Post #791431 by HopeChest on Mon, Nov 26, 2018 3:43 PM

Nice review, Kevin.

My experiences with Kon-Tiki have been wildly varying. The ambiance is fantastic, the music is pretty spot on for chilling out ("Margaritaville" alert!), and I really dig their events programme. I've just found them very inconsistent, which is very frustrating because when they're good, they're very, very good indeed. Some nights were excellent, some were just so-so, and a couple were "I just might never come back after this" bad. I've had heavenly, well balanced cocktails and I've had a mai tai shaken literally once with wet ice. I've had excellent service on the floor every time and have had some of the most singularly inattentive service that I've ever had whilst seated at the bar. Over a dozen visits later, the inconsistency has baffled me more than irritated me because there's so much to like.

I appreciate that they continue to develop / tweak the menu, though they appear to have lost or heavily pulled back from the heavy agricole influence from the earlier menus that seemed to set them apart from the other local tiki bars. They had a reliance on a few particular bottles early on which could make the drinks seem a bit samey over time (Barbancourt and Hamilton Jamaican Pot Still in particular) but they've improved on that quite a bit. And MAN - that Rum & Honey IS absolutely fantastic...hopefully they'll still make a Samoan Fogcutter if I ask nicely cos theirs was great.