 The recently opened Sublounge (formerly the Grand Hotel's bar, Colmore's) is a stone's throw from Colmore Row - and a world away from the more boisterous revelry of Broad Street. With mirrored walls and bright lighting the subterranean bar feels surprisingly vast and airy even with its dearth of windows. Chilled out and friendly, Sublounge is busy enough to have a decent atmosphere - even at half past five - but not so busy you lose the will to live before you get served at the bar. With a good range of beers (including some excellent Belgian beers - and Hoegaarden on draught) and a reasonably priced wine list, it's perfect for a post-work tipple and a bite to eat. Having decided to pop in one evening for a quick dinner before going to see a play - and explaining that we needed to be out within an hour to our helpful waitress - we picked one main and a selection of three tapas to share from the new evening menu and settled back with a bottle of Berri Estates Merlot and waited. And waited. Forty-five minutes after we ordered our food - and as I was standing at the bar in panicky fashion waiting to ask the barman where it was - it finally arrived. It was - thankfully - definitely worth the wait. The garlic and rosemary chicken with pesto crushed potatoes (£9.25) was a lightly pan-fried chicken breast with a generous portion of mashed potato and rich gravy - although the pesto was missing in action as far as we could tell. It was nice enough - although at £9.25 it did seem a bit overpriced for the size of the (nicely presented) portion. A minor quibble, and probably less noticeable in normal circumstances, except in ordering the tapas we had unwittingly stumbled across the jewel in the Sublounge's culinary crown. At £19.95 for a plate of three from a choice of around a dozen and a bottle of wine, the tapas is good value even before you factor in how lush the food is. The slight bite of the chorizo was off-set slightly by slices of red pepper on mini skewers, while the chicken skewers were moist and tasty - although crying out for some kind of dip. We'd ordered spring rolls as our third option and this meant there was more than enough food to go around - eight mini spring rolls with three each of the skewers, salad, crisps and small pieces of crisped bread all artfully laid out on the plate. In the way that only good tapas can, the food made us want to order more wine and spend the evening nibbling morsels and chatting - although unfortunately on this occasion we had to eat the food in ten minutes and run for the door (after a slight delay while they wrote out my debit card details on a piece of paper as their card machine was down).We'll know for next time though. Suffice to say there's nothing substandard about the Sublounge - as long as you're not in a hurry. Although with great food and a good atmosphere, why would you be? Sublounge, Barwick St, Birmingham,West Midlands, B3 2NT. (0121) 233 3883
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