Post #784543 by mikehooker on Thu, Mar 1, 2018 12:44 PM

Wow, great post! So sad I didn't know about the Sierra Maestra Panoramic room. What a treat that would have been.

I still daydream of Havana all the time and wish we could make another trip out there and explore the countryside. On a different Cuba thread I posted a bunch of Polinesio pics that I feel should be shared here as well. Here's an excerpt from my trip log...

On 2017-05-04 11:44, mikehooker wrote:

The Habana Libre (formerly Havana Hilton) was directly across the street. It had some amazing design aspects including the 16 million tile mosaic.

And fun ceiling.

But our motivation lie elsewhere. Down in the basement.

We sat at the bar and Oswaldo greeted us with menus. Hey, those look familiar!

We got to talking and before you know it he brought out a bunch of goodies from his collection to show us.

The self proclaimed "Tiki Man" gave us the grand tour, showing off his "son," this Barney West carved tiki that is signed on the bottom.

The former Trader Vic's is an immaculate time capsule with so much wonderful eye candy.

And of course the Chinese ovens.

We had three rounds of drinks. Everyone's favorite was the Pirata, which is a twist on a Pina Colada and served in a newly manufactured skull mug.

I forget what it's called on the menu, but their equivalent of a Fog Cutter was pretty good as well. You might want to avoid the Mai Tai which comes out red.

The secret ingredient of the Pirata is the coconut liqueur which is very fragrant. We scoured the city endlessly in search of a bottle. We saw every other flavor variation imaginable from Mulata and had finally given up the search until alas, in our final hour in Havana, sitting on the shelf at Duty Free...

For the sake of non-redundancy, here are a few more pics I never posted...

Glorious, unscathed interior.

And some pre-Revolution pics of pics from Oswaldo's scrapbook of fancy free folks imbibing. I know some major celebrities frequented there in its short existence as Trader Vics. Recognize anyone?

I want one of those coconut mugs. They appear to be different shape and size than the ones you commonly see. Wonder if they are stamped Havana.