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Friday Dec 13, 2024
Friday, 28 August 2015 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
By Sarah Hannan
Colombo a city that has a vibrant nightlife at times may run out of places to hangout. With an ever increasing demand for rooms and spaces to chill out with friends and family after an eventful day or trying to find that perfect spot with a panoramic view can be a bit of a task. 
Located on Baseline Road, Colombo 05 the hotel is a comforting getaway compared to a city hotel in the corporate capital. While the hotel caters to the business and leisure segment, they are also looking at accommodating medical tourists given the location of the hotel.
Speaking briefly about the premises General Manager Renuke Coswatte explained, “We celebrated one year in operations as a hotel in Sri Lanka and are proud to call ourselves the first Best Western Hotel in Sri Lanka. Our occupancy runs at 75% all year around and we believe the location of the hotel and being part of a global chain helps to maintain it at this rate.”
Best Western Elyon Colombo provides on premises, a full service restaurant catering to both local and international cuisine, an indoor gym and a bar offering guests their favourite beverages. The hotel is focused on providing its guests with a relaxing and comfortable experience with a host of amenities that makes the Best Western Elyon Colombo the perfect choice while travelling for families or business groups. Their Business Centre facility can be used for business meetings by its customers as well.
City Lights
Having attended several events at City Lights located on the rooftop of Best Western Elyon Colombo, I have seen this space transform catering to different capacities and settings. The most recent being the Sri Lankan Theme Night; which allowed me to experience their hospitality and service when the place is running at full capacity.
While the Bar and Lounge works well with a cocktail style setting, a banquet style setting will make it a little bit inconvenient to navigate through the limited space between each table layout. Fortunately it was a buffet, so the only time that took me to get to my food was the time I had to spend on walking up to the buffet spread and serving from the interesting spread.
The buffet consisted of the traditional mains of rice, string hoppers, pittu and authentic Sri Lankan curries such as black pork curry, fish ambulthiyal, chicken red curry, brinjal moju, deep-fried bitter gourd salad etc.
The action station served up plain and egg hoppers, tempuras and vadai; which were paired with katta sambol and spiced coconut dips.
The dessert spread included traditional sweetmeats such as mung kevum, milk toffee, and buffalo curd with treacle topping.
A calypso band dished out the evening’s entertainment and their set-list comprised of Sinhala songs. While the dress code for the night was sarong and shirt for the gentlemen and sarong and top for the ladies only a handful of guests obliged to don the same.
The bar and lounge allows alfresco dining there for the 100% non-smoking rule that is in place inside the hotel premises will not apply once you are on this level. It also provides you the opportunity to bear witness to the changing skyline of the central building district of Colombo.
Pix by Daminda
Harsha Perera
