Mama Quan's Tiki Hut, Arlington, VA (bar)

Name:Mama Quan's Tiki Hut
Type:bar
Street:Clarendon Blvd.
City:Arlington
State:VA
Zip:
country:USA
Phone:
Status:unknown

Description:
I noticed "Mama Quan's Tiki Hut" under construction in Clarendon, in the site of the closed Greek place. Looks like it's a couple of weeks away from opening. I'm guessing it'll turn out to be a generic "beach party" type of place, but here's hoping I'm wrong.

I used to live in that area and the owner of the place is a friend of a friend. I know one guy who might bartend there. I'll try to find out more about it. Great location with tons of traffic.

I previously posted the following photos in a different thread, but I think this spot here is a better location.

Vern

Opened this weekend and I went there last night. It's basicly a West Indies-themed bar with a couple of tikis and a Suffering Bastard on the menu, along with 4 "house" tropical drinks. It seems like a fun place (hard to tell on a sunday night) and the patio is awesome, just don't go there expecting a tiki bar experience. The food was average.

I heard back from a guy who knows the owner of this place. Mama Quan's is just a temporary fix. They got control of the place, and planned to do a complete renovation (non-tiki style bar), but couldn't get the building permits needed until next year. So, they decided to turn it into a "tiki" bar for this year, just to have some fun and to make some extra $ with limited expenses. Most likely, by next year, it will be just another average bar :(

Ouch, that is bad news.

I guess they will not be adding any long-term tiki/Polynesian modifications to their decor - something that I was hoping for. It is bad news when someone views tiki as a quick and temporary cash cow, and not a long-term investment.

Vern

We went to Mama Quan's last night and were pretty disappointed. Concrete floors, loud frat-geared reggae, pseudo-tropical $9 sandwiches and not a tiki mug in the house. The crowd hailed from the Banana Republic. The servers told us the tiki theme was only a "summer fling."

I paid a obligatory visit, and also came away disappointed. I ordered one of their house drinks, the Papa Qwan, which was served in a 24oz plastic tiki mug, the variety which you might find at the Party Store chain. They used two kinds of bottom shelf Arostocrat rum, and then filled the rest with a large injection of some sweet soda mix from whatever that handheld bar hose spritzer thing is called, and then stuck a cherry on a paper umbrella at the top. The rsult was too sweet, too sugary/watery. This was the first time in a long time that I left a 'tiki' drink unfinished.

When I first walked by the place, before they opened, while they were still redecorating it, I thought the opening would be many weeks away, as it didn't look very tiki at all. Instead, they opened it up quickly, more or less as is. There are a couple of tiki carvings, but they somehow look very out of place, and almost as if someone said "Oh, that's right, we're suppose to be a tiki bar, we better buy some tikis."

The tiki theme is only temporary, until they can get the building permits to do the place in the way they really intended - which will likely not be a tki theme. It is sad news, when they decided to do a fun, low budget decor-wise theme for the summer -- and ended up choosing tiki, and getting the whole experience so wrong. The result is yet another segement of the D.C./Northern VA area, who will be misinformed about the true potential and attraction of a real tiki place could be like.

Vern

And here is the review from the Washington Post. I don't know who Fritz and Erin, the two reviewers are, but they've got it right on this one.

Vern

Mama Quan's Tiki Hut, which promises island drinks and a sun-drenched patio just blocks from the Metro.

Things started well enough: There's plenty of outdoor seating, and the minimalist interior is covered in old surfboards. The back room has a pool table and a few other games. A chalkboard behind the bar announced that cocktails were served in 24-ounce tiki glasses. But inflatable Corona products hanging from the ceiling should have been our cue that something was amiss.

If you're going to call yourself a Tiki Hut, you need a good Mai Tai in funky Polynesian glassware. Mama Quan's can't get this basic requirement right. The only recognizable name on the menu was a Suffering Bastard, which is what I felt like after ordering the Papa Quan cocktail. Though the ingredients made it sound like the legendary Mai Tai, it's in fact a tepid blend of rums, fruit juices and wayyyyyy too much grenadine, served in a neon-blue plastic cup that resembles a child's version of a glass from Trader Vic's. Erin described it as a melted slushee, and she wasn't far off. My friend Kathryn hopefully ordered the Grandpa Quan, made with Myers dark rum and pineapple juice, but was served some clear fluid that tasted closer to bathwater.

As for the food, it's pretty much what you'd expect to find from a poolside snack shack. You'll find wings, coconut shrimp, peel-n-eat shrimp and a smattering of salads and sandwiches. We opted to split the flash-fried fish bites with remoulade and the shrimp skewers. The skewers, which can also be ordered with beef or chicken, were heavy on the marinade and slightly undercooked. The accompanying cole slaw was the highlight with zippy peanut and ginger flavors. As for the fish bites, the consistency was not quite right with flaky breading that couldn't contain the watery fish, but they're easy to share and less messy than a plate of wings.

Two saving graces: A huge patio (covered in grape vines from its previous incarnation as Aegean Taverna) with ample seating, though it is already packed with the after-work crowd, and a daily happy hour with $2 bottles of Bud Light and Miller Lite from 5 to 7. No wonder everyone outside was sipping those instead of fun summer drinks.