Tiki Chows', Ottawa, Ontario, Canada (restaurant)

Name:Tiki Chows'
Type:restaurant
Street:464 Rideau St.
City:Ottawa, Ontario
State:
Zip:
country:Canada
Phone:defunct 237-6021
Status:defunct

Description:
I found this restaurant review accidentally a while back. It's from "The Citizen" an Ottawa newspaper on 10 February 1984. Review written by Bobby Turcotte.

Restaurant-watchers have long wondered that among all the exotically-inclined ethnic eateries around Ottawa now, there wasn't one of the glitzy Hol-lywood-Polynesian persuasion. At last, in September Tiki Chows' filled that cultural gap. It's got all the tipico trappings — gentlemen in tropical shirts who greet you with plastic leis; the tinkle of cascading waterfalls; and soft recorded wicki-wacki music. The alcove is a simulated thatched hut, and you skirt a forest of green-ery to cross a tiki-posted bridge to a larger dining room The walls are hung with masks, spears and other restaurant-Polynesian paraphenalia, and van-colored ceiling lights cast a romantically dim glow. If you're in the mood, it's a re-laxing fun atmosphere. The menu features mainly Polynesian dishes with a smaller Cantonese section and several mostly-Canadian choices like the prime ribs of beef special the night we were there (with snails or French onion soup dessert and beverage for only $11.98). We started with Hawaiian shrimp toast ($4.25), a generous serving of savory nicely deep-fried rolls, and egg rolls (60 cents each) in a thin but heavy
wrapper. From then our meal went on downhill. Our Luau platter with lobster tails, shrimps, scallops and mixed vegetables on a sizzling platter ($12.95) had a bountiful assortment of the seafood and masses of vegetables including snowpeas, water chestnuts, peppers and mushrooms, and pineapple. But all that good stuff was smothered in a glazed-looking sauce with no dis-cernible flavor. Also it was tossed, at table side, with a flourish onto a splendidly sizzling platter, but then was tossed back onto an ordinary serving dish. There, it soon lost all traces of sizzle. The beef Tahiti ($11.95) beef slices rolled in rice wafers and deep-fried but it was hard to imagine how the wrappings could have come so limp and soggy to our table When you scraped them off though, the meat was tender and tasty, and
there was lots of it. It came with pineapple and mixed vegetables slathered in a similar shiny sauce, and a side bowl of equally blah oyster sauce for the beef. The rice with both dishes lacked character in its texture The house vine is $11.95 a litre. For dessert we tried a Chinese pastry (Si 25) that turned out to be sponge with canned pineapple and tasteless cream topping. The al-mond cookie (60 cents) was better. We also tried Tiki Tea-Tee (95 cents each) a mix of tea and coffee I've never had before but that ourwaiter assured us was big in the islands. It was strangely refreshing, but definitely an acquired taste. It's a pity that a place with such an inviting atmosphere and such pleasantly friendly service doesn't do more authentic justice to their particular brand of cookery. Lots of canned pineapple and slithery sauce on almost everything does not a good Polynesian restaurant make. Other items on th. includ-ed Tiki platter for two or more with five different appetizers ($11.95), Hawaiian shrimp stuffed with meat ($11 95), Hawaiian chicken and steaks ($8.95); surf and turf, $15.95

Good to hear from you, Pappy! That sounds like a great place, opening just a little late in the game. Wonder how long it stuck around...and if any of the Canadian Tiki archaeologists here know anything about it.

It sounds a little bit like THIS place - just in a different town !:

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=13696&forum=2

The Chows must have had a chain of restaurants, there is another one in Truro, Nova Scotia.

It still open. Here is youtube link with videos of the (somewhat) Tiki bar and Polynesian Room.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SjfxYNlNGg

DC

Funny! Chow down with the Chow Family!