St Michael’s Manor Hotel Bar

An absolutely glorious wedding venue, St Michael’s Manor in St Alban’s offers colourful country scenary, a lake and wonderful views, on a warm summers day this has to be one of the best wedding venues in the country. The bar is located facing into the back garden, it is a fairly small bar but with fast service and a limited bar selection. Drinks are fairly expensive but the layout of the bar has a crips and polished feel matching the decor of the rest of the venue.

Overall the Manor itself is a stunning wedding venue, its bar could probably be a little larger but for a hotel bar does suit purpose, although not a bar that one would head to on a night out in St albans - 5/10

Carlos and Paula Bar and Seafood Restaurant

Set literally on the beach in Elviria outside Marbella, the Carlos and Paula Bar and Seafood Restaurant is a large hut packed with diners with an outdoor space with spectacular views of the beach and Spanish sunset. The food on offer is a vast selection fo seafood, all freshly caught and most cooked on a bbq sitting outside. A very tantilising and enticing restaurant one would have thought but unfortunately the service is dire. We recieve drinks (a rather poor selection) and then wait close to two hours for our food to arrive which does not come out as ordered. Sitting outside we get the best of the setting sunshine but then a beach-side breeze picks up at night and the scene can be as romanticised.

Overall a real shame that the servcie at this venue is bad (and typically cab drivers find it hard to find) but for the lucky few that get what they order, the seafood is hard to beat - 4/10

1920 Pool Bar

1920 bar is a multi-tier bar with a selection of four pool tables with an orange theme inside with low lighting. The bar is a tiny corner bar near the entrance of the venue with fairly fast service but not a great drink selection. To use the pool tables it is essential to book for use any time after 6.30pm from which time the place begins to get crowded and in all honesty the place is too small for a proper tournament. Along one of the walls a rather crude murial has been painted on a hanging canvas of bare women. The lighting is also evil on the eyes for concerntrating on a match of pool, the yellow stripped balls and the blue spotted ball can both be mistaken for the white or black very easily, so definitely not for more pro players.

Overall this bar is a pool bar without the flare, I most certainly prefer the Elbow Rooms down the road in Old street than this venue - 6/10

Cafe Koha

It is almost impossible to find somewhere to have a drink outdoors in Leicester Square or Soho but after wandering around in the blistering heat of a September heatwave, we thankfully found Cafe Koha, a small cafe and bar which is literally situated behind Leicester Square station. There are only a couple of tables outside so you really have to be lucky to find one empty but we foudn the service to be fast and very friendly. The drink selection was reasonably small and drinks were not overpriced and we were not hurried along for other customers, in fact the place felt largely undiscovered.

Overall Cafe Koha is a friendly little spot with interior and exterior seating, perfect for that pint in the summer, even if it is down an alley way - 6/10

Don Carlos Poolside Bar

The Don Carlos is a big beautiful tower block hotel in Elviria near Marbella on the costa del sol. The venue has two big swimming pools. The one nearest the reception of the hotel is an overflowing rectangular pool with a bar, an array of tables and sun loungers and table service. The drinks are completely over-priced but the service is fairly fast and fairly polite. The selection is fairly poor too. The Don Carlos does seem to suffer from a reputation of extravegance but without the superior service that it needs to really deserve all those stars and yet those with a full wallet keep coming back year after year.

Overall this Poolside Bar at the Don Carlos is merely a convinience for bathers and sun worshippers with no character to speak of but a reasonabley good stade from the blazing spanish sunshine - 5/10

The Cotton Mill Premier Inn Hotel Bar

The Cotton Mill was a delightful surprise to behold. The interior has a rich dark finish to it with soft lighting and a homely feel to the place with lots of tables hidden around corners and in nooks and crannies of the venue. The pub serves up a hearty buffet breakfast in the mornings and offers a reasonable selection of drinks in the evening for the drinkers. The venue is fairly quiet throughout the week as one would expect, being only near to a golf club and of course for the residents of the hotel which sits next door.

Overall the Cotton Mill really adds that something special to the hotel next door and means I would gladly return should I visit the area in the future - 7/10

The Crown and Horseshoes

The Crown and Horseshoes is a very quaint country pub set in the picturesque setting of canal-side among willow trees: all fully pedestrianised. The main interior of the pub is a fair size with some low ceilings that could do with some repair, but serving well in the winter as a cosy pub. In the summer the massive garden hosts drinks and diners in their hundreds and is a magnificent setting for an afternoon of drinking. The big problem with the pub is the incredibley slow bar service. On two seperate occasions I have visited this pub the bar staff have taken more than ten minutes to do a simply four drink order, never making more than one drink at a time or serving more than one punter at a time. In one visit I witnessed the kitchen getting into such a mess over food that one poor family were left hungry for two hours with no trace of their food at the end, or the purchase or any compensation.

Overall it is a shame that a team of staff let down such a beautiful pub, I really think that if these issues were sorted out the place would be my favourite watering hole in the area and I would certainly invite others to make the same judgement - 5/10

Grace bar and Restaurant

It doesn’t take a huge leap of the imagination to refurbish a bar before opening it up under a different name but it feels like Grace is just the old “Sugar Reef” bar with a mildly different colour scheme and a different menu. The bar is not in the center of the main walkway which seems to clutter the place a little and the fast spread of chairs and tables in the dining area suffers slow service and disappointed looks on the faces of folks that arrive for a fine dining meal and end up being treated like any other bar customer. The food in here is actually fairly good but drink prices are a little steep (although probbaly to be expected in Soho) the volume of the music seems to climb uneccesarily high even on midweek evenings and the place truely has about as much atmosphere as the planet Mercury (that is to say, very little).

Overall Grace is Sugar Reef with a new name and as with Sugar Reef only a venue to hit if you are lost for other options which, in Soho, doesn’t happen - 5/10

The Kings Head

I was as surprised as any other resident of Enfield to discover that the Kings Head (a pub once renowned for trouble) had been unboarded-up, refurbished and had its doors re-opened. naturally I had to head down for a few drinks to see what it was all about. The venue was actually surprisingly inviting with fast bar service and a pretty good selection of drinks including the classic Jagerbomb machine at the back. There are a number of doors to access the pub by and standing next to each one is a small group of smokers. The seating inside are a mix of heavy wooden booths and bar-side seating. At the back there is a darkened room with music channel television suspended above what might serve as a dancefloor and rather standard grubby toilets at the back.

Overall it is nice for the choice of pubs to be opened up again, frankly this pub has a lot more character than the “George” over the road and despite being slightly more expensive I think I would prefer the head for a beer or three - 6/10

Soho Joe’s

In all honesty Soho jo’s is more a restaurant than a bar but it is a bustling social setting for some very well priced grub and a chat with friends at the interior lofty wooden benches or out front; al fresco on the streets of Soho. The servcie is Soho Jo’s is very swift and as I have already said both the pizza and the burgers have that gourmet edge to them for just over the cost of a fast food price. Unfortunately in the dim lighting I made a grave error and mistook a shaker of sugar for one of palmersan cheese and ruined my pizza, much to the delight of my fellow diner.

Overall Soho Jo’s is a fairly unlikely place to stop of for a drink and a chin wag but it is one of the preferrable efforts of the Soho social scene and as busy during the lunch hour as it is into the warm summer evening - 7/10