Category: Mai Tai

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Return to Kaia’s Tiki Bar in Danville

We returned to Danville for a family dinner and cocktails, finding Kaia’s Island Kitchen and Tiki Bar to be running smoothly and with quality service and offerings. The restaurant recently enabled a reservation system, making planned trips even easier. We also saw that the shaded outdoor patio has been expanded.

During our visit we once again enjoyed the island style food, including a delightful poke bowl that I loved. The preparation and delivery of food was very quick once again, and our server was super prompt in following up and getting us set up with a second round of cocktails.

The cocktail menu has expanded a bit since our first visit, and we found the cocktails to be overall better balanced this time as well. The Ipanema Breeze leans a little tart with cachaca, passionfruit, and falernum but is still pretty good. The standout drink for me was the Ohanapod Mai Tai, a riff on the Monkeypod Mai Tai from Hawai’i. This cocktail features Koloa coconut rum, Coruba Jamaican rum, plus honey-lilikoi foam. The coconut rum wasn’t overpowering and this Mai Tai leans sweet in a good way.

Kaia’s remains a pretty good suburban tiki option, especially if you want to include kids. They also offer a variety of merchandise including mugs and glassware that look great.

Ohanapod Mai Tai and Ipanema Breeze

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San Jose’s Best Halloween Bar is Alter Ego

San Jose’s burgeoning bar scene is really hitting its stride, including social media promotions of the various bars doing Halloween-themed offerings. We heard that Alter Ego Cocktail Club had special menus and decor so we arrived right at opening on Saturday to experience the offerings.

The Dark

Upon entering the speakeasy inside Still O.G. you’ll be told that the entire staff was killed and what you’re witnessing are the ghostly apparitions. You’re provided with a small welcome punch to drink to complete the effect. We were seated at the bar and could see the decor has been transformed with dark elements and a great modern dark wave soundtrack.

We’ve had amazing cocktail experiences here before and the new menu was no exception, presented as a book with elaborate illustrations. A variety of spirits and cocktail styles are presented, with the Heart Stopper shots served from a chest being popular in the venue and on social media.

Isle de las Muñecas

I started with The Dark, an absolutely delightful coffee cocktail with an orange foam and a chocolate pentagram garnish. Meanwhile, Mrs. Mai Tai had the Isle de las Muñecas with tequila, carrot, and ginger – served in a disturbing baby doll’s head mug. This was a really great cocktail and the vegetal notes were interesting and well-balanced.

Our second round started with the Witching Hour which is basically a boozy chocolate milk served in a flute. Perhaps the best overall for me was my Telltale Heart which uses beet and Alchermes for a red color that works fantastically with the mug that’s shaped like a heart. We were truly impressed by the cocktails.

Telltale Heart and Witching Hour

The staff were dressed in costumes related to their untimely deaths and as with previous experiences very knowledgable, professional, and team-oriented. Alter Ego fills up fast so be sure to make a reservation.

Welcome drink
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Return to Tiki Pete

Longtime readers may remember my 2019 trip report from Tiki Pete, San Jose’s once singular tiki bar. Cocktails took 45 minutes to be delivered and we had a weird interaction with the owner, though not as uncomfortable as his replies to my post where he outed his server as trans amongst other transgressions. This has been one of the few places on our “do not recommend” list ever since.

But sometimes second chances are worthwhile and we like to stay open-minded. We found ourselves in downtown San Jose on Saturday at 8 pm so popped in to the sparsely attended venue to see how things were going. The space originally opened as Da Kine Island Grill restaurant but it has fully transformed into a weekend-only nightclub with almost all the space devoted to VIP Bottle Service, plus purple and red lighting, and most tiki elements stripped.

The Mai Tai is terrible

We sat at the bar and ordered a Tiki Pete Mai Tai, made with Nohia dark, gold, and 151 rums (Nohia must be a private label for this venue), and a Shirley Temple for Mrs Mai Tai. We try to grade on a sliding scale depending on the venue but this was a terrible Mai Tai that tasted like plain sugar and didn’t even have any rum flavor. Arguably worse was the Shirley Temple that tasted like overripe fruit and nothing like cherry or pomegranate. It bears repeating: they can’t even make a Shirley Temple correctly.

The Shirley Temple is worse

The cocktails are almost as worn down as the rest of the venue which lacks any charm and seemingly no budget for restroom maintenance or anything Hawaiian. The giant TV screens seem to be in working order, though, if UFC or college football is your thing..

The takeaway is that Tiki Pete’s heel turn is fully complete. Do not recommend. Still.

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The Last Rites Mai Tai

A bit unusual for us was that we were out fairly late in San Francisco last Saturday, after dinner and couple bars. There was interest in keeping the party going and we settled on Last Rites, arriving just before eleven. There was a short line outside but we were seated in about ten minutes.

There was good energy at Last Rites even as some of the crowd dispersed during our excursion. The great looking menu has been revised since our last visit and it’s somewhat easier to read than past editions. The manifest style design with blood stains really conveys the downed aircraft theme that Last Rites is famous for.

While David and Amy smartly went with the namesake Last Rites cocktail (still very good) I tried the Mai Tai to see if it was improved from the so-so versions I’ve had over the years. The menu says this has high ester rums, cashew, American triple sec, and lime and unfortunately found that I didn’t really get cashew or high ester flavors at all. Basically flat, like the one I had on my previous visit last year. Not terrible but not in line with the other great cocktails I’ve had here before or compared to Mrs. Mai Tai’s coffee-forward Permanent Midnight that was delicious.

The atmosphere inside Last Rites was a welcome respite from the high energy venues we’d visited earlier, one of the key reasons we love visiting this adventure themed bar.

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Twisted Tiki: Cozy Cocktails in Santa Ana

After our dinner on Saturday at Strong Water Anaheim, some of us wanted to keep the tiki thing going so we ventured out to see what else Orange County could offer. We attempted Stowaway in Tustin, where Mrs. Mai Tai and our friends had pre-gamed earlier, but when we arrived it was mid-evening and around an hour wait. Since none of us had been to Twisted Tiki in nearby Santa Ana we thought we’d give it a shot.

The Twisted Tiki is inside the McFadden Public Market, right off the main entrance on Main Street. The moai is your hint there’s something behind the door, and we were able to get a table basically right away inside the Bamboo Room where the bar is located. The Shipwreck room is across the Foyer and is used as an overflow space. Both rooms are small but nicely appointed with no windows to keep things dark and cozy, and for a food hall the decor is pretty reasonable – this certainly isn’t a million dollar build but for this type of venue we’ve seen far worse.

Trouble presented itself in the form of the headline for the first classic drink – the “Mai Ta”. Yeah, spelled like that. We try to set our expectations for places like this accordingly, and the cocktails here are – well, they’re okay. Not terrible but not nearly as good as the other tiki venues in the O.C. My Mai Tai and David’s Three Dots were both too diluted and Julie’s Purple Polynesian Sunset was too sweet. They can’t all be winners.

Mai Ta

If I was a local I’d give this place another shot, though, since the staff was friendly and the cozy interior is still pretty nice. Maybe try to come not at the busiest time of the week and try to sit at the bar to strike up some conversation with the bartender.

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Breakfast at Trader Sam’s at Disneyland Hotel

We always enjoy visiting Trader Sam’s Enchanted Tiki Bar at the Disneyland Hotel and wanted to check out the breakfast service that’s been running for a few months. Parking at the Disneyland Hotel is easy and you can get valet parking validated at Sam’s for 3 hours, so there’s no cost other than the tip to the valet runner. Breakfast runs from 8:00 am to 11:00 am, then Sam’s transitions to their everyday lunch/dinner menu.

Our entry was super easy as we arrived a little before 9:30 am on Sunday. The inside bar was about a quarter full and we were seated at the bar. Service for dinks and food was so quick we literally could have been seated and finished in about 20 minutes, though of course we lingered to soak up the atmosphere that Trader Sam’s is famous for.

The small-ish menu is fairly standard with a few Polynesian twists on breakfast favorites. I went with some eggs with ham and potatoes, while Mrs. Mai Tai enjoyed a fluffy Mickey Mouse shaped pancake. She wasn’t drinking and had a glass of orange juice that was actually far larger than those little glasses of OJ you usually see at breakfast. There are a couple Halloween cocktails on a special menu but we didn’t try any.

I challenged Skipper Shirley with a Mai Tai with Appleton 12, since I like to upscale the rum in my cocktail from what’s normally served here. I was honestly a bit disappointed that Shirley mentioned that she had put some Planteray 3 Star in the cocktail, because she believed that a Mai Tai should have more than one rum, though I couldn’t really complain with the end result which was a delicious drink that was perfect so early in the morning.

By the time we left the space was filling up, though was still far from capacity. Many folks were enjoying the cool air and nice views outside on the Tangaroa Terrance outside as well, but we always try for inside at Sam’s because we love vibe and things to look at. Breakfast at Trader Sam’s is a really great option for a get-away day or if you’re staying nearby and not rope-dropping the parks. The expanded hours allow even more guests to visit one of the best tiki bars anywhere and my favorite in Southern California.

Breakfast at Trader Sam’s Enchanted Tiki Bar
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Pirates Dinner Adventure Swashbuckling Fun

Our Buena Park weekend continued at the Pirates Dinner Adventure, a swashbuckling counterpart to Medieval Times down the street. The show includes a detailed plot, two romantic subplots, acrobatic performances, songs, fight scenes, and plenty of elements to involve the crowd. Dinner includes soft drinks plus soup or salad and a chicken main course – plus utensils to eat with that aren’t provided at the other place. This was a fun time with our large group, some of which dressed up for the event.

After entering the venue, there’s a bar to order alcoholic drinks, plus a large gift shop if you want to outfit yourself for the event and to get into the pirate spirit. The drinks here are definitely not craft, though if slushy drinks are your thing there are a couple options and lots of beer/wine selections.

I looked at the “Caribbean Mai Tai” and saw that it contains three kinds of flavored rums with Captain Morgan Coconut Rum, Captain Morgan Pineapple Rum, Cruzan Guava Rum, plus Orange and Cranberry Juice; I decided to pass but was pleased to see that Sam took the plunge. Meanwhile, I kept in the spirit of the event by building my own “Pirate Boilermaker” by pairing an Octoberfest beer with a shot of Captain Morgan Spiced rum, yum.

Pirates Boilermaker

The crowd certainly seemed to enjoy the show, including a couple who were celebrating their 10th anniversary – being married inside the Pirates Dinner Adventure! There were several opportunities for the audience to participate in some of the show elements, such as hoisting a flag, and of course lots of cheering for the pirate who matched the color of your section.