squander as much of it as possible, and it works. The high roof lifts the spirits no end, and the air is clean without the least whiff of beer or Jeyes fluid, which hangs over most bars.

All the chairs have been hand-painted by artists, and several striking paintings of naked people dangle from the walls, while a massive cut-out pink guitar is splashed over one wall.

It's hard to decide whether it's hideous or a bit of fun, but while you're thinking about it, there are lots of bar staff rushing around taking and delivering orders, so there's a real air of competence to the place. The restaurant is towards the back and has rough pine tables inset with slate, and lit by big fat church candles. We were seated next to an office outing that started out quiet, but livened up a lot when a strip-o-gram lady in PVC arrived to congratulate one of the team on his forthcoming marriage. She did this by making him get down on all fours and instructing him to howl like a dog as she set about his substantial hind quarters with a whip. David was transfixed.

No, he wasn't looking at her bottom, he said. It just reminded him of his own days as a singing gorilla for Dublin's very first singing telegram company back in the 1980s. As PVC wound down her act - and everyone was cheering and clapping as she tried to make the groom-to-be take his trousers down - we went back to the menu.

It's ambitious, but not idiotically so. There are Irish, Asian and Italian dishes on offer, but none of the wild diversity you often find in pubs that have got above themselves, where you know that none of it will taste any good. Starters range from about £3 to £5 while main courses are reasonably priced, below £10.

My garlic mushrooms were great - crispy on the outside, but not so crumbed up that you couldn't taste the mushroom and the garlic inside. Instead of some creamy and hideously fattening dipping sauce, was a well-dressed salad of lamb's lettuce, red onion, cucumber and marinated strips of red and yellow pepper. David's seafood chowder was a little bit starchy, but there was a lot of fish in it and it was beautifully presented in a shallow dish with a scattering of paprika around the rim. The waitress was incredibly nice in a slightly flustered way. She knew her way around the wine list and quickly recommended the nicest house red, a merlot shiraz blend - "French wine made by Australians" under the Fox Mountain label. It was just the right temperature and good value at £12.50.

My main course of tagliatelle with smoked chicken and a creamy pesto sauce was a huge plateful decked out with two cartwheels of garlic bread. The smoked chicken was delicious and there was loads of it - usually you only get shreds of this delicacy. The tagliatelle was a bit flabby and over-boiled, and there was enough to feed a family of four. The strands flopped around the plate and refused to twirl around the fork.

David had sausage and mash, and here you get a choice of venison, beef or pork sausages. He chose good old pork and got three huge fat snorkers propped up against a mountain of mash and gravy. Again the idea was good, though the sausages were a little on the tough side, as though they had been made earlier and left to firm up in a bain marie.

Although the restaurant section was packed by this stage, the service remained brisk and friendly all the way, the only gap being when we asked for some bread, and had to wait ages for a plate of thin sliced wholemeal with butter pats to arrive.

Mineral water comes in small bottles only, which is a bit irritating over the course of a meal.

There were four desserts on offer, all big slices of some gateaux or other. We tried the Tiramisu, and it too came in a big triangle, with a squit of cream on the side. It was nicely chilled, creamy, choclatey and with the correct dash of alcohol in there. The aerosol cream was a bit of a let-down, though.

After a couple of weak cappuccinos - definitely room for improvement there - we got the bill. It was £45 for two, making this the cheapest and most cheerful place we've eaten at in a long time.

Taylors Three Rock, Grange Road, Rathfarnham, Dublin 16. Tel: 01-4942999