Fiji Island, Roanoke, VA (restaurant) - Locating Tiki

JD Johnny Dollar Tiki Socialite Flyover, Missourah Joined: Oct 01, 2003 Posts: 3159	JD Johnny Dollar Posted posted on Sat, Oct 2, 2004 2:37 PM As promised, we made it to Fiji Island en route [from instead of] to Hukilau 2004. All in all, my vague recollections of the place were met by a better experience than I had remembered. Fiji Island sits up off the main commercial strip (Franklin), and the view from the road is mainly of the roadside architecture of this sign. The building’s entrance presents the aspect of having perhaps been a straight-up chinese restaurant that might have been tikified at a later date. We cannot verify or deny this. The building both inside and out has this chinese/tiki hybrid feeling. It pretty much works… All tikis are painted in Disney-esque style, probably not unlike those as originally at the Honolulu in Alexandria, Virginia. Details of the entrance and door tikis. The lobby presents these views straight on, and the “Tiki Room” sign to the left. The masks are clearly less Polynesian than “other,” but the bamboo and fake waterfall work together with all the parts. Sadly the mask on the maitre’d stand no longer had the backlit red lightbulb as I originally recalled. These pictures don’t do entire justice to the interior. The low lighting doesn’t draw attention to the ceiling tiles, which aren’t so blazingly white until you take a flash photo :wink: All the exterior walls are painted black instead of matting, and there is a preponderance of chinese red on woodwork, but again the low light levels worked with it. There were quite a few backlit murals, some of cartoonish tikis like on the menu, and another of a abstract dragon/countryside. The soundtrack sounded like the same exotica soundtrack as at the Honolulu. It was loud enough to get the proper vibe – but be warned, toward the end of our stay the music venue in the basement started creating some less than exotic sounds. The drinks are served in either the relatively vintage (i.e. not modern made in china version) “grasshopper” mug (no markings), bamboo mugs, and I saw white wahine mugs and “ipo bowls” behind the bar but did not see any service with those. Several of the drinks came in large glass bowls. The quality of the drinks was okay, not terribly strong but the Mai Tai was a close cousin to the Honolulu Mai Tai, and the Fogcutter was pretty dead on if not a tad sweeter. The garnishes were about average, but hey, they were there. Each folded napkin placesetting had a plastic lei (whee!). The Pu-Pu “Plate” was sufficiently blazing and the Pu-Pus were about average to good, with the beef sates being the best of the selections. Waikiki Kitty and I split the Crispy Duck that was really good and brought a tear to our eyes in its recollection of the Honolulu crispy duck. SADLY, although bananas flambé was on the menu, they did not have the proper ingredients!!! We were very disappointed about that. When we return I swear we will call with reservations and a request that they have bananas in the kitchen. To sum it up, we found the Fiji Island to be a close cousin to the Honolulu. That would be the not quite so pretty or graceful cousin, but a strong family resemblance :) The size was about three times that of the Honolulu, and its presence in a rather remote town probably owes to its continued existence. The locals love it, and in speaking to some original customers, found that it is more than three decades old, and at one time had a sister restaurant in Charlottesville, Virginia at the Holiday Inn. Our waiter and the visible staff were all asian (-americans?) and professed no knowledge of Tiki Road Trip or any self-aware tiki culture. Out waiter appeared pleased with the notion that someone might travel from out of town to visit the place :). The food was decent, the drinks not so expertly mixologized as from a former Trader Vic’s bartender (go figure), but the tiki décor (except for the red phallic tikis - ?) and soundtrack appear from the same era as the Honolulu. We don’t expect droves of people to travel for hours to visit Fiji Island, but we found it to be a fascinating bit of urban archaeology, and would visit it regularly if it did not require five-plus hours of driving to get to it… Speaking of travel and accommodations, as an added attraction, a period-appropriate “Motor Lodge” is down the hill and across the street from the Fiji Island. We dug on the pink sinks, commode and bathtub. It was a fun addendum to the experience, so we thought we’d include it. Aloha! [ Edited by: Johnny Dollar 2010-01-30 12:41 ]

As promised, we made it to Fiji Island en route [from instead of] to Hukilau 2004. All in all, my vague recollections of the place were met by a better experience than I had remembered.

Fiji Island sits up off the main commercial strip (Franklin), and the view from the road is mainly of the roadside architecture of this sign.

The building’s entrance presents the aspect of having perhaps been a straight-up chinese restaurant that might have been tikified at a later date. We cannot verify or deny this. The building both inside and out has this chinese/tiki hybrid feeling. It pretty much works… All tikis are painted in Disney-esque style, probably not unlike those as originally at the Honolulu in Alexandria, Virginia.

Details of the entrance and door tikis.

The lobby presents these views straight on, and the “Tiki Room” sign to the left. The masks are clearly less Polynesian than “other,” but the bamboo and fake waterfall work together with all the parts. Sadly the mask on the maitre’d stand no longer had the backlit red lightbulb as I originally recalled.

These pictures don’t do entire justice to the interior. The low lighting doesn’t draw attention to the ceiling tiles, which aren’t so blazingly white until you take a flash photo :wink:

All the exterior walls are painted black instead of matting, and there is a preponderance of chinese red on woodwork, but again the low light levels worked with it. There were quite a few backlit murals, some of cartoonish tikis like on the menu, and another of a abstract dragon/countryside.

The soundtrack sounded like the same exotica soundtrack as at the Honolulu. It was loud enough to get the proper vibe – but be warned, toward the end of our stay the music venue in the basement started creating some less than exotic sounds.

The drinks are served in either the relatively vintage (i.e. not modern made in china version) “grasshopper” mug (no markings), bamboo mugs, and I saw white wahine mugs and “ipo bowls” behind the bar but did not see any service with those. Several of the drinks came in large glass bowls. The quality of the drinks was okay, not terribly strong but the Mai Tai was a close cousin to the Honolulu Mai Tai, and the Fogcutter was pretty dead on if not a tad sweeter. The garnishes were about average, but hey, they were there.

Each folded napkin placesetting had a plastic lei (whee!). The Pu-Pu “Plate” was sufficiently blazing and the Pu-Pus were about average to good, with the beef sates being the best of the selections.

Waikiki Kitty and I split the Crispy Duck that was really good and brought a tear to our eyes in its recollection of the Honolulu crispy duck.

SADLY, although bananas flambé was on the menu, they did not have the proper ingredients!!! We were very disappointed about that. When we return I swear we will call with reservations and a request that they have bananas in the kitchen.

To sum it up,

we found the Fiji Island to be a close cousin to the Honolulu. That would be the not quite so pretty or graceful cousin, but a strong family resemblance :) The size was about three times that of the Honolulu, and its presence in a rather remote town probably owes to its continued existence. The locals love it, and in speaking to some original customers, found that it is more than three decades old, and at one time had a sister restaurant in Charlottesville, Virginia at the Holiday Inn. Our waiter and the visible staff were all asian (-americans?) and professed no knowledge of Tiki Road Trip or any self-aware tiki culture. Out waiter appeared pleased with the notion that someone might travel from out of town to visit the place :). The food was decent, the drinks not so expertly mixologized as from a former Trader Vic’s bartender (go figure), but the tiki décor (except for the red phallic tikis - ?) and soundtrack appear from the same era as the Honolulu. We don’t expect droves of people to travel for hours to visit Fiji Island, but we found it to be a fascinating bit of urban archaeology, and would visit it regularly if it did not require five-plus hours of driving to get to it…

Speaking of travel and accommodations,

as an added attraction, a period-appropriate “Motor Lodge” is down the hill and across the street from the Fiji Island. We dug on the pink sinks, commode and bathtub. It was a fun addendum to the experience, so we thought we’d include it.

Aloha!

[ Edited by: Johnny Dollar 2010-01-30 12:41 ]

Post #117709 by Johnny Dollar on Sat, Oct 2, 2004 2:37 PM