Post #561584 by bigbrotiki on Mon, Oct 25, 2010 10:33 PM

Well, I ended up getting a great tour of the local drinking dens by leisure master and -mistress. The food and cocktails at Lani Kai are exquisite, and, like all new cocktailian N.Y. places, not cheap. I mean you COULD just have one appetizer and one drink -but who does, that's no fun. Thanks l.m. for that fun, and for getting to experience the two extreme ends of the spectrum on two consecutive nights: The authentic-to-the wait-staff Chinese-Polynesian time-warp of Chan's Dragon Inn, and the contempo nouveaux Poly pop of Painkiller and Lani Kai.

I must say though that I do have a hard time to equate Lani Kai's all around blonde wood and "shabby chic" washed brick walls with Hawaii. Having grown up in Europe, I equate blonde wood with just one thing: IKEA. I am sure that they use it in Hawaii, too, but not in my personal fantasy Hawaii. It's all richly dark tropical woods and bamboo there... well, old school, I suppose.