Post #30577 by Kim on Wed, Apr 16, 2003 5:12 PM

Well, we're back! We hit the Hukilau (nice-but-sparse décor, decent food—not much vegetarian though, which is the major failing of tiki-places, in my opinion. I realize that vegetarian food isn’t really authentically Polynesian, but still!)

We did check out Time Tunnel Vintage Toys, but declined to pay the prices that the rather surly owner was ransoming his tikis for. We had better luck at the Zen Trading Post, where I found a bunch of furniture that I covet (but didn’t purchase), and Tikitronic bought some Tikifarm stuff.

We would have gone to the Golden Buddha (a separate, all-vegetarian menu!!!) but it was closed on the night we would have gone. Instead, we discovered the Omei Restaurant at 2316 Mission St, Santa Cruz, which has really tasty Chinese food, with good vegetarian options, inside an unassuming-looking restaurant in a little strip mall. The décor is more pseudo-Chinese than tiki, but there is some bamboo, and Tikitronic was quite taken with the wall artwork, featuring old Chinese print ads. (He’s a designer, and he really loves old advertising.)

While in San Francisco, we did, of course, go to the Tonga Room and Trader Vic’s. I loved the Tonga Room, and our waiters were very friendly and attentive, which made up for the maitre d’, who was extremely snotty while being simultaneously very polite. (He later confirmed our feeling that he was a toady by dancing sycophantically around some obviously-wealthy old people who looked perpetually-ill-tempered.) The waiter at Trader Vic’s was not so nice, and I was glad to leave. Personally, I think the Tonga Room’s vastly-superior décor and not-too-much-higher prices make it a better place to be glared at by waitstaff than Trader Vic’s, if one must be glared at by waitstaff. As an added bonus to the evening, while we were driving around in circles looking for a parking space on the vertical hillsides near the Fairmont Hotel, we unexpectedly drove past the former Tiki Bob’s! Tikitronic nearly hyperventilated with excitement, and he managed to snap a couple of pictures while we were waiting for the traffic light to change.

He took a ton of photos with the new digital camera… I don’t know if he’s planning to put up a few or not, so you should bug him, if you want to see ‘em!