Hatches IX - Jan 2012

Hello and Happy New Year ! It's been a while since the last update here; as always lots has been going on up and down and just off King Street - below is just a summary of a few of the changes that have occurred in the last 6 months; hopefully it won't be 6 months to the next update !

Well it's January 2012 and now we're starting to understand why it's going to take until the end of this year to complete the Newtown Station upgrade. The progress is summarised in the notice below, see the detailed post for more information and photos.

Newtown Station Progress

Also still ongoing is the long running Energy Australia works; although Ausgrid, as they are now known have promised to repair the King St footpaths once all the shops connect to the beautiful black boxes on the footpaths, there's no news yet whether the road destruction on Wilson St, Angel St etc will be repaired. There are contact details below from their website:

If you have any questions, please contact our project team on the 24/7 project information line 1800 643 608 or email info-kingstreet@ausgrid.com.au.

Wilson St EnergyAustralia Repairs

New Openings

• Quite a few small bars popping up in King Street finally, including Bench, Jester Seeds (Newtown vibe and Darlinghurst prices), and Kuki Tanuki in Erskineville, finally emerging from interminable renovations.
• Sydney's Mexican food trend has spread to Newtown, with the opening of Beach Bistro next to the Hub, replacing the short lived (and Mayor-loved) Soprano's pizzeria; and the slow but promised opening of Mad Mex 
• A swanky looking Basque inspired Kingfish Bistro as SoKi continues its fashionable evolution
• A Korean barbecue restaurant has bravely opened above Tamana's North Indian diner; graveyard for Tamana's Upstairs, Posh Spice and most recently Top Level Pizza

Going ...

Old Advertising on King St

• The Laundromat near King Street Cyclery burnt down spectacularly - revealing some great old advertising on the wall of the bike shop. Will be ever be nostalgic about today's advertising ? Hard to imagine !
• Sadly Wilson St Gallery closed without much warning - apparently moved to Danks St, to be replaced (inexplicably) by a ballet shop Repertoire - that I give 6 months.
• King St Cyclery itself has closed for renovations, moving to their repair centre near Marrickville Metro. Cheeky Monkey are still going strong
• Taste Chicken surprisingly disappeared, not sure if anyone knows the story behind that.
• The much loved Freaky Tiki in the Newtown Hotel closed - will it reappear after the renovations ?

Development Applications

• A chain milk bar (above) to replace the suddenly closed African restaurant Kilimanjaro. I hope the mural is protected. 
• Yet another gelato shop to replace the camera shop next door to African feeling. I guess they've seen how popular Gelatomassi is
• The owners of the post office have applied to add some apartments out the back - across the road from the much loved Varga Bar.

Reviews

• There's a whole industry of food bloggers out there now, hard to keep track of them all ! A special mention though to Detective Chow who has quite an original take on the reviews; and has visited two Newtown locations recently.
• New Vietnamese joint Rice Paper got a write up in the SMH Jan 21; coincidentally the same day the Mayor dined there. Recommended !
  

Random 

• Whispers of The Hub coming back to life - what will this be ?
• Some very cool guerrilla knitting outside the Neighbourhood centre
  

You can see all the links that I have shared on Twitter via my bit.ly public timeline.

Hatches Batches and Dispatches IV

Yarn

The fourth round up of some of the comings and goings on and around King St Newtown in the last month or so. Thanks to reader Alison for some of the observations, and those who commented on Hatches III.

New Openings

• Famous Surry Hills Thai Prasits has taken over the not very succesful Thai restaurant next to the high school
• New Asian restaurant – and it’s not Thai! - Asian King, on the site of old Shaiza’s Curry House
• A Coffee and a Yarn at 413 King St - hugely popular knitting and mini-cafe
  
• The Granny Square – looks like a cute crafts store, site of old Champion Textiles – 47 King St (a theme here)
• Chocolate Dog is now a Polish restaurant, according to Twitter !

Prasits arrives in Newtown

Development Applications

• Yet another bottle shop proposed for Newtown Central (next to Townie)
• Check out the excellent Planning Alerts site to track D.A.s near you
  

Reviews

• Moose in the SMH (Facebook link)
  
• Darley St Bistro in the Botany View Hotel makes the Tele's Top 10 Pub Bistros
• Street Food blog has a few Newtown reviews
• Blog review of A Coffee and a Yarn
  

Random

• Pretty Dog has moved down the road in Brown Street; it's great to see some action off King Street.
• Popular cafe Anise has closed due to renovations upstairs
• Funky Cafe is on the market. Whoever buys it must maintain the music ! And death to the nimby who raised a noise complaint; on King St FFS.
• A new Festival proposed for Eliza St in September

Pretty Dog slides down Brown St

Mystery Bar II Revealed - Bloodwood

The mystery bar series kicked off the other week with Corridor, which lasted a respectable amount of time before being identified. Mystery Bar II continued the 'door' theme of the recent mystery photos (red and farm) and asked in which fine Newtown drinking establishment the above yellow door was.


It wasn't so hard given there are still too few bars in Newtown to really challenge you, but whether it was shyness or something else, it was 10 days until LolaSkate put their name to a (correct) guess of Bloodwood - and scored the bonus point for identifying that it leads absolutely nowhere ! To be fair ShaBlair had pointed this out earlier, but only on Twitter.


Bloodwood has been the subject of a very un-Newtown like buzz since it opened a couple of months ago in the old Planetarium (fancy word for a nursery) in the up and coming South King St (SoKi) area. It has been reviewed postively in Barzine, Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney Restaurant Review, Time Out, and several blogs amongst others.


In my mind Bloodwood is more of a restaurant than a bar - the food is bloody good as you'd expect from ex-Claudes chefs (I'll leave reviews to the experts) and much has been made of the great design. The bar area is really just the reception at the entrance - the physical bar given to protecting the chefs and anyway the corridor is too narrow for bar stools - but at least there is the option to drink and or dine in this much welcome addition to the Newtown scene.

Out the back

Hatches Batches and Dispatches II

The second round up of some of the comings and goings on and around King St Newtown in the last month or so ...

New Openings

• Kick Lounge has opened on Erskineville Road near the still closed Imperial Hotel
  
• Metrobus 30 - Newtown to Enmore, started March 28, garnering surpising support from the Mayor's followers ;)
• Red Cross vintage boutique opened at 359 King St
• Old Aboriginal art gallery on Mary Street is for lease
  

Development Applications

• Newtown RSL to be replaced by 63 room boutique hotel
• The Sando applies to maintain extended trading hours

God drinks here

Reviews

• Bloodwood in the SMH
  
• Iiza in the Tele
• Corridor in the SMH (cliche alert) and TimeOut
• Soffrito in the SMH (5.4 on the Mossop cliche scale)
  

Bloodwood

Random

• Rumour has it that Funky cafe is on the market
• The Vanguard is for sale; with current owner John Cass looking for a new owner who will maintain the vibe
  
• Mickeys (next to Daniel Motsyn) has closed and has been replaced by Wine and Dine, a slightly sterile looking cafe/bar (but welcome nevertheless !)
• The old Allan's Cakes in Erko will re-open as a dessert bar (pending licence approval)
• The same owner has plans for a shared plates style bar next door. Finger's crossed ! Take time to do his Erko survery
  

Mystery Bar I Revealed - Corridor

The first Mystery Bar asked you to identify the bar where this cosy lounge was to be found. It was relatively quickly indentified by justiceotb as Corridor; although happily not until after a few near misses, which has encouraged me to perservere with the Mystery Bar series ! It might have been easier to pick with some wider angle pictures ...



Corridor is the second attempt at making a success of the former site of Sabor de Espana, Newtown's short lived tapas bar. Early indications are that it will be a success. A fair bit of effort has gone into the renovation, although the basic form of the site has been maintained, with a limited bar area downstairs and more seating (indoors and outdoors) upstairs.


The night the mayor visited the outside area was full while the insides remained mostly empty, but I can see the front room upstairs becoming popular as the weather cools, even if the fireplace sadly doesn't look functional.

All in all, a welcome addition to the Newtown bar scene.

Corridor, 153a King St Newtown.

Mystery Bar I - Chesterfield

The Mystery Photo series, popular with visitors (albeit shy ones, very few of you leave comments), continues to struggle to last more than a day without being identified. However I will persist and one day create a Mystery Photo that lasts more than 48 hours !

In the meantime, it's time to introduce the first of the Mystery Bar series. There still aren't so many bars in Newtown; sadly more people in Darlinghurst and Surry Hills seem to be taking advantage of the new small bar laws than here in Newtown. Still, things are slowly improving here; and hopefully as this series progresses there will be more and more candidates.

I won't be giving too many hints; especially at this stage. The photo above is taken in a Newtown Bar. Where is it ? And what is the bar's name ? And for a bonus point; what did it used to be called (yes, a hint of sorts).