Bar review: ORIOLE BAR (Farringdon)

My favourite TV show of all time, Sex and the City, has a lot to answer for. Of the four lead females, the one I recognise myself in the most is definitely Carrie Bradshaw (played by Sarah Jessica Parker with considerable wit and flair). Carrie doesn’t take break-ups well, tends to fall hard in love with men who are no good for her, and is a writer. (Admittedly, I write for a blog, she writes for a state-wide newspaper, but still).

Furthermore, it was only because Carrie loved Cosmopolitans so much that I began drinking Cosmopolitans, and if I am ever in a cocktail bar, that’s my go-to drink. At Oriole bar, ordering a Cosmo would be failing to make the most of your opulent surroundings. The bar offers weird and wonderful concoctions featuring the most out there ingredients, including egg yolk, tobacco liquor and, er… dust.

The menu, which is divided by parts of the world (which inspired the various cocktails), is in itself, longer than most children’s books. I’m not being funny, but at 8pm when you just wanna get drunk with your girlfriends so you can trash-talk the clown men in your life (couldfillabook.jpg), who’s got time to read a whole MSc project-length??

That’s not to say that the drinks, and the food, sparse in quality as it was, wasn’t well presented.  Looks-wise, it certainly turned my head:-

That being said, the ostentatious presentation comes at a cost in terms of practicality. As the night progressed and I lost control of my motor neurones, I tipped over my awkwardly-shaped glass. Thankfully this was at the end and only ice cube spilt, but some of them went on the poor lady sat next to me. Hardly ideal.

The barfood was equally impractical. The chorizo, photographed below, whilst delicious, was I wolfed it up in about three bites. I've been curious about what exactly quinoa is since I saw Gone Girl  two months ago and Ben Affleck was mocked for thinking it was kind of fish. Turns out that what it actually is is some bland-ass flavourless pseudo-cereal concoction. Boring, and the pittance of salsa sauce put on it hardly merited the £7.50 price. That's £2.50 per fritter. Would you pay £2.50 for something you can barely see?!

Overall, I found Oriole too pretentious, and if I’m complaining about something being too pretentious, you know you’ve got problems. I guess I’m just too direct a person. I love cocktails, but I like to have two or three different alcoholic ingredients, a few mixers, and boom. And I’d rather my mixer didn’t include something that could give me an allergy!

Oriole bar is more of a status symbol than it is a viable drinking hole. People would bring guests here just to show that they can; that they can afford to throw away £14 on a cocktail with about 3 alcohol units in, tops.

I’d rather have Cosmopolitan, thanks.

Grade: C