PimpShuei, Farringdon

While I was entering the world of French art-house films, pretending to understand and like pretentious 60s glossy toss - bonjour, Alain Resnais' Last Year At Marienbad! - my unsophisticated classmates were happy to Enter The Dragon. Confession: I have never watched a Jackie Chan or Bruce Lee film. Ever. My grasp of this popular niche genre - cue howls of derision - is limited to Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting (http://tinyurl.com/6sdvpkt ), a 1974 UK/ US chart-topper by Jamaican cod-karate chopper Carl Douglas whose interest in Chinese culture, I imagine, nowadays extends to Char Siu Chow Mein, a portion of number 14 and free prawn crackers and a Coke from Der Kung Fu Kottage in his adopted Hamburg. Squirrelled away off Gray's Inn Road, is PimpShuei - a 'one-of-a-kind dive bar with a 70's-80's chop-socky vibe.' I drop in more out of curiosity than in expectation. Set in a basement rented off the 'sensational dinning (sic) experience' that is hot stone steak house, Rango's, above, the enthusiastic new lessees have turned what, as The Blue Bar, was billed as a 'classy yet casual cocktail lounge', into a New York hustler-style hangout that grooves to Blaxplotation flick soundtracks à la Cleopatra Jones. All martial arts murals, tawdry Guangzhou geegaws, retro arcade games, Kung fu film posters, a cinema-sized projection screen, and converted ghetto-blasters showing sock-it-to-him Shaolin nonsense on their inset tellys, the Look is Cantonese Kelly Hoppen karate choppin' kitsch. Tsingtao, Asahi and a rudimentary wine selection apart, the focus is on cocktails. Cheery Chinese co-owner 'Slash' says these will eventually number two dozen but tonight, days after its launch, there are only four on offer. Wong Island and Bangkok Dangerous discounted, my Pat mojito - Kraken rum, aloe vera juice, lemongrass and maraschino - is tangy and  fair at £8. The chum's gimlet - not exactly the most taxing of off-menu calls - is competently executed. Amateurish and raw perhaps, but put together (on the cheap) with soul and passion, PimpShuei feels a lot more authentic than the corny karate kid pulp shown on its screens.

58 Mount Pleasant WC1X 0AY https://www.facebook.com/pimpshuei

Rosewood, Holborn

As the heavens open and the storm rages, I'm alright Jack! An early adopter, I'm sitting it out  - happy as a sand-boy in a squishy sink-in sofa by a roaring fire - at Rosewood's rather gorge bar. The haute hotel chain’s maiden European venture harks back to the days of Britain as a global superpower. Set in a palatial pillared marble hall of the Pearl Assurance Co’s former showpiece HQ, Martin (Scott’s/ 34/ The Ivy Club) Brudnizki’s candied fruits-tone updated take on Edwardian pomp is a triumph that, at a stroke, creates a classic new luxurious London space. Better still, one with great cocktails on tap. Classy calls, prepped at an imposing L-shaped bar, include humidor (Chivas 18-y-o, white port and absinthe); hats off (mezcal, Aperol and agave-sweetened citrus fruit juices); Connemara peated single malt and cherry liqueur fix, Irish mermaid (£12); fish house punch, and pith helmet - a reference to Britain’s colonial adventures in India, the inspiration for various items of old Delhi tiffin on a menu that also includes attractively presented smoked salmon or chicken liver pot, merguez pizzette, and cheese and onion sourdough toasties (£7) - the latter so addictive, I'm beginning to regret binning my Breville. For now though, there is liveried staff to cater to my fat neck's new-found need. I may be down on the dumbest TV costume drama of all time, but when I say this deeply doable drawing room-cum-library-cum-home-from-home feels like a set from Downton Abbey, it's meant as a compliment. I sit totally alone, like The Dowager Countess of Grantham spoiling for a sparring partner who'll wither under my vinegary sarcasm. Nobody comes. Not  a single sausage. Heaven on Holborn! Don't tell another living soul! 

252 High Holborn WC1V 7EN 7781 8888 http://www.rosewoodhotels.com/en/london

Adapted from my review for www.squaremeal.co.uk

Field's Bar and Kitchen, Holborn

Resolutions: where January is all about diets that won't last, post-Wimbledon, July is when couch potatoes suddenly decide they could rival Andy Murray by October,  if only they book a court in the park each Thursday after work. On a balmy July evening, I'm at Lincoln's Inn Fields, aperitif in hand, being entertained by two deadly serious chaps locked in a tie-break on a court adjacent to the terrace at Benugo's latest venture, Field's Bar and Kitchen. They're thinking "Djokovic v Nadal"; I'm seeing Jabba The Hut v Billy Bunter as the latter's 2nd, 3rd and 20th serves find the net. Amateurs! It's the same word I'd apply to this evening's service. Sweet but hardly likely to land a gig at Field's near neighbour, The Delaunay, perhaps the young staff here are also recent converts to their game and in need of a few more warm-up sessions?  But this is casual dining and, as such, it works well enough for less picky souls who are clearly taken with a chalet-style refectory that feels like a smart roadside diner in the mountains of Slovenia, or Norway - not that I've actually visited either. From a snappy menu that does breakfasts for briefs off to work in the square's crusty legal chambers, and lunch dishes such as sea bass fillet and courgettes al forno or steak sandwich, we order pizza ortolana - a fair if not memorable £10.50 chargrilled veg, mozarella and rocket 12-inch -  and burrata with 'heritage' red and green tomatoes. It looks tastier than it eats. Sparkling wines to enjoy on a sunny summer evening include pink pinot, Nyetimber and prosecco, and there's a limited range cocktails. Before I can get a proper negroni Blur on, Parklife is brought to an abrupt end. At 8.30 sharp, a waitress begins to bus tables while another folds up chairs with such haste, I fear the Germans are coming. We're more or less shooed away like irksome pigeons, motioned towards the garden square's about-to-shut gates. As John McEnroe was wont to erupt, "You cannot be serious!"

Lincoln’s inn Fields, WC2A 3LH 7242 5351 www.benugo.com 

Bounce, Holborn

Bounce: is this new £2.5 million basement named after fabric conditioner or dog food? Either way, odd choice of monicker  - but what do I know? Adam Breeden, one of the young blades behind it must be a marketing genius as he tells me his business interests enable him to run a glam house in Italy as a getaway. It transpires his new baby is 'Bounce' as in ping-pong balls. Now, my only direct experience of those is summed up in that well-known limerick that begins 'The buxom Bangkok bar hostess's ultimate stunt, was to shoot ten ping pong balls out of her....' but I digress. I'm at  Britain's first dedicated table-tennis social club/ bar/ diner opened by the peeps who also gave us All Star Lanes bowling alleys.  By sheer fluke, they have located it in the very building  where ping-pong (aka wiff-waff) was trademarked by games manufacturers Jacques and Sons in 1901. Big on the Manhattan nightlife scene, the game is increasingly featuring in bars here such a Ping in Earls Court. Bounce takes the phenomenon to a whole new level, thanks to a dozen and a half competition tables including the one used to decide the medals at London 2012. Get in practice for Rio 2016: Britain has yet to win an Olympic medal of any shade for table tennis. As I'm not much into the idea of having my balls whacked by over-competitive, gimlet-eyed Chinese midgets, I'll not be in training at Bounce; but sportier types will want to get stuck in on a regular basis. Table hire is £10 per 30 minute session.  For that, I'd rather have a Match Point Margarita, Winning Smash or Wiff-Waff (Beefeater 24, Earl Grey, tonic, lemon & cucumber). Antipasti, tasty thin crust pizza such as caramelised onion and goat's cheese  from £4 a strip, and Eton mess are probably best left until after your game. 

121 Holborn EC1N 2TD www.bouncelondon.com

The Holborn Whippet, Bloomsbury

Brought to you by the people behind The Euston Tap and its sister cider bar, the Whippet is a retread of a defunct Italian restaurant on Sicilian Avenue, that cute little passagio that's a colonnaded corner of Palermo in hum-drum Holborn. The clunky wooden interior brings to mind a below stairs room in Dumbdown Abbey. That, or a 1930s bookies office: 'I'll 'ave half a crown each way on Wallis Simpson, trap 5, in the 6.30 at Catford Dogs, guv.' Apparently, this new craft beer bar's name stems from Georgian times when there was whippet racing to be had in these parts... 'before the chains started to move in.' That'd be Mrs Beaton's Ultimate Burgers; Snuff-a-Snorter; Sweeney TGIF et al? Tonight, the crowd is a mix of whippet-thin office workers and scruffy mongrels who have let themselves go to the dogs. Why do so many craft ale fans imagine Stig of the Dump crossed with a 'before' off The Biggest Loser is a hot look? Fill your boots, boys, at a bar built around a brick ‘beer wall’ whose 20 taps sensibly eschew global big brand swill in favour of sterling stuff from Thornbridge, Black Isle, Dark Star, Magic Rock and Essex brewer Mighty Oak. For hop haters, there's a selection of cider, wines and Gosset champagne. Hungry? Pile on even more calories with chargrilled steak sandwich, chicken club and burgers. The bar recently tweeted that a customer asked if its 'Whippet burger' was made from real whippet? Why not? The flesh of any well-looked-after creature that spends its life racing is bound to be lean and lovely. As my regular boucher chevaline in the Pas-de-Calais claims all his steaks come from ex-Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe winners;  what's so odd about chowing down on the winner of the 7.45 at Walthamstow slathered in onions?

25 - 29 Sicilian Avenue WC1A 2QH  3137 9937 http://holbornwhippet.com