I collect what I like and I’m not really a completist. So I don’t have every edition or release.
My favorite here is the blue HippopotoMai-Tai. That’s a color you don’t often see and I think it pops nicely. Bone or green glass are nice too, but blue is better.
Just behind and to the right is a B-Rex glass set we got a couple years ago during one visit to Club 33. 😉
The Shag goblet is from the 40th anniversary of the Enchanted Tiki Room.
I’m a sucker for Disney attractions posters so the Enchanted Tiki Room plate is a favorite too.
Trader Vic’s Emeryville put on a very nice event in honor of the Mai Tai’s 77th birthday, a day earlier than the official Mai Tai Day of August 30. Held in the parking lot, the event featured some art vendors including Woody Miller, Match Accessories, and B-Rex, along with Trader Vic’s merchandise. A raffle benefited the Easter Island foundation. There was a table for rotating rum samples, and a station from Liquid Alchemist. Hawaiian performers started the entertainment, and then we got to experience a couple excellent sets by Tikiyaki 5-0. I really love the surf sounds of 5-0, and due to being outdoors it played better than the softer exotica leanings of the full Tikiyaki Orchestra.
There were several bar stations, including one serving Trader Vic’s drinks, a station with the Mai Tai boat and slushy, one featuring the Conga Lounge Mai Tai, and station with rotating bartenders. Mrs. Mai Tai wasn’t drinking and said the Mai Tai slushy was pretty good. Meanwhile, I liked my Trader Vic’s Mai Tai but was most impressed by the premium Mai Tai made by Doc Parks and Adrian Castaneda using Appleton 12, Clement VSOP, and Doctor Bird.
Food wise, there was a station for a few grab and go options, including my favorite the Crab Rangoon. Or you could order takeout based on a somewhat limited food menu from the restaurant. The food options were pretty good for this event. Everyone received a bottle of water in the event package and a souvenir Mai Tai glass to commemorate the occasion.
Trader Vic’s CEO Rhett Rosen led the toast to the Mai Tai, and the Trader Vic’s team did a great job running everything. The staff was super friendly and everything seemed to go off without a hitch. Mahalo.
Best of all we got to see some old friends and make some new ones. So nice to see so many people in an outdoor setting on a breezy afternoon in Emeryville. Long live Trader Vic’s, long live the Mai Tai!
I finally picked up Trader Vic’s iconic Suffering Bastard mug, aka Mai Tai Joe. They threw this in for free on a recent promotional offer, so it pays to get onto Trader Vic’s mailing list.
Earlier this year I purchased the entire line of minified Trader Vic’s mugs, including a tiny Mai Tai Joe. In either format, this is an iconic mug.
The Trader Vic’s Suffering Bastard cocktail is different from the historical cocktail created by Joe Scialom in Cairo during WWII. It is basically a boozier version of the Mai Tai, but garnished with a cucumber peel.
Suffering Bastard (1970s) 3 oz Trader Vic’s Mai Mix 1 oz Light Puerto Rican Rum 2 oz Rhum St. James
This is from the 1972 Trader Vic’s Bartender’s Guide and the Trader Vic’s Rum Cookery and Drinkery (1974). Contemporaneous Mai Tai recipes called for 2 ounces of Mai Tai Mix with 2 ounces of Trader Vic’s Mai Tai rum. Which is to say that if you made a Suffering Bastard from scratch you’d just use more of the lime, orgeat, curaçao, and sugar, and then just use three ounces of rum rather than two.
Also noteworthy: Trader Vic specifically calling for Rhum St James, a Rhum Agricole, in a recipe that’s basically a Mai Tai.
Suffering Bastard (2005) 3 oz Trader Vic’s Mai Tai Mix ½ oz Lime Juice 2 oz Dark Rum 1 oz Silver Rum Garnish with Cucumber Peel, Mint Sprig, and spent Lime shell.
This is the recipe in the Trader Vic’s Tiki Party book. Once again you basically have a Mai Tai made one-third larger, though this time it calls for more traditional Dark and Silver rums.
Found this 1963 tome at an antique store. This seems like a tween novel version of one of Annette’s movies (at one point she even breaks out in song, I’m not kidding). The plot involves Annette and her blonde friend Babs who “borrow” a small ship from their boyfriends Rod and Neil and then crash the ship on rocks in Smuggler’s Cove. There are subplots involving the planning and execution of Annette’s big Luau party and a stolen painting that has connections to exiles of a Central American country.
Smuggler’s Cove is described as a local Southern California cove where “rum-runners had a shack there during the prohibition era many years ago. The palm trees had been a landmark.” It is far less exotic than the title of the book suggests. There’s a Spanish-speaking family living nearby that help Annette and Babs after they crash land, but (spoiler alert!) are also connected to the exiles.
It’s all very melodramatic and features plenty of casual white privilege seen in early 60’s media.
San Jose has been one of the largest U.S. cities without a legit tiki bar, shocking since there are so many tiki bars in San Francisco and Oakland that you’d think a single good destination would seem to draw everyone from Santa Clara and Southern Alameda Counties. San Jose was listed in an article on Critiki about cities lacking tiki bars back in 2017, where author Humuhumu noted the numerous home tiki bars in the area and that “It’s a discerning crowd, though, so when a place finally does open, it’ll have to be good.”
Today, if you’re looking for commercial tiki in San Jose there aren’t a lot of good choices. There is Hukilau in Japan Town, a nice family-run Hawaiian restaurant with a few tiki elements. We liked the food and vibe there, but the cocktails aren’t craft and lean heavily on vodka, which means that the beverage of choice is Kona Beer and not a Mai Tai. Totally worth checking out, but not really tiki.
Tiki Pete’s Well-Deserved Bad Reputation
And then there is Tiki Pete. Located in the heart of Downtown, the restaurant was rebranded from Da Kine Island Grill a couple years ago and named after the owner. There’s a thatched A-frame entrance and a cocktail menu that has a number of tiki classics and a couple different kinds of Mai Tai variants. So you’d think maybe this would be “good enough” for San Jose’s discerning crowd. You might think that, but you would be wrong.
A visit in 2019 went wrong from beginning to end. We visited on a Saturday evening before a concert at the Arena. The restaurant was quite full but we were seated basically immediately. There was a PPV boxing match on TV, so the event volume was quite loud and many of the patrons were there to watch. We ordered drinks and then our meal. After a while, my appetizer arrived, followed by a water for my wife (but not the water I ordered). Then my wife’s main course arrived, then a bit later by my main course. Food was at best okay and at worst less than adequate.
I asked the waitress what was taking so long with the cocktails and she went to check. As noted, it was busy, but I was watching the bartenders and they were not exactly rushing to complete orders. They had plenty of non-prep time and were talking with those sitting at the bar. I could even see that people who ordered after us had gotten their drinks. After more time passed my wife’s appetizer of Edamame arrived. Finally, I went up to ask Tiki Pete himself about our drinks. I mentioned that I had asked for a 1944 Mai Tai made with the Tiki Pete Barbados rum, at which point Pete smiled and high-fived me. I said I’d be more excited to get my drink. Pete then came over to our table with some shots from the Tiki Pete Rum, and said the cocktails were “coming right up.” Then we waited another full ten minutes and they took our drinks to the wrong table. After more confusion, we finally got our cocktails.
Unfortunately, they’re not following the prescribed ingredients in these cocktails; my 1944 Mai Tai had the distinct taste of ginger, as if they used Falernum rather than Orgeat. My wife’s guava martini was bland.
Got Mai Tai? Not at Tiki Pete.
Recap:
Literally took over 45 minutes for my wrong-tasting Mai Tai to arrive
None of the food came out when it should have, and wasn’t very good
Barely any effort to “right” the wrong
Free rum shots, but no other comped items as you might expect
So, while Tiki Pete seems to be embracing a craft cocktail approach with their historical cocktails and limited-edition rum, they failed time after time to do the basic things a restaurant/bar should be reasonably expected to do.
I’ll never go back to Tiki Pete, and you shouldn’t either.
In my Instagram post promoting the Tiki with Ray article, Tiki Pete himself jumped in to sort of apologize (saying that it wasn’t indicative of the normal operation) but then saying the server was insecure. After which Tiki Pete outed the server as trans. No, I’m not joking. Then Pete said I was being rude to the server. Well, I also talked to Pete that evening and he gave me a high-five and some rum samples. So, I guess I probably wasn’t being too rude. I was most certainly terse, as we’d expect anyone to be if they waited 45 minutes for a cocktail order that arrived after we were finished with our meal. Not rude, though.
After all of this was published we heard from many tikiphiles who’d had their own disappointing experiences at Tiki Pete. It’s not a tiki bar. It’s party bar with Hawaiian leanings and a tiki veneer. All which is to say that San Jose still is a tiki desert. But there is hope is on the way!
The location is the old Peggy Sue’s Diner at 29 N San Pedro St, around the block from Tiki Pete. And what’s this? Something like that looks very interesting.
The BayAreaImbibers did a little homework and found out that the location is now owned by the MDM Restaurant Bar Group, proprietors of Five Point and Farmer’s Union in downtown San Jose (worth noting: we once had an issue with an entree at Farmer’s Union and not only did they fix it right way without complaint, we were comped the item worth $25).
Though MDM’s website no longer contains info about Dr. Funk, the cached version gives us a hint of what this new venue is all about:
Dr. Funk Coming Soon — Tiki is a catch-all term for mid-century-inspired motif of all things tropical, exotic and generally Polynesian. Tiki was a romanticized notion of island life inspired by the sentimental appeal of an idealized portrayal of the South Pacific, Hawaii, Polynesia and Oceania. Now, tiki walks the line between reality and myth. It acknowledges the Hollywood smoke and mirrors but also creates an atmosphere of authenticity.
So it definitely is “tiki” and not “nautical” or “tropical” or some of the other things people say when they want to avoid the term “tiki.”
The Dr. Funk Instagram account is now live, and they posted some details about the team behind this new venture.
Ignacio “Notch” Gonzalez is the designer behind tiki bars such as Smuggler’s Cove, False Idol, and Hale Pele. Mikel Parton contributed to decor and art at Zombie Village. Woody’s lamps are in many tiki bars and mugs by Tiki Diablo are always coveted. So this seems like an all-star team.
All of which means that San Jose’s discerning audience is going to come in with high expectations, but I expect it won’t take long for Dr. Funk to be considered the top tiki destination in the area. I have high hopes. If the cocktails are good, and the decor is half as good as we’d expect from Notch this will be a great place to go. And assuming they understand that the tiki bar experience is about hospitality and escapism, then I’m sure their operations will be quality as well. We can all hope that Dr. Funk is the tiki destination that we’ve all longed for in San Jose.
After dinner at Palmetto, we walked around over to The Kon-Tiki Room for more cocktails. It was a fun vibe and the bartenders were so helpful at working with us on our orders.
I had a fantastic Fogcutter and then asked for Mai Tai made with the aged rum Clairin from Saint Benevolence. While the spirits selection at The Kon-Tiki Room is not as vast as the original Kon-Tiki location at 14th and Webster, they do have some interesting expressions and the bartenders were accommodating to use an alternative spirit in one of their standard cocktails. A little extra orgeat and the Clairin Mai Tai was very good and a nice change of pace.
We were bummed the frozen Disco Banana wasn’t quite ready when we got there around 6:30. That was the only glitch during our Kon-Tiki Room visit. The checking of vaccination status and the requirements for masks when not drinking was not problem during our visit.
