Post #595004 by Dr. Zarkov on Sun, Jun 26, 2011 1:02 AM

A few years ago my wife and I dined at the Roy's in Palm Springs. The menu was ambitious but the execution was mediocre, which sometimes happens when celebrity chefs expand too far, too fast and they can't maintain control over the quality of what's coming out of the kitchen. We have passed by other Roy's in other cities and never felt the urge to try it again because the high prices didn't match the the pretentions to fine dining we experienced on our first visit. There are too many good retaurants in places like Chicago, for example, to bother risking another expensive but disappointing meal.

(Off topic: Earlier this year, after reading the customer reviews on Yelp of the Chicago Trader Vic's, I felt no desire to dine there, either. Some of those reviews were downright Gordon Ramsay Kitchen Nightmares-scale scary! Perhaps someone should start a thread about why so many Tiki restaurants, especially Trader Vic's, have such awful food.)

The decor in the Palm Springs Roy's restaurant when we were there was decidedly non-Tiki with an contemporary, very modern look (as opposed to a retro modern style). I asked the waitress if they had any Tiki mugs and she was totally nonplussed; I had to explain to her what a Tiki mug was because she had never heard of such a thing!

I wondered afterward whether the sleek modern decor and avoidance of any Tiki touches was deliberate on Roy Yamaguchi's part -- seeking to put as much distance between his project and the cliched image of Hawaiian exotica to create a new public image for his unique food creations, but I don't know if that was the case.

[ Edited by: Dr. Zarkov 2011-06-26 01:07 ]