Issue 42

10 November

Breakfast and Lunch

If you find yourself in Negombo and missed breakfast, drop into Cafe Zen by Skinny Suddha. They have an all day breakfast menu including bacon and eggs, smoothie or granola bowls and even a mezze breakfast. Open from 8.00an daily except Wednesday.

Bibo's Cafe has some nice a-la-carte choices for brunch, such as French toast, pancakes and sweet waffles. These are available from 1030am. 

The Social have  introduced a couple of value lunch pack options: egg chiffon rice or Hainan chicken rice. These are each priced at Rs600.

Classic Lounge have a generous offer:  order any of their biriyani meals and get a crispy chicken burger for free.

For a budget lunch, Burger Freakz don't only do burgers; they also have a Chinese menu with a selection of fried rice, noodle and kottu dishes, starting from around Rs250.

And some good news for BBQ lovers, The Grill have restarted their Executive Lunch menu. This includes chicken or pork and rice Rs990, grilled fish and rice for Rs1290 and lamb or beef for Rs1490. These are available for dine-in, takeaway or delivery from 12.00 to 3.00pm daily.

And starting from this Sunday, The Galadari's Blue Lotus restaurant will be offering a selection of traditional lunch dishes, served on a lotus leaf. These will be available Sundays from 12pm to 3pm.

High Tea and Dinner:

There's another high tea back in town! The Galadari's High Tea Buffet is back. This high tea is a buffet not a platter, so you can help yourself to what you want. It is available from 3.30pm to 6.00pm on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.

For a simple budget dinner, or late afternoon snack, The Hungry Foodie are offering two burgers for Rs990. This is available for takeaway or delivery from 5pm to 10pm until 30 November.

If you're looking for something more varied and plentiful, the daily dinner buffet is back at Ports of Call at the Taj Samudra. There's a wide choice of international and local dishes to choose from and it is open from 7.30pm to 10.30pm daily.

Thai food lovers, rejoice! Thai Boulevard is open again for dine-in, daily from 11.45 to 2.15pm and from 6.45 to 10.15pm. 

And more good news. The Cinnamon Red hotel reopens its doors on Monday  next week and from Wednesday their evening dinner buffet will be available. Priced at Rs2,800 per person, it is available from 7.30pm to 10.30pm.

Looking further ahead, for the week from 23rd to 30th November, Clements Restaurant will offer an "all you can eat" deal for Rs1500. This will be available for a la carte, dining in at the restaurant only.

Happy Hours & Ladies' Night

A happy hour is typically buy one, get one free, or 50% off, right? But freeflow for an hour? That's the offer from t-Lounge by Dilmah: unlimited, freshly made tea-based cocktails for an hour, for Rs2,000.  Or beer, but if you're at t-Lounge by Dilmah it makes sense to drink tea, surely! 

If you enjoy a happy hour, and you also enjoy a good dinner, then you'll be glad to know that ME Colombo have combined the two.  If you are dining at their Friday evening barbecue (for two people) or their Saturday evening Mongolian dinner, then you can enjoy buy one, get one free deals on selected beers, wines, cocktails and spirits through the evening, while enjoying the rooftop view. and to make it even better, starting this week there'lll be live acoustic guitar music. 

The Manchester Pub have also brought back their happy hour deals from 5pm to 7pm, Monday to Friday, offering buy one, get one free on selected cocktails, shots and mugs of beer.

A lot of people find Sundays If you find Sundays a bit of a drag, &Co at The Steuart have extended their Sunday happy hour to not two, nor three, but TWELVE hours. Yes, 11am to 11pm, that's an all day happy hour, to enjoy buy one, get one free on selected drinks.

Next Wednesday, 17th, Botanik are hosting an evening with "The Whingeing Pome". Yes, author Paul Topping, AKA The Whingeing Pome, will be recounting stories of his travels over wine tasting and canapes selected by himself. Cost Is Rs2,500, and  numbers are limited so book early for what should be a tasty and amusing evening.

Live Music and DJs

It's another good week for music with more than a dozen bands and artists playing on Friday; quite a bit fewer on Thursday and Saturday, it would be good to see some more choice on these nights too, but hey, music is back!

There's too many to list them all - for a full gig guide, check our Live Music page - but the highlights this week are:

On Thursday, Warehouse Project will be at Colombar from 7pm, Dillon will be at the Fox Den and Cold Sweat will be adding to the celebrations of the reopening of On14, Ozo's rooftop bar. 

On Friday, live music comes back to Darley Road, with Legato on stage. Meanwhile. Magic Box Mixup will be at the Curve Bar, Ishini and the Branch at the Re.pub.lk, Silk will be adding the vibes to Feelgood Friday at Asylum, The Notion will be at In...on the Green (and Saturday too) and Sam Day will be at Manchester. 

Saturday is quieter again, with only just over half a dozen gigs, but these include OiC at SunsetBlu, Aquarius back at the Curve Bar and Barstool Prophecy at Drunk Panda.

As for DJ sounds, DJ Neco Fernandez will be on the desks at Level 4 on Friday and Saturday evenings till late.

It's Amore Friday at the Love Bar with DJs Trev D and Lunatics.  Over at R&B, Friday Night means DJs Moonkillex, Ricardo Deen and Capital C.

Saturday night is 90s night at RnB, with four DJs on the decks: Moonkillex, Capital C and Ricardo Deen are joined by Kapila. Back at the Love Bar, it's Drunk In Love with DJs Hitch and Just:Because. 

Other Events

There's two salsa nights to choose from this week. Or hey, go to both! On Thursday night it's at Playtrix at the earlier time of 8pm. Then you can practice your moves again on Saturday at The Irish from 9.30pm.

And it's finally time for the long awaited Ceylon Happy Market which will take place, come rain or shine, at Havelock Grounds on Sunday 14th November. Expect shopping, food, a kids' area and even a barber for that haircut or beard trim that you have been putting off for weeks! It's a perfect time to pick up some gifts for Christmas - oops, didn't want to mention that until December! 

Onto the virtual events and the webinars and online events are a bit quiet this weekend. But the Wildlife and Nature Protection Society of Sri Lanka's Youth Wing is hosting a talk on on Sunday with a "Deep Dive into the World of Freshwater Fish", on Sunday afternoon at 4pm.

These are just a selection of the events that we have listed. Check our home page diary for more information and remember that events are being added to our diary almost daily so keep checking back and see what's new.