It's a very clear sign of the times. You turn up to a restaurant on a Monday evening, no booking, and are told that you can have a table in 10 minutes. Just take a seat in the bar and have a drink. A full 15 minutes later a waiter turns up, not to offer you a drink but to take you to your table.
At this point you are deep in conversation with your companion, but the waiter cuts through your chat like a laser in a sci-fi movie, without so much as an "excuse me".
Instead of telling him to sod off and learn some manners, you meekly follow him up the stairs and tolerate the fact that he rushes ahead, pausing no fewer than three times to look back at you impatiently with an expression on his mug that, when translated into mere English, reads: "You do realise that you are privileged to be fed at all, don't you? Get a move on!"
And then you get to your table, which is crammed into a space that in other restaurants would accommodate a chair, and you almost knock over the neighbour's ice bucket as you try to get seated using a technique usually confined to Formula 1 drivers. And the seats are still warm from the previous occupants. You can see why. The waiting staff are zooming around, carrying tablecloths and fresh glasses, a kind of Swat team that turns tables in less time than you can say "what on earth are we doing here?".
But nobody seems too keen to actually serve you. And then a menu appears and the set dinner costs €42, and the same question crosses your mind, except rather more forcefully.
This is what happened to us at Roly's the other night, and from the time that I inhaled the odour of cooking oil in the drinkless bar I was wondering: has Roly's changed or is it the customers? By customers, I mean the people of Ireland. The punters who were eating there the other night seemed perfectly happy. But it seems like only a couple of years ago that Roly's really did something for us. Have we become more demanding? Or has Roly's slipped? Has its phenomenal success turned it into a kind of manic cash cow?
The lack of warmth extended to the wine, which, had it been colder, would have been solid; we declined an ice bucket, partly on the grounds of wanting to taste the stuff but also to free up a bit of much-needed space. And then we encountered the bread. It was cold, very cold. Almost as if it had just thawed. Starters were lacklustre. "Colin's Prawn Bisque", a tomatoey concoction, came with a little jug of brandy on the side, an affectation that, in this context, is close to a joke. But the overall effect was reasonable.
Chicken wontons, made with cooked chicken, were served with a diced avocado salad that may well have been made fresh but gave the impression that it had been loitering in the kitchen for hours. It was the kind of dish that would not be out of place in one of Bundoran's less glamorous hotels.
Fish - probably haddock - in beer batter with chips was adequate, and the tartare sauce was fresh, proper and very plentiful, but stuff like this needs to be simply bloody fantastic at Roly's prices, and, frankly, it wasn't.
Roasted vegetables (courgette, peppers, red onion, olives) laid on a rectangle of puff pastry, topped with Brie and put in the oven was good bedsit food for vegetarian students.
The selection of vegetables involved half-roasted spuds swimming in oil with bits of what appeared to be bacon and broccoli, and carrot puree that had been sweetened with honey. This, we decided, was old people's food.
Pavlova with mango and a Belgian chocolate terrine were perfectly edible.
The whole experience was so 1980s that it cried out for Muscat de Beaumes de Venise, so we each had a glass, possibly in the vain hope of adding a bit of cheer to this depressing meal. The bill, with a bottle of Mâcon, came to €142.12.
Roly's Bistro, 7 Ballsbridge Terrace, Dublin 4, 01-6682611, www.rolysbistro.ie
WINE CHOICE:Much of the list, exclusively sourced from the big distributors, is dull but drinkable. For €21.95 you can buy Danzante Pinot Grigio, Concha y Toro Chardonnay, Drostdy-Hof Chenin Blanc or Baron Philippe de Rothschild Merlot. €24.95 is a fair price for Drouhin's Mâcon-Villages, but nothing will induce me to drink Marquis de Goulaine Muscadet or Thomas Barton Reserve St Emilion. Blanc de Lynch-Bages is a steal (€60), however, and Trimbach Gewurztraminer (€31.75) is not bad. The real value lies in the clarets, such as Les Ormes de Pez 01 (€48), du Tertre 2001 (€38), Beychevelle 2001 (€85) and Talbot 1995 (€91). The serious Chilean Casa Real is €50, Louis Latour's rather weedy Côtes de Beaune Villages is €31.75 and Jaboulet Muscat de Beaumes de Venise (€35.75) is a blast from the past.