Going out in Colombo

Been in Colombo a while and this is my list :

1) 'The Cricket Club Cafe' on Queens road. Great service, marvellous menu, awesome ambience (even if you don't fancy cricket)and (drum roll) a fine, cosy bar.

2) 'Nihonbashi' (opposite the Indian High commission). Real Tatami rooms, great japanese food and excellent service. Plus the menus come on I-pads.lol

3) The 'Mango Tree' in Colombo 3 for great North Indian cuisine. They also serve alcohol and dont treat smokers like they have leprosy or something.

4) The 'Inn on the Green' at the Galle Face Hotel is another good pub serving authentic English pub-grub. Too many yuppies after 5pm but before that it's heaven.

5) The 'Echelon Pub' at the Colombo Hilton. Nice all around. Got a quiz night and bridge night too.

6) The 'Royal Colombo Golf Club'. If Golf's your thing and even if it's not the food's great and the bar even better.

7) The 'White Horse pub' in the swanky business district of Nawam mawatha....be advised it's best avoided on Friday and Saturday night as it's packed with teenagers high on something.

8) The 'Commons' on Flower road, great place to chill out. Comfy sofas and free wifi.

9) For those with a serious sweet tooth go visit 'Divine' which is right next to the Cricket club Cafe. Try my favorite, the Chocolate Biscuit Pudding Cake. They got desserts that just make you want to stop everything you're doing and try them all out.

10) Historical places of interest........try the old Dutch Museum off of main Street in the hustle and bustle of Pettah. Beware of touts as the pettahs just full of them. Them and pickpockets. But it's worth a visit.

Enjoy!

dear Journey man,
How long have you been in Colombo? do you feel comfortable in the city in every aspect of life?

I would like to know how health care servıces are over there , if any problem we have , do you think that we can be served well and can feel that we are in good hands?
thanks

I've been in Sri Lanka since July 2009 and in that time I've been very pleased with the standard of the hospitals available in both the capital city and it's larger suburbs. There are international class private hospitals in Colombo and in secondary cities such as Kandy and Negombo the medical services are present and of good standards but they are government hospitals. Government hospitals have the doctors and equipment to deal with emergencies but if you're going for routine health care my advice is stick to the private hospitals in Colombo. That's my experience.

Thanks for the information, this is very important for me, health should be ın good hands!
hopefully I will get a private health insurance to use private hospitals comfy..
thanks agaın for your reply!

Hello everyone

Thanks for your useful contribution Journeyman.

Do not hesitate to participate in other discussions in the Colombo forum and Sri Lanka forum!

See you soon on Expat.com

I am gonna share to you the 10 best restaurants in Colombo. Here they are:

*Cricket Club Cafe
*Siam House Thai Restaurant..
*Il Ponte
*Chutney's
*Commons Coffeehouse
*Regina Margherita
*Emperor's Wok
*Lagoon
*London Grill
*Sunday Brunch @ Spices

Been here for 4 weeks now and here's my hit list

1 Bayleaf
2 commons
3 park street mews
4 cricket club cafe
5 coco veranda

Some very interesting places indeed.. especially, the one that begins with ‘bay-leaf' hmm.. couldn't agree with you more on that Sylvia..cuz that's my personal favourite too!!

So, here we go..  ‘Restaurants' as you could imagine the list begins of course with Bay leaf! 

Cricket Club Café

Barefoot Café & Restaurant (and here you would also have the pleasure of meeting one of the award winning photographers probably one of the best in Sri Lanka!)

GR (German Restaurant and Pub) Galle Face Court
The Lagoon (Cinnamon Grand Hotel)

And if you're in to a swing-mood and wanna try out some spicy dishes:
Curry Leaf Restaurant (Colombo Hilton) Chinese Dragon Or Amrith (Colombo 04 & 5 respectively)

Coffee Shops:
Barista / Coffee Bean (Maitland Crescent)
Commons (Flower Road)

Bars & Nightclubs:
Echelon Pub (Colombo Hilton)
Clancy's (Maitland Crescent)

Cheers!

Wow! That's pretty cool!

I like your taste Sean! (not just the food! but also the writing-style!)   

Cheers indeed..  


Laura

thank you all members, good to have some tips

interesting how i ended up on this blog. i am travelling to sri lanka this friday landing very late at night. i will be heading to ella and then arugam bay.
did a bit of investigation and found out that there is a bus leaving on saturday at 5.55 to Ella so i had the idea of going out partying a bit in colombo and directly to the train station instead of getting a hotel, but...

1) do clubs stay open till late in colombo?
2) will i like it so much that i will regret not staying for saturday night too?

thanks in advance to everyone for you replies
cheers

jon

After reading this post we decided to visit the cricket club cafe. 2hrs each way by car to get to probably the worst restaurant I have ever been to in my life. The service was awful and the food even worse.  Avoid!!!!!!

Josnuggles wrote:

After reading this post we decided to visit the cricket club cafe. 2hrs each way by car to get to probably the worst restaurant I have ever been to in my life. The service was awful and the food even worse.  Avoid!!!!!!

It is an old post may be the management has changed by now.

Most of the posts on this forum are unfortunately very old. It's a shame the forum isn't used more 

Hello all

Maybe its just because there are not too much expatriates going to Colombo, and all the locals may not know about the site or have access to internet

Regards
Kenjee
Expat.com Team

kenjee wrote:

Hello all

Maybe its just because there are not too much expatriates going to Colombo, and all the locals may not know about the site or have access to internet

Regards
Kenjee
Expat.com Team

I saw loads of expats there, maybe they use facebook for advice.