As many of you know, I’m a big fan of all things “tiki”, so
when I heard Andrew Zimmern was going to open a tiki bar in the West End Shops,
I was pretty excited. Full disclosure: I’ve never been a fan of Andrew Zimmern
,though I respect what he’s done to make people think outside of the box when
it comes to food. So when he made some, at the least, culturally insensitive,
and at worst, wildly racist, it didn’t thrill me to go to his new restaurant. But,
everyone that knows me knows I like tiki bars, and were bound to ask me how it
compared to other tiki bars, so I felt obligated to have some sort of reference
point.
I went at lunch on a day I had off work during the week. It
wasn’t packed, but I still grabbed a seat at the bar. I like to watch
bartenders make tiki drink because there’s definitely a skill to it. I took a
look at the menu at all the delicious-sounding tiki rinks and finally ordered
Lucky’s Path – it’s got rums, apricot, ginger, cinnamon, pineapple, and lime.
Sounds delicious, right? I was crushed to watch the guy turn around to the
slurpee, pull a lever, throw a couple pineapple pieces in the cup, and hand it
over. No mixing. No flare. No idle conversation. No skill demonstrated. Sigh.
Disappointed.
But it tasted just fine.
I thought, since it was lunch time, I’d better grab some
food. The menu has some fun items on it. But it also has a lot of plain things
on it. I asked the bartender what the popular items were (since he clearly wasn’t
busy slinging dranks, amiright?). Everything he said sounded pretty plain and
boring. This is Andrew Zimmern’s place and he’s known for the crazy stuff. So I
got a little adventurous and ordered the Hand-Cut Noodles. Then I decided that
might not be enough, so I also ordered a bowl of pork fried rice. And then I
also ordered another drink. One that didn’t appear to say anything about “frozen”
on it.
The Tiki Reviver has rums, coconut, pineapple, lime, and
some coffee liqueur. I’d love to see that being made. However, the bartender
turned around, grabbed a cup, put it under a tap, pull the tap, fill the cup,
throw in a couple of pineapple pieces, and set it down in front of me. Sigh.
Disappointed.
But it tasted fine.
The noodles came out and looked pretty good. It was lamb
with some cumin and bean sprouts with
noodles. Sadly, the cumin was really quite strong. Very strong. I ended up
eating about half of it before I gave up. The noodles themselves were good, but
the cumin drowned out everything else. Thankfully, the dish had some good spice
to it, so I was thrilled with that, but the cumin did me in.
Fortunately, the fried rice was actually quite tasty. The
best part of the entire lunch.
Overall, I was disappointed. I had really high hopes going
in, especially about the tiki part of the place. But, the reviews that I’ve
read were accurate: overpriced standard-tasting Chinese food with standard tiki
drinks. The drinks either come from a tap or slurpee machine and the best food
I ate was fried rice. Additionally, my lunch cost me $45.
I’d rather go to Psycho
Suzi’s or Hunan
Garden for my tiki experience in the Twin Cities. Again, just my opinion.
Who knows? I may end up back there at some point if the
owner’s comments don’t hurt business too much…
2 comments:
I've been curious to read everyone's reviews. Bummer that the drinks aren't made fresh especially at the price point.
Oh man, I am disappointed to hear about the drinks being bad too! Loved the blog post, as usual.
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