Laneway 3000: Winter Party

Apparently there was a laneway party on last night! Some friends and I tried to find it but we got side-tracked by food on Hardware Lane. We had every intention of going to the party but our stomachs won out.

We found ourselves at Aloi Na! A Thai place amongst many other Italian places. Hardware lane is an amazing place on a Friday night. Never in Sydney would so many people choose to dine outside in such temperatures. Unfortunately Aloi Na! wasn’t as vibrant as the setting. The food was what I’d been looking for at my last visit to a Thai restaurant, however not worth the price tag. The Massamun Curry was particularly amazing, the chicken with cashews nuts standard, run of the mill chicken with cashew nuts (what more can you expect) and the Pad Thai was apparently bad. Pad Thai was never my favourite dish, so I can’t claim to be an expert but my fellow diners were disappointed. An interesting wine list include Sticks Pinot Noir for a mere $25, surely that’s cheap for restaurant price, with a retail of around $16.

Two bottles of wine later we decided to check out the festivities. “VIP” after parties were being held at Golden Monkey, Horse Bazaar and Murmur. First we went to Apartment to search for some friends. Some poor barman dropped a bottle of Smirnoff on the bar and a suit got quite irate. These things happen and I have a nice little cut on my pinkie finger to prove it. We moved on to Murmur, but didn’t have any Eat Drink Winter brochures to get 2-for-1 cocktails. Never mind, instead we enjoyed an amazing playlist from the early 90s…Dire Straits, Gunners, Springsteen etc. I believe the DJ didn’t turn up so the guys behind the bar were having the time of their life controlling the CD player. Ok, so I don’t know that about the DJ for sure, but there was an empty deck in a corner and the guys behind the bar were controlling the tunes!

When 90s music got too much we made our way to Workshop for a final nightcap. Overall I got a well-rounded tour of more Melbourne laneways and bars, and I think that’s what the Winter in the City promotion is all about!


More photos to come.