Leeteg & Chow Mein

I dropped into the Trader Vic’s in Emeryville Saturday to check out the Leeteg painting just behind the hostess station. I was surprised by two things at the restaurnat.

First, after studying the velvet very closely for a good 10 minutes, I came away thinking that while the painting was good, it wasn’t great. Maybe it is one of Leeteg's early paintings. It just didn’t leave me feeling that he was ‘the master’.

But secondly, I poked around the restaurant, which has some magnificent artifacts and tapa wall coverings, and got a lunch menu. I couldn’t believe the prices! I had just spent 4 days in San Francisco dropping a lot of cash for some good food, but $16 for fried rice and $19 for chow mein at Vic's? I’m sure it’s great food, and the place seemed to be doing good business, but who are the lunch customers? Are they just people with expense accounts? I know I can't afford to take my family there.

[ Edited by: Okolehao 2009-04-13 13:20 ]

Alas, I'm afraid it is all too true. My wife's family is from the East Bay (we currently live in northern Virginia), and we have been there a few times. Although I'm sure this will be heresy to all Trader Vic fans, unfortunately except when I was a kid I've always found these restaurants to feature over-priced, mediocre food. The Emeryville TV is the last one still owned and operated by the Bergeron family and I think your best bet would be to do what we do when we make our pilgrimages: Enjoy the atmosphere, ambiance and decorations (if you ask the host nicely, he may show you the other four Leetegs scattered throughout the restaurant like he did for me on one visit), hang out in the bar, order drinks and if you must eat, get appetizers or share a PuPu platter.

My father-in-law and mother-in-law grew up with Victor Bergeron and my father-in-law said that when he started with Hinky Dinks it was a lowdown place with sawdust on the floor and, as TV and his friends got progressively wealthier, the decor and prices increased. It might interest you to know that my wife and I took her parents to see Forbidden Island not long after it opened. They loved it and said it reminded them of the old Hinky Dinks. Also, my father-in-law, who turns 92 next month, remembers Emeryville when it was a wide-open town during the Depression, with a muddy beachfront where bootleggers unloaded their hooch and he and his friends used to catch Dungeness crabs to eat because they had no money.