Bar review: The Patio Bar in Hung Hom – bright lights, sweet drinks, and live music at weekends

The vibe: an outdoor bar area, adjacent to the hotel’s Promenade all-day dining restaurant, with tables sparsely scattered around a vivid green synthetic turf lawn. It commands, depending on where you sit, a so-so view of the harbour, or one of a featureless concrete side of the Hong Kong Coliseum. It’s more attractive after the sun goes down, particularly if LED-lit furniture that periodically changes colour happens to be your thing.

The experience of sitting there is slightly akin to settling into a neon sculpture park. Really, it’s an open-air function area, set up for weddings and other events, which doubles as a bar. Service is friendly and efficient. There is a snack menu for the peckish, and live musicians perform on Fridays and Saturdays.

The drinks: The Harbour Sunset (HK$85, as are all the cocktails) is made with gin, blue curacao, tonic, lemon juice, simple syrup and fresh raspberries, and is a good thirst quenching G&T variant for a warm day. It was a little too sweet for my palate, but sweet drinks seem to be the house speciality.

Cooling Singapore Slings, Long Island Iced Teas and other fairly predictable drinks are the house style, alongside a number of choices which take the liquid dessert approach, presumably courting late evening business. The Patio Pudding is made with rum, advocaat, Kahlua, Grand Marnier and a whole egg; the Chocolate Delight comprises vodka, Bols Cacao White and Natural Yoghurt Liqueur, banana liqueur and fresh milk; and the Hazelnut Surprise is mixed with vodka, Baileys Irish Cream, Frangelico and espresso.