Post #247921 by JenTiki on Wed, Aug 9, 2006 4:27 PM

I visited the VooDoo Room twice during the last week. Let me start by saying that I really, really liked the VooDoo Room, the people who work there, the food, the drinks, and the cool vibe, and I would go back there in a second ... but not if I was looking for a great "tiki" experience. Rob and Sammy both described several changes they're planning to make in the future that will make it a little more tiki and make the bar larger and more functional. The changes sound great and I hope they happen soon.

Rob, Deena, Sammy and the servers are all very friendly and accommodating. We felt welcome the moment we walked in the door, both times. Rob even had a VooDoo Doll waiting for me when we walked in for dinner on my birthday.
The rounds of birthday shots continued throughout the evening, concluding with the ones below that we literally had to reach through fire to get to. (More about Rob's pryo tendencies later.) :down:

The drinks were all quite yummy, except for one that I'm pretty sure was called the Dirty Rotten Scoundrel. No one in my party could quite get on board with that one. My absolute favorite was the VooDoo Doll. Vanilla and ginger are two of my favorite ingredients in anything and greatly underutilized in tiki drinks, in my humble opinion. This was a wonderfully complex combination of flavors that made me very happy.

The food was certainly not polynesian by any stretch of the imagination, but it was extremely delicious. Most of it is quite spicy, but the server (a lovely british woman whose name I can't remember for the life of me) warned us about that and said if we were handling the bread okay, then we'd have no problem with the food. The bread indeed had some serious kick to it, but we all loved it. The only food item we had issue with was the Curry French Fries. The flavor was fine, but the texture seemed wrong. The outside was light and crispy, a good start, but the inside was almost powdery. They may need to consider changing the kind of potatoes they use for them. The Chinese 5 Spice Baby Back Ribs, Tandoori Beef, and Chicken Korma Curry were all worth ordering again and again. I was also very pleased with the Carmelized Plantain with Hazelnut Ice Cream and Chocolate Sauce (complete with birthday candle in the ice cream). My mother is Panamanian, so plantain has been a frequent part of my diet since childhood and this was one of the best preparations I've ever tasted.

The clientele was fairly well mixed for a WeHo venue, and pretty cool and laid back for the most part. My only problem with the crowd was having to wait for the only ladies' room, only to see two men coming out of it together while the men's room stood empty ... and they didn't even flush! :o Eeewww. The only benefit to waiting for the ladies' room was the shot that some guy at the bar bought for me while I waited.

The decor is more hip lounge than tiki. There are some decidedly tiki elements, but they seem rather disconnected with the rest of the room. The bar is currently very small, but it is the tikiest part of the place with thatch and lots of tiki mugs behind the bar, but the rough, white, cement bartop and the modern sofas kinda killed it for me.

One critical part of the decor took quite a beating while we were there. There is a Witco barstool on the patio being used as a plant stand.
Before :down:

During the evening, Rob, the owner, was running around with bottle of Cruzan 151 and a lighter, lighting just about everything on fire. He decided it would be really cool to light the eyes on the Witco.
During :down:

The poor Witco got a little more scorched than I think Rob was planning.
After :down:

There are also two very large tikis at the entrance, a moai with the red topknot on the patio, and some Boskos on the wall in the dining room. I didn't look very closely at the entrance tikis, but I don't think they were made of wood since they're pretty much identical and would've required very thick logs, also there seems to be some chipping of the paint at the bottom of one of them in a picture I took.

The other critical missing tiki element was wardrobe. The only person I encountered on either visit with any sort of tiki wear was Rob. Sammy and the servers were all in black, some leather, some spandex, but most definitely not tiki.

The music was one of the more appropriate elements. It consisted of lounge and exotica played at a very comfortable volume that could be clearly heard, but didn't require us to raise our voices to have a conversation. At least that was what I remember from our time on the patio. The stereo at the bar had crashed on Thursday and was still non-functional on Saturday, so they were working from a boom box in the bar area. I wasn't really paying attention to the music while I was in the bar, so I don't remember what specifically was playing.

Overall, as I said at the beginning, I really like the VooDoo Room and will go again the next time I'm in LA for a great dinner and cocktails. But if I'm looking for a tiki experience, I'll look elsewhere, at least until they make some of the changes they're talking about. I guess I've been spoiled by FI.

Many mahalos to Rob, Deena, Sammy and our lovely server for a couple of fantastic visits!