South San Francisco’s Hula Hoops recently introduced a tiki passport / cocktail checklist. This tiki bar and restaurant has been doing Hawaiian food and fine cocktails for over five years, with the quality of the cocktails being far better than you’d expect for a suburban location that’s more restaurant than bar. They started strong with a couple Doc Parks cocktails and the Buz-Tai from local luminary Buz Deadwax, along with cocktails that pair well with the food offering such as the Ube Martini.
The Tiki Passport is a checklist of 15 cocktails, including the aforementioned Buz-Tai and two other Mai Tais. Plus some tiki favorites and a few that lean creamy such as the Coco Banana. Once you complete all 15 you get a Hula Hoops branded King Kong mug that includes a basketball carrying Wahine that’s a nod to the venue’s logo. The mug is made by Tiki Farm and looks pretty nice as long as gorilla mugs are your thing. You can see a version of this mug in Hula Hoops’ tiki room where it was made into a lamp.
The Lilikoi Tai is pretty great and nicely balanced, if you like passionfruit cream topping on your Mai Tai. Certainly better than the famed Monkeypod Mai Tai since the topping at Hula Hoops is sweeter.
Hula Hoops seems to be doing very well with business since it has been busy every time I’ve visited the last couple years, especially for brunch on the weekends. Reservations are recommended.
