A couple of new(ish) bars

Hey, remem­ber when we used to be on top of all the open­ings and clos­ings in town and filled with reviews? Yeah me nei­ther. The ‘ista is old and prop­er­ty-and-busi­ness own­ing now, and we have Twit­ter instead of our group mail­ing list. But we can still try!

So to that end, here’s a cou­ple of bars I’ve been to late­ly that you might also like to know about.

Love Not Lost

From the mak­ers of our beloved Hang­ing Ditch comes a bar in the Court­ney Quar­ter that’s actu­al­ly worth head­ing to that part of town for? Love Not Lost on Allan Street has been a mil­lion cur­ry places and maybe also Muse and that tru­ly tru­ly awful Orpheus. Now it’s bar with a sol­id food menu, full of fan­cy cock­tails and big com­fy couch­es. It opened at the end of last year so the space does­n’t feel quite as lived in as I’m sure it will, but it’s nice to have a bar that pri­ori­tis­es loung­ing, along with a pool table and two-tops if you’re eat­ing. When we vis­it­ed a cou­ple of weeks ago, the cock­tail menu was Meat­loaf (the singer) themed, so they missed a trick not offer­ing a meat­loaf burg­er as well, but what they had on offer was deli­cious.
Obvi­ous­ly I had to order a Dead Ringer For Love to get that pis­ta­chio-infused bour­bon. I could have used a lit­tle more sweet­ness I think, but in their defense I’ve been drink­ing a lot of over­ly sweet drinks over sum­mer. Appar­ent­ly the ‘I’d Do Any­thing For Love’ with its tequi­la, creme de men­the and caramel is a top sell­er. I love that despite the com­pact­ness of the wine list they offer two rosés, which is very smart for sum­mer. My friend’s ‘Life is a Lemon’ was deli­cious, the sweet­ness of the mel­on liqueur and mar­malade per­fect­ly bal­anced with the lemon

The menu will be changed four times a year, FYI. I had a din­ner booked after­wards so we did­n’t try any of the food, but I’ll be back. They say they’re open from 12pm-3am every day so they might prove to be a good late night refuge from the messy throngs on the rest of Courte­nay Place. I don’t know for cer­tain though cos we were there at 5pm on a Fri­day.

Yakisoda

Yak­iso­da is not actu­al­ly a new space — it’s the mask that BOL at 99 Vic­to­ria Street puts on at night.  Although, I’m cur­rent­ly try­ing to find any trace on the inter­net that BOL still exists and I’m fail­ing.  So maybe Yak­iso­da is becom­ing its per­ma­nent skin? There goes what I’d planned to write about how I love pop­ups bring­ing new things to exist­ing spaces and giv­ing peo­ple the chance to try some­thing new while mak­ing real­ly effi­cient use of resources. This also explains why I could­n’t see a BOL sign under­neath the Yak­iso­da one. Ahh hav­ing all the knowl­edge and full sto­ry and know­ing what we’re talk­ing about, that’s what you come to the Welling­ton­ista for, right?

But any­way. The inte­ri­or of Yak­iso­da is small, and very very sim­ple. There’s a cou­ple of coun­ters to sit at, and a cou­ple of tables with stools, and that’s about it. They’ll bring out can­dles when it starts get­ting dark­er. This is def­i­nite­ly a bar to go to with some­one you’re very com­fort­able talk­ing to, because there aren’t a lot of dis­trac­tions. You’d also be fine in here by your­self with a book I reck­on. The staff are very knowl­edge­able about their drinks menu and its Japanese/Peruvian inspi­ra­tions. And the cock­tails — oh lorde are they gor­geous. I mean, look at this:

That’s the Mar­tinique Milk Punch, made with Agri­cole Rhum — Brown But­ter — Peach — Clar­i­fied Milk. Appar­ent­ly they make their ice cubes by heat­ing their katakana stamp and push­ing it into the ice cubes. On a hot Welling­ton day, there is noth­ing more beau­ti­ful than the cold ris­ing up off of this. And the drink! It’s so dreamy and smooth and flavour­ful. I could have had half a dozen of these and been very hap­py indeed. Maybe I will next time I’m feel­ing rich ( $16 is a per­fect­ly nor­mal price for a cock­tail, but six of them would not be in my bud­get). I also tried the ‘Midori?’ which was a per­fect tangy bal­ance, and it was very sim­ple and pret­ty too.

Once again, I did­n’t try the food, but the next hot day may very well call for their Kakig­ori — shaved ice with yuzu and makrut lime.