Pok Pok Junior
It opens at eight in the morning, shuts at three on Mondays and does not trade at weekends, which tells you who it is for.
Why go
This is a counter in St James Mall off the western end of Bourke Street, feeding the office trade Thai street food, and it has been doing it since at least 2016 (Time Out). The menu goes further than the format needs: alongside pad thai and tom yum there is khao soi, the northern curry noodle, a braised duck breast palo soup and a crispy pork belly kana. The Bangkok street noodles come with porchetta pork and crackling through them and dried shrimp on top. There is also a breakfast menu, pastries and coffee, which is unusual for a Thai kitchen and makes sense for the postcode.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the Bangkok street noodles for the porchetta and crackling. Krapow gai kai dow if you want the heat and a fried egg. Khao soi if the northern end is what you are after.
- Avoid: the weekend, when it does not open, and Monday afternoon, when it closes at three.
What locals & experts say
- Suzi Owen, Time Out Melbourne (February 2016), which is the only bylined coverage this room has drawn:
Tuck into kaffir-infused, coriander-riddled bowls of goodness in minutes.
The same page describes a kitchen that hops regions, with Chinese, Persian and Malay influences behind the Thai, and pairs the crowd-pleasers with northern dishes like khao kha moo and Chiang Mai pork neck.1 - Broadsheet has nothing. There is no Broadsheet venue page for it, and it appears nowhere in Broadsheet's 2026 guide to the best CBD restaurants, which was fetched and searched in full on 1 August 2026.3
- No Melbourne chef names it, across 74 picks by 44 working chefs and writers. This entry rests on one 2016 listing and the venue's own current menu, and says so rather than borrowing weight it has not got.4
Good to know
- Where: Shop 9, 555 Bourke Street, inside St James Mall.
- Timing: Monday 8am to 3pm, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday 8am to 8.30pm, Thursday to 9.30pm. Closed Saturday and Sunday.
- Booking: walk-in. Larger groups can book online, and the kitchen does corporate catering.
- Sites: Pok Pok Docklands at 801 Bourke Street is a separate premises, and nothing here applies to it.
- Diet: no allergen or dietary statement is published, so nothing is flagged.
- Hygiene: Victoria publishes no venue ratings, only Safe Food Victoria's register of convictions under s.53D of the Food Act 1984, and this venue is not on it.5
Verdict
could-visit — A Thai counter in St James Mall off Bourke Street, open at eight in the morning and closed all weekend, which tells you exactly who it is for. Time Out's 2016 listing is the only thing anyone with a byline has written about it: 'Tuck into kaffir-infused, coriander-riddled bowls of goodness in minutes', with a menu that ranges past the tom yum and pad thai into northern dishes like khao kha moo and Chiang Mai pork neck. The current menu keeps that shape, with khao soi and a braised duck palo soup alongside the standards, and the Bangkok street noodles come with porchetta pork and crackling in them, which is a choice. It also does coffee and pastries and a breakfast menu. Nobody has assessed the cooking in a decade and no working Melbourne chef names it, so this is a good weekday lunch rather than a reason to cross town. Worth knowing about if you are working in the western end of the CBD, which is what could-visit means.