The remodel of Trader Vic’s flagship location in Emeryville has begun, with the in-progress pictures posted to the Trader Vic’s Facebook page. I’ve heard the full spectrum of rumblings on this one, from dire to ecstatic, but the fact that they’re willing to show pictures of the process I think bodes well. (Also: some spectacular pieces were saved from the recently-shuttered vintage Dallas Trader Vic’s that we can probably expect to appear in Emeryville.)

Trader Vic’s Emeryville closed at the end of April for this planned renovation, and the restaurant is scheduled to re-open in late September. Top of my personal wishlist: please make the ceiling in the bar dark again!

• Trader Vic’s Emeryville Remodel photos [Facebook]
• Trader Vic’s Emeryville [Critiki]
• Trader Vic’s Dallas [Critiki]

Marie King, much-beloved bar manager at Don the Beachcomber in Huntington Beach, and a very dear friend to many in the tiki community, was injured badly in an automobile accident recently. She’s likely to make a complete recovery, but it’s not going to be easy–she’s a bit more battered and broken than we like to see our friends, and she’s dealing with incredible pain.

In the hopes of easing the financial pains, her friends are rallying behind her in the form of two benefits, in both Southern and Northern California:

Northern California Benefit for Marie King
Thursday, May 13, 7 p.m.
Forbidden Island Tiki Lounge, Alameda
Meshugga Beach Party, the TomorrowMen, raffle, silent auction and a special Marie Cocktail.
More details

Southern California Benefit for Marie King
Sunday, May 30, 2 p.m.
Don the Beachcomber, Huntington Beach
$25 donation gets you a wristband for discounted food & drinks. The Tikiyaki Orchestra, The Eliminators, The Smokin’ Menehunes, The Glasgow Tiki Shakers, OuterWave, The Boardwalkers, Exotiki, The Slacktones, raffle and a silent auction.
More details

Aaaaaye! My siestas keep getting shorter and shorter… oh, no, wait–they keep getting longer and longer.

Well, whatever the case, I’m awake at the moment. It’s been a busy year. While the world has been happily spinning along, and the tiki world specifically has been generating some wonderful things, I’ve had my own fun developments. The biggest one is that I’m getting married next Saturday. (!!!)

I haven’t been sitting on my hands, but I will say that Smuggler’s Cove is about the best distraction a girl could ask for. And it’s in my own backyard!

But I’ve missed you all, and while I have been keeping up with developments in the tiki world, I’ve missed passing the news along.

We’ve done this time & again… an initial rush at the news that a major publication has written up an article about this nutty tiki craze thing… followed by an immediate let-down that the article was sloppily researched, full of inaccuracies, misses the point, and doesn’t really understand that this isn’t just a tacky, ironic thing to us, that there’s real quality and history here.

But over the past year or two (going back perhaps not-so-coincidentally to about the time that Forbidden Island opened) these articles have been improving, both in the quality of their research, and in the authors’ ability to find a bit of true appreciation; they’ve been coming closer & closer to seeing what we see.

Today, finally, comes the zenith of Polynesian Pop journalism. You can tell right from the title, “Tiki Doesn’t Have to Be Tacky,” that this article isn’t going to be the same old quickie, filler, throwaway article that confuses or even damages the public perception of Tiki.

The impetus for the article is the upcoming annual San Francisco Tiki Crawl, but the article touches on much more than that — aside from giving mention to several Bay Area tiki hotspots, it also explores the very essence of Polynesian Pop. It points out the difference between good tiki and bad tiki (yes! yes! oh, thank you, yes!). The author, Eric Felten, even mentions something I’ve long held to be true — that while yesterday’s PolyPop escapism was about eschewing formality, today’s escapism is more about eschewing informality.

So, thank you Eric Felten, thank you Wall Street Journal, and thank you to anyone and everyone who helped him write this beauty. You’ve done us all a great service, and I’d like to buy you a drink.

• Tiki Doesn’t Have to Be Tacky [The Wall Street Journal]
• Forbidden Island, Alameda [Critiki]
• San Francisco: Tiki Central’s Tiki Crawl 8 [Humu Kon Tiki]

I adore breakfast drinks. No, I haven’t finally become so-far-gone a rummy that I’m starting my day with the stuff, but every now and then there’s nothing quite as refreshing (and restoring) as a nice brunch cocktail. A little hair of the dog that bit me.

It occurred to me a short while ago that I’d never heard of a rum-based brunch cocktail. I’d definitely not encountered a tropical-skewing breakfast drink — the closest I’d seen are the Port & Starboard Light drinks, which call for scotch and bourbon, respectively. At tiki events, the morning-after cocktail of choice has generally been a Ramos Gin Fizz (a personal favorite, thanks to Martin Cate) or a Bloody Mary (which I’ve always struggled to get excited about). It’s high time us tikiphiles had a morning drink of our own, a little Hair of the Mongoose.

Hair of the Mongoose

Hair of the Mongoose

1/2 oz lemon juice
1/2 oz lime juice
1/4 oz passion fruit syrup (thanks, Flannestads!)
1/4 oz Licor 43
1/2 oz Clement Creole Shrubb
1-1/2 oz Clement Premiere Canne rum
1 oz half-and-half
1 egg white

Shake without any ice to get the egg white emulsified, then shake again with ice. Pour into a tiki or bamboo mug, and top with:

1-1/2 oz ginger beer (I use Cock-n-Bull)

Add ice to the mug to fill, if necessary. Grate fresh ginger root over the top.

This is my first real attempt at coming up with a cocktail on my own, and I’m pretty darned pleased with it (and freshly impressed with others who do this on a regular basis). Ginger is a common home remedy to ease tummy-aches, and I think the grassy elements in the Clement Premiere Canne make this something that tastes a little more crisp than your typical tropical. If you can’t find the Clement Premiere Canne (but really do try), stick to a crisp, silver Martinique rum. This drink is a sort of distant cousin to the Ramos Gin Fizz, with a definite tropical leaning. I hope you’ll find that it will put right the sins of the night before, rather than revisit them.

Mongoose chase the Cobra’s Fang away!

A few weeks after concocting this little beast, my friend Erik posted an old rum-based breakfast drink on his blog, appropriately named the Eye Opener Cocktail. (Erik is working his way through the entire Savoy Cocktail Book; dinners at his house are a treat on many levels, and he has spoiled me rotten with his cocktailian ways.) It uses an egg yolk rather than the more common egg white, and it sounds delish. I can’t wait to try one.

• Eye Opener Cocktail [Underhill Lounge]
• Cobra’s Fang [Trader Tiki]

The Sweet Hollywaiians at Forbidden Island

That day, halfway around the world from sunny California, The Sweet Hollywaiians had gotten together. Thank goodness for that.

I got to see The Sweet Hollywaiians perform last night at an impromptu show at Forbidden Island. The Sweet Hollywaiians hail from Osaka, Japan, and they play hapa-haole Hawaiian music in a Hollywood style. They are dashing, they are darling, and they are really effing good. I might even call them pipin’ hot. It was transporting music, played pitch-perfectly, and it got the whole room swaying.

The Sweet Hollywaiians are Tomotaka Matsui, Nobumasa Takada, Takashi Nakayama and Kouichi Tsutsumishita. They’re touring California right now, but if you miss them here, you can pick up their music at the Sweet Strings website.

• The Sweet Hollywaiians [MySpace]
• Sweet Strings website

http://twitter.com/humuhumu

Also, I’ve been busybusybusy adding more features to Critiki, take a look!

http://www.critiki.com

I created Critiki way back in 2002, and while I’m pretty proud of how well the design stood up all these years, there was no denying that it was starting to look a bit dated. Plus, I have a lot more experience doing this stuff now, and all the little things I knew could be better bugged the heck out of me.

So, I finally took the time to sit down and redo the thing (there is a direct correlation between this and the absence of posts here during the past few weeks). Oh, man, it’s so much nicer to look at now. And nicer to use, too, I think.

Check out Critiki’s New Look

I literally cannot count the improvements I made, but most of them are on the back end, or are so subtle that you won’t notice them individually, but I hope that you can feel the improvements.

One improvement that is more obvious is how much easier it is now to browse through global destinations to find tiki in a given area. Instead of having to drill down all the way to obscure little towns and then back up again, now you can see the area on the Critiki Map as you browse, and it’ll tell you how many tiki locations are in the area.

Spain in Critiki

Now that things are cleaned up a bit behind the scenes, I’ll be able to add some new features to Critiki. I have lots of ideas for new features, but what do you think? What do you wish Critiki could do?

• Critiki – Guide to Tiki Bars & Polynesian Restaurants

I love Portland so much, I’m coming back again. I’ll be at Thatch this Friday night (July 25) to meet up with the local tikiphiles — you’re invited. I had the great pleasure of meeting a few local folks the last time I was in town, and I always enjoy meeting more. Come on out if you’re in the Portland area!

Thatch
2733 NE Broadway St.
Portland, OR

• Thatch, Portland [Critiki]

I have never, ever heard of this. The Diamond Head Game, with your host, Bob Eubanks! In his ’70s best! This was submitted by Bora Boris, who does remember it, and says it was pretty much all downhill after the opening. Which I can believe. The video quality here isn’t great, but it’s still pretty captivating.

So, what’s the grand prize for a game show that’s being played by people already on a dream vacation to Hawaii? A dream vacation to Paducah?

• Diamond Head Game Open [YouTube]