Colombo - The Seaspray at The Galle Face Hotel

Right where the Galle Face promenade ends in Colombo, The Seaspray begins. The Seaspray sits at the edge of the sea, just above the rocks into which the Arabian Sea crashes with unfailing regularity. The first thing to do at Seaspray is to pull your table right to the edge of the parapet; don't listen to the protests of the waiters. Then order your favourite poison, face the sea, listen to the waves crashing below you and feel the sea spraying into your face. If you are lucky, the other guests will be in a similar mood, and will not be chattering away too much to disturb what is a superb ambience. This is one place where the food and drink don't really matter; in fact, I don't remember what I've eaten there. There are other beachfront places in Colombo where the seafood is great, at Beach Wadiya and the Mount Lavinia Hotel, but they just don't have the magic of The Seaspray.

In the few months I lived in Colombo, The Seaspray was one of my favourite watering holes. The others were the Inn on the Green, also at The Galle Face Hotel, with an incredible variety of beers and where Newcastle Brown Ale became my favourite tipple; The Mix, the sports bar at the Taj Samudra which played some wonderful 80's and 90's music; and the Bambalapitiya Bar, a seedy rundown place where the liquor was cheap, but still somehow had a charm of its own since it looked like an old Parsi house, it even had a few chairs that looked like they belonged to one.