The Search for the Ultimate Mai Tai
Traveling the Bay Area and beyond to find the best Mai Tai in the world! Tiki, cocktails, and adventures by Kevin Crossman
There’s a nice case of vintage Trader Vic’s bottles in the Cook Room at the Emeryville location.
This shot is of the Mai Tai Rum, which combined rums from Jamaica (70%), Martinique (20%), and Virgin Islands (10%), and coming in at a very nice 43% ABV. Likely a great rum to put in your Mai Tai (or your “Mai-Tai” according to the label, sigh). Man, I’d love to try some of this.
Wilfred’s Lounge is officially opening in Napa today, so this is an overview of the food and drink from our visit during the soft-open last week.
As a restaurant that is open for both lunch and dinner, Wilfred’s has a variety of appetizers and main courses, though not so much for vegans. We really enjoyed the Salmon Candy Rangoons, a very nice riff on the Crab Rangoon originally developed at Trader Vic’s. Such a nice chance of pace and just the right balance between the fish and the cheese. We also enjoyed the Coconut Shrimp. The Spam Sliders were a bit of a disappointment since the sauce was not particularly flavorful and so the sliders basically ended up as bread and Spam.
For the main courses, these were well-received and fairly large. At our table, we tried the Pineapple Fried Rice, Sticky Ribs, and Chicken Katsu, each of which was quite good.
And the cocktails? With Doc Park (ex-Pagan Idol/Zombie Village) at the helm, you know this is a strength. The 1944 Mai Tai is very solid, featuring rums from Jamaica and Martinique. This Mai Tai leans lighter than I prefer, but is a good fit for Napa’s crowd of tiki newbies. I really liked Batten Down the Hatches, with an exotic rum blend, pineapple, fassionola, lime, absinthe, and Doc’s spic. Very boozy (“limit 2 per customer”) and a ton of flavor.
Mrs. Mai Tai totally dug the Uma Ube with rum, cream of coconut, pineapple, and ube (and a name that’s a nod to a similar drink at Kon-Tiki). It’s a sweet and lovely coconut drink that comes in a really nice coconut mug and will be a big hit. Likewise, Maximum Aloha was the best surprise of the cocktails we sampled. Featuring strawberry-infused rum, lemon, cinnamon, prickly pear, overproof Jamaican rum and topped with a coconut banana whip. You’d think it would be sickly sweet, but it was much more tart than you’d expect, which means that paired with the whipped topping that you can easily adjust the sweetness. And this drink is super flavorful.
So, the summary is to go for the drinks and stay for the food.
Wilfred’s Lounge is great. Make plans to visit downtown Napa soon.
Stephen Hill and Jason Antoon appeared on Entertainment Tonight to promote their CBS shows set in Hawai’i and to make some Mai Tais at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. As these segments go, this one ain’t bad. They credit “Mr. Bergeron” with the origin of the Mai Tai and the ingredients in this version are actually a little better than recipe the Royal Hawaiian has on their website.
We always talk about the need to measure ingredients for cocktails, but I’m more than willing to give a pass to the “free pour” for the Jamaican rum float here. If people go a little heavy that would only improve the cocktail. They didn’t name check local favorite KoHana rum but as a light rum that one is quite flavorful, so a great option for an Island Mai Tai. The Mai Tai Bar at the Royal Hawaiian is a great place to relax in Waikiki.
I have been enjoying Magnum P.I. since its debut in 2018, and they even incorporated Hawaii’s oldest tiki bar La Mariana into the program a couple years ago (they filmed at La Mariana to introduce the venue, but since then all scenes are filmed on a set). NCIS: Hawai’i debuted earlier this year.
Royal Hawaiian Mai Tai (ET version)
1 oz Orange Juice
2 oz Pineapple Juice
½ oz Orgeat
½ oz Orange Curacao
1 oz Light Rum (KoHana)
Shake with ice and “free pour” float of Jamaican rum (Appleton Reserve)
The soft open for tiki ohana was tonight and it is time to add Napa to your Northern California tiki tours because Wilfred’s Lounge is fan-tastic!
Decor? Amazing. A few special effects but mostly some classic Polynesian decor and nautical elements. Lots of details.
Music? Lovely retro music including a variety of styles. Totally on point.
Food? Ranged from good to amazing. Fairly priced considering the quality and quantity. The Salmon Rangoon was the highlight.
Cocktails? Doc Parks’ cocktails were amazing. The Mai Tai was very good and several others were even better. Great mugs and cocktail glasses.
Service? Even during a soft open the staff were totally on point, super friendly and very attentive. Table service was very pleasant and easy. The bar was a little tight with packed attendance but the bar staff were very responsive.
More about Wilfred’s in upcoming posts, but suffice to say that this new tiki bar in downtown Napa is a hit. Wilfred’s officially opens on Friday, November 12.
The 25th tiki bar I’ve visited this year is the Kona Club in Oakland.
Good news: The Kona Club hasn’t changed.
Bad news: The Kona Club hasn’t changed.
Which is to say that The Kona Club remains a curious example of Bay Area Tiki since it eschews the craft cocktail sensibilities of the most well-known tiki bars in the region. Kona Club’s interior decor is a gorgeous bamboo explosion and so nicely laid out (except for a few tiki tacky elements), including a large second room and a pool table room. The Hula Girl remains a central focus, though not animated while decked out for Halloween.
But Kona Club’s longstanding shortcomings remain present: rock music, pretty bad cocktails, and service that… isn’t awesome. My Mai Tai was only $10 (cheap!), but very forgettable.
They were training a new bartender and while she seemed earnest and attentive, the lead bartender was less so. I entered shortly after opening along with two other groups. As the first round was almost all delivered I asked the bartender a bar-related question and he gave me an answer that said “I don’t want to talk to you.” It was not busy (again, only three parties, most of which already had their drinks) so I don’t know why he was so short with me. Maybe because I wasn’t a regular. Maybe the Aloha shirt I was wearing branded me a snob. I mean, sorry for wearing an Aloha shirt in a tiki bar and taking an interest in your business.
There’s no reason a neighborhood / dive bar can’t adjust to be “more tiki” in this writer’s opinion (Bamboo Hut and Tiki Tom’s have transitioned to this approach in recent years). It takes less time to make a measured 1944 Mai Tai than the Mac Nut Chi-Chi the Kona Club is famous for. If the place was always busy I could maybe get behind “count pours” rather than measured pours, but as it stands I’m perplexed why there isn’t even an attempt to do better.
Doctor Colada and Doctor Mai Tai attended a Halloween party and brought “shots” to heal all the “sick” people in attendance. Some very, very sick people. Thankfully, the shots seemed to be well received with no ill-effects.
Here’s the single-serving version of the batch that was used for the shots.
Blue Mai Tai
1 oz Lime Juice
½ oz Orgeat (“heavy pour”)
½ oz Blue Curacao
½ oz Rum Fire – White Overproof Jamaican Rum
1 oz Probitas – Aged White Rum
Quite the event on Thursday to celebrate the release of a refreshed cocktail menu at Trader Vic’s Emeryville. Don’t worry, Mai Tai and Navy Grog fans, those are still on the menu along with nearly all of your Trader Vic’s favorites. There are several new items developed in conjunction with Vic’s alum Brent Harris. Some of these are riffs on classic cocktails, and we’ll have more about that in tomorrow’s post.
The event Thursday featured Shag who did the cover for the new menu. The design is inspired by Trader Vic’s classic cocktail menu cover, done in Shag’s style and including a bunch of Trader Vic’s icons. Notably, this design omits the sexualized elements – but also women entirely. This is the first of a series of cocktail menu covers designed by contemporary artists.
Shag was also available from 6-9 pm to sign menus ($20 with donation to Easter Island Foundation) and any other Shag items. I arrived at around 7:40 and got the last menu available for sale. There were Aloha Shirts available in the same design but those were sold out well before I got there. True Trader Vic’s fans will have an opportunity for an additional batch of shirts.
The restaurant and lounge were totally packed, with DJ Otto spinning tunes. If future events come up again, be sure to plan ahead and make reservations.
