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Longrain Bar

Rachel Olding

Monday nights can be a bit of a snore in Sydney.

Most good restaurants are closed. The pub is dead and people are usually too busy lamenting the end of the weekend to think about venturing out again. On the upside, there is trivia at Longrain.

IF YOU CAN GET YOUR HEAD around a Monday-night outing, Longrain's semi-new cocktail bar is an easy-to-manage destination. It's underneath the main Longrain restaurant, down a gilded staircase in a cool concrete den. There are no comfy couches or fireplaces but it's easygoing and only mildly busy. Camouflage-upholstered booths line one side of the room and low-lying chairs another. The bunker has an industrial feel with its rough wooden finishes and concrete.

MONDAY-NIGHT TRIVIA is food-and-drink themed so I suggest you brush up on your pangrattato, fines herbes and celebrity chefs. There are three rounds of 10 questions - nothing too laborious - and a couple of tasting questions. The prize is usually a $150 voucher to Longrain which, if you were to win, should be spent entirely on the pork hock. Or lemongrass cocktails. Maybe half on each, they're that good.

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THE BAR MENU is in a little binder folder with dividers to guide you to the bar food, classic cocktails, martinis, shaken cocktails, stick drinks, ''tall and refreshing'' ones and wines. Despite the impressive organisation, it's still a chore to read through them all. The endless descriptions become a bit of a blur so I'm happy my blindly picked pear, lychee and lemongrass martini (lemongrass, lychees, Grey Goose La Poire vodka, sake, lychee juice, $18) is superb. Like Martin Boetz's Thai food upstairs, all the cocktails are about flavours, aromas and colours. They're fruity, bright, lively and almost too drinkable. We quickly make our way through a Honey Bee (pineapple, 42 Below Manuka honey vodka, spiced honey apple syrup, lime, apple juice, $17), a passionfruit and vanilla martini (42 Below passionfruit vodka, Limoncello, vanilla syrup, passionfruit pulp, lemon juice, $17) and a Red Dragon (raspberries, crushed coriander root, chilli-infused 42 Below vodka, peach liqueur, cranberry juice, $17). The Hoopers Hooch (El Dorado three-year-old rum, Aperol, lemon juice, burnt orange syrup, pink grapefruit juice, $18) tastes a bit like a bad orange Popper but then the Smoked Cherry and Chocolate Sour (Dewar's whisky, dark cherry liqueur, a dash of Laphroaig whisky, lemon juice, chocolate bitters, egg white, $18) comes to the rescue. My only gripe is the price. While you're paying for quality ingredients, my wallet just can't keep up.

MEANWHILE, WE'RE TWO ROUNDS into trivia and things are not looking good. The questions are hard. The problem might be the bar food, which is a distraction. Caramelised pork hock and octopus with fried eschallots and garlic ($16) is so amazingly fatty, tender and crispy, I just want to drop everything and inhale it. The spiced mixed nuts are flavourless and the crisp trout and prawn dumplings ($14) are not amazing but the tender sticks of lightly battered shredded lamb with plum sauce ($16) get my vote.

WHILE IT'S A GOOD-VALUE way to sample a newly two-hatted restaurant, we're quickly down $75 each before we notice. Even more reason to win the trivia. Loosen the purse strings, sharpen the foodie knowledge and you've got a decent Monday night out.

Longrain Bar Address 85 Commonwealth Street, Surry Hills, 9280 2888 Open Seven nights, 4pm- midnight

YOU'LL LOVE IT IF you want a quality Monday night outing.

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YOU'LL HATE IT IF you're watching your wallet.

GO FOR pork hock and octopus, lemongrass martini, Smoked Cherry and Chocolate Sour.

IT'LL COST YOU cocktails $16-$22, wine by the glass $9.50-$14, bar food $4-$18.

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