Little Red Pocket

Little Red Pocket

Mezzanine 422 Little Collins St, Melbourne
www.littleredpocket.com.au

BarAmigo’s two pesos – Stylish, funky Jap inspired place good for a sake or sake based cocktail in a very Melbourne like setting.

When visited – Sat 30 July 2011 9.15pm to 11pm

Sake? You’ve come to the right spot. Little Red Pocket is a cool Melbourne like venue with Jap influences. You’ll find many choices of sake or sake based cocktails in a lounge/bar setting. Rather classy and a great spot to catch up with your friends.

I’ve just come from having Korean BBQ and we’re looking for a place to grab a drink. Thankfully Little Red Pocket’s location isn’t too far away from where we’re having dinner… and it’s also a new spot which just opened up that I can take my friends who are relying on me to pick somewhere cool… no pressure

It seems like I knew more about the place than the bouncer… It was the bouncer’s first shift at the venue and he didn’t know that it opened on Wednesday (27 Jul 11) or whether it was busy. Anyway, a short walk up the stairway and we’ll find out.

The bar and bar stools at Little Red Pocket

When we arrive at 9.15pm it’s pretty easy for us to grab a lounge area for 7 of us. There’s quite a few people around but I wouldn’t say it’s overly busy.  There’s another similar sized lounge area free as well. Also the long bar height table is free.

Flicking through the menu you can see that the place lives up to its Jap inspiration. Plenty of sake and sake based cocktails and other jap drinks on the menu. Plus a small selection of fingerfood which I’m told is very good.

There’s talk of ordering food and drinks off iPads on their website but there’s nothing that we can see. After standing at the bar for 5 minutes watching cocktails being made I seek out a waitress and ask whether there’s table service. Thankfully there is and we can order our drinks from our lounge area.

Our 4 cocktails and 3 mocktails... the ginger ninger is in the white glass... good work from the bar staff...

30 minutes later our 4 cocktails ($15-20 but mostly $16-$17)and 3 mocktails ($6 each) arrive. My friend is complaining about the length of time it took to make the cocktails but I reckon its standard. Little Red Pocket appears to take care in their cocktails and this is reflected in the amount of time spent creating them. If they came out in 10 minutes then I’d be a bit suss about the quality. And big cudos to the bar tender who put up with us ordering 6 different drink varieties between the 7 of us. We certainly didn’t make it easy for him.

Ginger Ninger (their spelling not mine) is my choice ($16). The name is pretty cool and it’s got lemongrass and chilli infused sake, ginger beer and lemon. I’m a scotch and dry fan so anything with ginger beer/ale I’m sold. And I’m in a jap bar so gotta have something with sake… pity I couldn’t taste any chilli… and it wasn’t the strongest cocktail from an alcohol sense by any means.

By 10-10.15pm it starts to get a bit busier. All of the lounge areas are taken and the smoker’s area starts to have some patrons. Everyone is pretty well dressed with a few guys in blazers/suit jackets and dressy jeans. Chicks in dresses and heels. But there’s still some casually dressed guys in t shirts so it’s no problems if you’re slightly underdressed as you’d still feel rather comfortable. Quite a few Asians around… kinda expected being a Jap bar. Well I’m Asian so i notice these things…

Music wise its repetitive low key techno (I think… yeah I struggle to pick music genres)… anyway, it’s pretty much just a beat… not that loud and it’s still very comfortable to talk across our lounge area.

Little Red Pocket has good quality cocktails and a nice lounge area to kick back and enjoy a drink with your friends.

Salud
Eddie
BarAmigo – Your friend at the bar

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