Tiki Central / Locating Tiki / Jade Island, Staten Island, New York, NY (restaurant)
Post #59054 by freddiefreelance on Sat, Nov 8, 2003 8:37 AM
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Sat, Nov 8, 2003 8:37 AM
Name:Jade Island Description: In business since 1972, Jade Island is a restaurant and cocktail lounge located in a Staten Island strip mall. The locals all seem to agree that the restaurant has been well maintained over the years, and the Chinese food and tropical drinks are both excellent. The flaming pu pu platter and the jumbo shrimp with garlic sauce are expecially reccommended for food, and the headunter is regarded as their best drink (seved in a Tiki mug), although you can’t pass up the recipes served in fresh coconut shells. That said, Manhattan reviewers seem to think that the food is greasy and the drinks are too syrupy and sweet. You be the judge. Jade Island is something of a throwback. The interiors -- with its emphasis on faux bamboo huts and colorful transparencies of tropical settings -- hasn't changed in years. The menu continues to offer a selection of Cantonese, Szechuan and Polynesian dishes, and those who prefer can still order an exotic sounding cocktail that will arrive in a pineapple shaped glass and topped with a tiny paper umbrella. It's in a strip mall. It has those old 1950s hexegon windows. There are alot of tikis and the place is filled with bamboo. The bar is small and kinda dingy, even though it has tapa cloth and bamboo. The bar had more of an off track betting parlor vibe than a tiki bar vibe. The dining room is where the action is, however. Its a huge room with booths lining the walls, tables in the center. The booths are inside large thatched huts. Each booth has either a puffer fish lamp or a snarling tiki face lamp. Starfish lamps are hanging outside of the booths, and there is a huge seahorse lamp in the middle of the room. One wall has a mural of Tahiti that looks like it is printed on glass that is lit from behind. There are some coconuts hanging near some booths. The book Tiki Road Trip does not have a TIPSY (tikis per square yard) rating for the place, so I will supply my own TIPSY rating of three out of five! That's pretty good. They serve drinks in tiki mugs, which are not for sale. Drinks come with cocktail umbrellas and pineapple garnish with cherries. Pina coladas and mai tais were very tasty. They offer a number of classic tiki bar drinks. Appetizer portions were generous. Typical chinese menu. There are some larger size tikis behind the waiters' station in the back and there are 2 little fountains in the rear also. Waiters are in aloha shirts. All in all it was a fun tiki experience! The place was packed, they do quite a business, so its good to see the tiki establishment thriving. Jade Island is alot like Chans Dragon Inn in Ridgefield, NJ but maybe a notch or two lower on the vintage vibe. From the looks of some of the newspaper clippings they had hanging on the wall in the lobby next to a counter where they sell Lotto tickets (yeah..they really sell lotto there!!), they have been there since at least 1972. And, unlike the free standing building that Chan's is located in, Jade is located in a K-Mart shopping plaza (eesh) not far from the Staten Island Mall (eesh), and a bit of a hike by cab from the S.I. ferry terminal. It had all the cool trappings of a Tiki/Polynesian joint i.e., cool fountains, tikis everywhere, transparent beach scenes hanging on the walls, pufferfish and tiki lamps and a pretty decent tiki bar/cocktail lounge adjacent to the actual dining room. All waiters were dressed in Hawaiian shirts. My girlfriend and I went on a Friday night, and the place was packed (!), and then some, with people waiting for tables. First stop-the lounge. After instantly noticing Trader Vic products behind the bar I ordered a couple of Mai-Tais. Tasty...BUT...made with GRENADINE. Uh-oh. Shortly after that we sat down in one of the tiki-hut booths. Pretty cool. Even cooler was the drink menu which had real photographs of the drinks. After I was done with my Mai-Tai, I ordered a 'Pinapple Paradise' which was a frothy Pina Colada type drink served in a real pineapple shell and garnished with cherry/pineapple chunk on an umbrella. Pretty damn good! My girlfriend ordered the 'Jade Island Special' which was served in a really cool looking hula-girl tiki mug (see picture) that they let us buy for $6.50! Also pretty cool. Also noticed Navy Grog and another drink served in an actual Tiki mug who's name I forgot (shoulda wrote down those damn drink names). Another drink was served in a ceramic coconut shell mug called the 'Coconut Kiss' and of course they had Zombies as well a few other cool looking drinks. Aside from all the regular kind of Chinese food they had the same 'Hawaii 4-0' dish that Chan's had as well as the very cleverly named 'Hawaii 3-0' that I don't think Chan's had (hey they gotta corner the market somehow). After eating some Sesame Shrimp I ordered one of those damn Zombies which was actually very good!! Shortly after that, for some reason I started to get really sleepy, musta been the commute or all that sesame shrimp and shrimp toast appetizers. As the evening set, we drove through Brooklyn to Staten Island over the Verrazano Bridge to the piece-de-resistance: Jade Island, an old-school Tiki bar in a Staten Island strip mall. Inside the Polynesian-style restaurant, we could have been in Vegas, circa 1963. A tiny waterfall flowed next to a fake volcano. All drinks were served with umbrellas, in glasses shaped like tiki heads, bamboo or coconuts. The candy-colored libations had names like "The Headhunter," "The Scorpion," and "Pineapple Paradise." The place was pretty empty, but I don't think our Hawaiian-shirted waiter was thrilled by our high-spirited group. The food was greasy and MSG-laden, the drinks were strong and syrupy sweet, but the ambience made it all worth it. [ Edited by: freddiefreelance on 2003-11-08 08:53 ] |
