Saturday, February 12, 2011

Alice in (or rather behind) Wonderland!

Don't you just want to go here?!


It is actually a bar in one of the back streets of Wellington...

"Well done, you curious thing, the journey's end is almost in sight,
Start at a place named Courtenay, where the neon's burning bright,
Face the old Queen's mountain and it's a simple turn to the right
onto a street  - the host of an English party. Political or dance? Tory might,
Now, can you see the lane for the trees? The forest comes alive at night,
Down the rabbit hole my curious friend and discover the capital's delight."

...and that is not tea!

Directions above are found on their web page. The bar is located behind a yellow door, under a neon white rabbit that dives into the hole of a doorway, on Forresters Lane found just off Tory Street at the foot of Mount Victoria. Interestingly it is also found behind an 80's club, complete with disco lit up dance floor and mirror balls, called Boogie Wonderland.

I haven't been to Alice yet, but is on my 'have-to-do list'! Cocktails in a teapot!


"The alleyway is Wellington's Forrester's Lane and it's dark and wet, with rain-filled pot holes that gape like open mouths. At the far end of the darkness we see, tucked in against the back entrance to Boogie Wonderland, a white rabbit. It flashes on and off, jumps, jumps, and disappears. This is Alice.
The rabbit hole, in this instance, is a bright yellow door and a corridor that winds and then dips down into a cocktail bar where you can drink Bill the Lizard's Lagermeister Tea poured out of a tea pot into bone china cups. Friday is cupcake day at $3 a pop, to be eaten with the drink of your choice - perhaps The Cheshire Cat, although the barman says you'd be hard pressed to go past a tipple of Curiouser and Curiouser (a concoction of Ti-Toki berry liqueur, kiwifruit and amaretto). The drinks list comes bound as a hardcover book, which has proven so popular as a souvenir that 20 have been stolen. They're considering chaining copies to the bar.
On the wall a framed portrait of the Queen of Hearts stares down a hookah-smoking caterpillar. And there is the porthole mirror at the end of the room, which looks like a door that ought to lead somewhere, if only you could fold up like a telescope to fit through.
Alice is open until 5am on weekends, making it all the more likely that you'll lose track of time and emerge at dawn, fumbling for your pocket watch and saying, "Oh my ears and whiskers, how late it's getting!" "



1 comments:

Stacey @ bakercourt said...

Reminds me of a lunch shop we went to in Oxford where we had Mad Hatter's Tea and THE GIANTEST BAKED POTATOES you can imagine!!! No cocktails, though.

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