Description: My girlfriend and I had just 'enjoyed' a frighteningly over-priced and extremely disappointing meal at La Grande Voile on a warm Saturday night in September when we wandered through the Old Town in Nice and thought about what we could do to banish our disappointment and raise our spirits. We decided that a drink was in order. However, neither of us was in the mood for a gentle glass of wine on a terrace somewhere. Instead, we wanted something a little more raucous. There are several such options in Old Nice. For example, there is Wayne's, which is beloved amongst drunk ex-pats and young French alike. There is also Blue Whale, which boasts a rather good live band and the genuine feel of being a 'dive' bar in New York or Chicago. Both of these were good choices, but, eventually, we opted to instead try Pompei.

When my girlfriend suggested Pompei, I imagined that it would be some kind of theme bar with all the bar staff wearing togas or with volcanic ash scattered about the place. Even now, several weeks after going there, I cannot decide whether I would have enjoyed such gimickery. I am guessing the novelty would probably have been short-lived. In reality, the name Pompei was somewhat incongruous as the interior fell very much into the CBGB punk bar category. It was extremely dark. All the walls were painted black and were decorated with rock and roll memorabilia such as Rolling Stones and Doors posters. This gave it a good look, but I felt it lacked a little authenticity as most of the posters looked very neat as though they had recently been purchased. This modernity was off-set by the dilapidated nature of the toilets - dirty with no seats - that crated a bit more of a punk feel.

With such dark and forbidding decor, Pompei is not the kind of place to go for a lazy afternoon drink - the lack of natural light would make it a wholly depressing spectacle. It is far better suited to loud and sweaty Friday and Saturday nights full of live music. Therefore, one would imagine that it would have invested in hiring some good musicians. Sadly, this was not the case. The act we saw - who played all Saturday evening - was extremely bad. There were three guys on bass, guitar and drums, supporting a French girl who attempted to warble her way through a series of British and American rock songs. The result was awful. The backing band could not play their instruments well and the singer got the tone, intonation and rhythm wrong in almost all the songs she sang. To compound this, they seemed to be blissfully unaware of their deficiencies: the guitarist embarked on solos he could not play and the singer jumped into the crowd as though she were an adored superstar.

As you can easily infer, I did not rate the ban very much. Ordinarily, I would have managed to endure about five minutes of that type of music before leaving the bar. However, at Pompei, I managed to find something to keep me there and even to help me overlook the music: the beer. It was very good. When we arrived, my girlfriend ordered and iced cocktail and I opted for a pint of Stella Artois. When I saw the barman pick up plastic glasses, my heart sank. I have only very rarely enjoyed good beer in a plastic glass and was expecting to get a slightly flat and warm pint - which is usually the way when glass is replaced by plastic. Thankfully, to my surprise and delight, it was cold, crisp and fresh. It was one of the best pints I have drunk in Nice.

I managed four pints of Stella in around two hours in Pompei. I enjoyed all of them tremendously. My girlfriend enjoyed her fruity cocktails also. In that time, the band got no better. The only respite came during their interval. The beers cost 6 Euros and the cocktails 8.Close