How ghastly a joke can a restaurant be? In answering this question PS Cafe sets the benchmark in a bewilderingly broad range of ways.

The staff are so rude and demoralised one can only assume they receive corporal punishment from senior management on an hourly basis.

What was it we ate? I wish I didn't have to summon up the memory.

To start I had tomato soup, I think. It tasted of absolutely nothing. Imagine that - a restaurant where the chefs have not been taught the basic culinary principle of seasoning.

To follow I had what sounded a nice idea: salmon wrapped in bacon. When this shapeless melange arrived it was quickly apparent that the basic concept of the dish was redundant. The dried up thin swathe of greasy bacon wrapped absent-mindedly around the middle of the fillet was never going to add an iota to the taste or the appearance of the salmon.

After the first mouthful, the repulsive taste of the unfresh fish -as if from a carcass that had been lying at the bottom of a dustbin in a wet market for weeks - made me spit the obviously microwaved piece of rotten jelly out. I could not continue.

My dining companion had beef ribs. The meat was tasteless and had clearly been frozen he said, after a few mouthfuls, with a look of bewildered despair as he contemplated the thin layer of grey meat on dried bones amid a withered pile of vegetables strewn thoughtlessly on the plate beneath him.

Next the wine. This must surely be the most mediocre, incoherent wine list ever assembled - presumably with the help of some darts and a dartboard. We ordered the only thing that caught our eye, a red Burgundy, which was the most expensive on the list.

Ominously, the waitress announced that she had to go away to uncork the bottle because the cork had broken. Quite why that was necessary wasn't immediately apparent, but when she returned, minus the cork for us to inspect, it was obvious that she was trying to conceal the fact that the wine was corked.

One sip and I sent it back. And guess what? The same thing happened with the second bottle. The cork split and the bottle was taken away, returned with no cork to inspect. And yet again we sent it back,only for the waiter to recommend we try another wine. Was he in on the fact that the restaurant owns a batch of off wine that it palms onto ignorant or timid patrons who drink it regardless? I can't think of another explanation.

We chose a Chianti which proved mediocre but an improvement on its corked predecessors.

Meanwhile the place was packed with seemingly happy customers, a fact that makes one want to collapse in side-splitting hysterics. Mass masochism at its best.

What is good about PS Cafe? The view of Dempsey Hill from inside. But that is not something over which the management has control.

Everything else they touch, from the irritating noise-polluted interior, to the sociopathic staff, the microwaved food concocted from inferior ingredients to the abysmal wine list is utterly pestilent.

Stay away at all costs.