Groovy nights and new menus

The entrance, as you walk in is cool and dark. The black and brown furniture is offset by posters from famous musicals and abstract paintings in vibrant blues, greens and purples. The place tells you "relax, chill out…".

Leading off to the left of the entrance is the bar area, decorated in the same style as the entrance, minus the posters. The parquet floors crawl up to the bar which is backed by a psychedelic glass-worked wall. Other than this wall, straight lines dominate the place.

This is The Number18 Café Restaurant by Taru."We've got the best cocktails in town," declares manager Ashan Fernando proudly. To prove his word, Friday and Saturday nights find the bar area full of the party crowd enjoying a round of drinks before going out. "We've become a sort of watering hole for clubbers before their night out," Ashan says. The management plays dance and hip-hop music on Fridays and Saturdays especially for this crowd, as opposed to the retro they usually play. The restaurant also has happy hour every day from 6 - 8 p.m., when they serve one-for-one on Martinis and offer Mojitos (regular, passion fruit and strawberry) at special rates.

The restaurant menus have been completely revamped, and now include Sri Lankan cuisine as well as western, continental, Japanese, Chinese, Indonesian and Thai food. Taru's restaurant aims to serve the best in what they serve, so there's even Ukrainian beef and lamb chops imported from New Zealand, French desserts and wines from Chile, France and Australia.

The prices also have been revised, but the most important change to Number 18 comes in the form of the atmosphere. "We used to be a fine dining experience," explains Ashan, "but we've changed things around a bit, and we're more 'café' now, more relaxed."

May 24was a special day for the restaurant as they started a number of new things. The first is a special executive set lunch menu, targeting business people without much time for choosing meals. A choice of six starters, six main courses and four desserts has been put together for this purpose, into an exquisite 45 minute meal.

The restaurant now also has special Saturday, Sunday and Poya day menus - All-Day Brunch of waffles, pancakes, muesli, yoghurt, American breakfast, hangover cocktails etc for the recovering-from-the-party-last-night crowd. Other specials they plan are the monthly UN and Salsa nights which will be targeted to serve a special clientele.