BARLEYS BAR & LOUNGE

GC: GOING OUT

BARLEYS BAR & LOUNGE

LIMASSOL

Return of the king!

I have always been a firm advocate for after work drinks at Barleys as a place to relax with a good solid menu, ample sports coverage, and ice-cold beer. It ticked every box for the simple pleasures in life. With the shut down and redesign coming, I thought it might lose some of its down to earth charm of knowing what I was going to get when I returned.

In the spirit of science, we matched the same participants and food stuffs in its previous glowing review, to give an adequate baseline to assess if they had improved on a modern classic or taken a Limassol staple from us.

It was a massively humid night, so a pair of beers were to begin with accompanied by the spicy chicken wings which we asked to have extra spice horsepower added. Normally, this makes them usually mildly potent in other venues. However, much to our delight when they were carried over my eyes could sense the impending spice bomb, we were about to ingest. As ever, great quality meat and spicy sauce was not just the standard heat attack, it was a spicy sauce that had a very nice taste, but also had the ability to numb your face.

That’s not to say I would brush my teeth with it as it was very strong, but very digestible and we managed to consume the dozen chicken wings with ease.

With the owner asking us if we would like some thirst-quenching cocktails (3 for 2 price offer), we were only too pleased to oblige in his kind offer. I am not sure what mine was, however, it was served on a large metal ladle (with the cocktail in a glass) and tasted amazing. As I am not a big spirits drinker, the best compliment I can give for anyone making me a cocktail is that I can’t taste the booze.

It is fair assessment to come to say that I was enthusiastically ordering these over the next several hours, and if I am being honest with the GC readers, we all got smashed ending the night on a high with a free Jägermeister shot being given to us that made the world go a bit unbalanced.

The second part of the review was conducted on the following day for lunch, returning to the scene of the previous nights crime I am usually a little reluctant if I am feeling not 100%. However, my child is British and as is stated on our passports does need to eat at least one piebased product every week.

We both had the chicken and mushroom pie, which was fantastic, served with mushy peas, mashed potato, and a fantastic handmade gravy. As ever the service is impeccable, where they cater to your ever need. The only sad thing was Daddy had to make his child eat a little faster, as he was what in British medical terms doing was ‘throwing a whitey’. Based upon my booze biology knowledge, I thought I had drank enough fruit juice in the cocktails, to get past this. Sadly not, and Daddy had to pay for the nights previous sins. The pie and mash potato did eventually right the ship and we were ok to drive home for a nice cup of tea and a sit down (accompanied by a micro sleep whilst pretending to watch a film).

Visually also the bar has had a fantastic refit, changing the shape and dynamic of the bar. I think it is more for everyone now, and most importantly there appears to be a no karaoke policy which certainly gets my vote.

Well worth a visit.