Bad Time/Food at Royal Hawaiian - Orange County, CA - General Tiki

B bigbrotiki Tiki Socialite Tiki Island, above the Silverlake Joined: Mar 25, 2002 Posts: 11621	B bigbrotiki Posted posted on Fri, Jun 21, 2002 10:46 AM I guess this is bound to happen more and more. People that are new to Tiki culture and walk into one of the few surviving places expecting "service","good food", or a "familly friendly atmosphere". The above review sounds like someone from Martha Steward wrote it. I had thought of putting a disclaimer in the Book of Tiki noting that 95% of the establishments in the book did not exist anymore, so that people would not think it was a restaurant guide. "Wow, this Tiki thing is kinda neat, let's go out to the next best neighbourhood Tiki temple on Friday and have fun". A place like the Royal Hawaiian is not visited as a restaurant, but as a museum. It's mere existence is a miracle. The grimy walls, the defunct dioramas, the decrepit Tikis (by Milan Guanko and Andres Bumatay) are to be beheld in awe as some of the last remaining artefacts of a dying culture. "...and they didn't have any Tiki mugs"!!? Know this: Tiki mugs had all but dissappeared from the face of the earth through the 80s and early 90s until very recently a couple of dedicated Tiki lovers began to remanufacture them again. Now I am not saying the remaining places shold NOT use them, and the food HAS to be bad, but to EXPECT them is the wrong attitude. Gratitude for any remaining detail should prevail. Book of Tiki, page 11: " But just as Paul Gauguin was fascinated with the melancholy atmosphere of decay in Papeete, Tahiti's capital, detecting "the blurred surface of some unfathomable enigma" in this already tainted paradise, so does the Urban Archeologist of today appreciate remnants of that "Paradise Lost" of American Dolce Vita we call Tiki-style."

I guess this is bound to happen more and more. People that are new to Tiki culture and walk into one of the few surviving places expecting "service","good food", or a "familly friendly atmosphere". The above review sounds like someone from Martha Steward wrote it.
I had thought of putting a disclaimer in the Book of Tiki noting that 95% of the establishments in the book did not exist anymore, so that people would not think it was a restaurant guide. "Wow, this Tiki thing is kinda neat, let's go out to the next best neighbourhood Tiki temple on Friday and have fun".

A place like the Royal Hawaiian is not visited as a restaurant, but as a museum. It's mere existence is a miracle. The grimy walls, the defunct dioramas, the decrepit Tikis (by Milan Guanko and Andres Bumatay) are to be beheld in awe as some of the last remaining artefacts of a dying culture.

"...and they didn't have any Tiki mugs"!!? Know this: Tiki mugs had all but dissappeared from the face of the earth through the 80s and early 90s until very recently a couple of dedicated Tiki lovers began to remanufacture them again.
Now I am not saying the remaining places shold NOT use them, and the food HAS to be bad, but to EXPECT them is the wrong attitude. Gratitude for any remaining detail should prevail.

Book of Tiki, page 11: " But just as Paul Gauguin was fascinated with the melancholy atmosphere of decay in Papeete, Tahiti's capital, detecting "the blurred surface of some unfathomable enigma" in this already tainted paradise, so does the Urban Archeologist of today appreciate remnants of that "Paradise Lost" of American Dolce Vita we call Tiki-style."

Post #2555 by bigbrotiki on Fri, Jun 21, 2002 10:46 AM