Restaurant Review - Freaky For Tiki
Fun is the finest sustenance at Trader Vic’s
There’s an odd elegance at work when you finally arrive at Trader Vic’s after taking an elevator up, then down, to arrive at roughly the same level where you began. The journey begins in a slightly ominous parking garage. Then, after ascending to and traversing the quiet, signage-free lobby, you descend in another elevator, which opens onto the restaurant’s foyer. At last you wind your way past tiki poles and palm fronds to the hostess stand where a young French man, stiffly uniformed in a dark suit, greets you with a formality that seems out of place for a theme restaurant ... until you remember its location is inside a corporate hotel.
The way to Trader Vic’s feels not unlike a treasure hunt, and to enter the restaurant is to step back in time to an era when jeans were not suitable dinner attire and paradise was categorically an isle somewhere between Hawaii and Fiji. Opened in 1976, the restaurant remains a marvel of extraordinary detail. Puffer fish and Polynesian long boats float just below the ceiling, which is plastered with wallpaper made up of the South China Morning Post in the bar area and woven bamboo thatch in the dining rooms. Giant clam shells and spears bedeck the backlit walls. Salt and pepper shakers take on the form of tiki figures. Charger plates are stamped with tiki masks.
Even the azure-tiled bathrooms resemble a scene from Blue Hawaii.
Part of the chain boasting 21 such restaurants around the world, Atlanta’s Trader Vic’s is an experience to be savored with the eyes and not necessarily the palate. Its Polynesian plates aren’t derived from anything you might find on Tonga but something along the lines of sweet ‘n’ sour pork: Chinese food with pineapples and maraschino cherries. Like the extinct Playboy Clubs, Trader Vic’s is a vestige of mid-century style where campiness and cheesiness come together to create an atmosphere of kitschy class. They certainly don’t make ‘em like this anymore.
Appetizers and fruity, snazzily decorated cocktails are the best way to partake in the frothy fun of Trader Vic’s. The drinks are remarkably similar variations on the same sour-mix theme, but they slip down with ease and possess a powerful, boozy kick. Each concoction is served up in its own specific glass, adding to the giggly fun. The Scorpion Bowl for four is a gigantic vessel that sports kneeling, topless maidens on the side, an orchid drowning in the middle of the frozen, cotton-candy pink drink, and yard-long straws to ease the elixir into your gullet with minimum fuss. Essentially a Mai Tai with bourbon substituted for rum, the sinfully delicious Honi Honi is presented in a ceramic cup painted with a scene of a naked native gal being chased and frolicking with a sailor, Captain Cook style. The classic Mai Tai is the most sedate drink, soberly poured into a highball glass emblazoned with the beverage’s recipe and nothing more than a spear of pineapple and maraschino cherry on top.
Starters - dished out in brass boat-shaped chafing dishes with tea lights aglow underneath, or served up with sweet and sour sauce and hot mustard pooled into the wings of butterfly-shaped dishes - provide savory crunch to the sugary beverages. The Cosmo Tidbits platter of flower-shaped crab Rangoon, panko-coated and deep-fried shrimp butterflied and flattened into rings, pork and spareribs is perfectly enjoyable. Barbecued in wood-fired ovens that occupy a spotlit, glassed-in showroom dominating the main dining area, the meats are smoke-tinged and succulent. Bongo Bongo soup sports a gratinéed cream top floating on a shamrock-green veloute of spinach, theatrically presented in a giant porcelain sea shell. The soup’s oyster essence is bare at best, but its velvety, utterly smooth texture melts like whipped cream in the mouth.
Where the starters succeed with dramatic frivolity, most of the entrees we try are stiff and stodgy, although some are surprisingly good. Battered, pan-fried mahi mahi is a mushy mess napped in a bland saffron lobster sauce and gluey mashed potatoes. Indonesian rack of lamb from the wood-fired ovens is perfectly cooked with a wonderful charred exterior and sticky chutney glaze. There’s no sign of the peanut element as described on the menu, but the meat is redolent with buttery gaminess.
Coconut milk is the only thing vaguely Thai about the Thai seafood curry, whose sauce is flavored heavily with red bell peppers and a touch of tomato. Its lobster and prawns are nonetheless fresh and delicate. Wok stir-fried seafood is nearly identical to the seafood curry, minus the coconut milk, with scallops and tilapia added in. Kung Pao chicken is generously portioned, its peppers crisp and smoky-sweet among slivers of juicy chicken and salty peanuts.
Desserts could offer a dash of excitement, with several flambéed options. But servers are too harried and apathetic to harness the good-time potential. The cherries jubilee is bland and watery, lit out of view and plonked on the table without ceremony.
The dining areas are spacious and comfortable, but eating in the lounge is most appealing. Corner tables are intimate and cozy, and the careful attention of bartender Joel (who was named Atlanta’s Best Bartender 2004 by Creative Loafing) is the very essence of the brand of smooth, gentlemanly service that is dying out with the tiki bar theme. Tucked away in the lounge, it’s not hard to imagine you’ve stolen away to a tropical island. Martin Denny plays softly in the background and you can practically hear waves lapping the shore. You hunger for nothing and your Mai Tai glass is never empty. A night spent at Trader Vic’s is an escape from all reality, and when you re-emerge from the parking garage at ground level, you’re sad the carnival ride is over.