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Published: August 12th 2018
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Barefoot Cafe. The better tables are under cover.Today my colleague and I decided to go to the much mentioned and recommended Barefoot Cafe, which has 3 locations, the one at 704 Galle Road being the one with the Sunday lunchtime jazz. You really need to book, all the tables under cover we’re reserved and we ended up outside huddled in the sort of shade of a tree, way out of reach of the fans. It was very hot.
To get there we trotted through the Crescat Mall to the front where the tuktuks pull up, but the first ones weren’t metered. We decided to give the Pick Me app a whirl, said where we were and it came up with the driver’s name and reg number. He was a bit of a way away. We walked to the road and it looked like he’d overshot and had to come back. I’m not really sure how accurate the GPS if if you just use the I’m here option. We had to go round the one way system and he didn’t have his meter running, so the price was more than it should have been. Although you get an emailed receipt it’s still impossible to get the exact price
from the app.
The food was good, the jazz was loud, very loud, and we shared a table with a couple from Nottingham, here for a week’s holiday and staying by the lake. The drinks come without straws, which is admirable, but choosing one with mint was really annoying, trying to sieve the bits out. Prices on the blackboard were mostly 1100r for mains, the sandwiches were about 650r, but tax and service seems to add 25% on top. It was nice, though, and I’d go again. The shop is a wow of bright colours, I bought table mats and some cards. The gorgeous bedspreads are about £50. There’s a sign saying no photos inside but I didn’t see it. The sales assistants are hot on this if they catch you, even if you are buying things, which is rather shortsighted, photos can only be good advertising for them.
To get back (neither of us could face walking in the heat) we had another go at Pick Me. This time the driver got pulled over by the police. He stopped in a really smelly place, outside a dodgy barber’s. This is the second time it’s happened to me,
bad tuktuk karma, obviously. We sat in the back like a couple of lemons for a bit while the driver talked to the police. It looked like he was handing over cash. I gave him 50r and we walked the rest of the way, about 15 minutes.
In the evening we walked over to the Galle Face Hotel to meet our other colleague for happy hour, except it wasn’t very happy. I’m sure I was there around 5.45 the other night but they said it was 4-5.30 only. Oh well, suck it up, it’s a lovely place, even if the colonial uniforms of the staff are a bit much to take. Our colleague arrived and regaled us with her story of falling for the you must come to the special Buddhist festival scam, which left her a little rattled and slightly out of her way. She stuck to her guns and only paid 1000r, the original sum, rather than the new, unattractive figure of 2000r. The driver had said he needed petrol, then took her to a dodgy shop which seemed to be closed and she had to say no a lot. While we were sitting looking at the
still very rough sea, there was a bizarre flag ceremony. 2 men in uniform, one playing the bagpipes of all things, marched down to the seafront, lowered the Sri Lankan flag and marched back inside with it all folded up into a nice little triangle.
Walking past the buffet restaurant we had food envy. It looked and smelled fantastic, we might splurge another night and give it a whirl.
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