Hey, that's not the same honkey
you brought with you LAST week!
I'm stuffed!
I'll have what he's having.
They call me Fishstick Des Barres cause
'I'm With the Band'.
When your bladder says it's monsoon season, obey.
The drink they call Santa and Mary.
Oh, so THAT'S where my red napkin went!
"Goooooodnight Yokohama!"
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Tiki Tiki
B1 Soutetsu Iwasaki-gakuen
Bldg. 2-17-1 Tsuruyacho
Kanagawa-ku Yokohama
Phone: 045-312-3397
Admittedly, its a long way to go for a tiki bar. But if you ever find yourself in Tokyo, Tiki Tiki in Yokohama is a must. Accessible from the Tokyo subway line (take the train to Yokohama station, and it should be a short walk - where exactly I couldn't tell you, cause we drove in circles for a goodly time trying to find it, but if you REALLY want to know, e-mail me and I can figure it out).
Even those who live in Yokohama, however, might be hard pressed to find this Polynesian gem. Hidden away in the basement of a nondescript office building (as are most good restaurants in Japan), there is only a small (and I mean SMALL) backlit sign to alert you to the South Seas sensations contained within. Easily missed, unless you are looking. Luckily, we were. It was Christmas day, after all, and where better to have Christmas dinner with the family, than a tiki bar?
We climbed the steps down to the basement, and entered accidentally by the back door. So to get to the entrance, we passed through some dark hallways, some rather suspect public toilets, and the building's garbage room. Not an auspicious beginning. But the moment the doorway flanked by tiki gods and a christmas tree hove into sight, I knew I would not regret my decision to treat my nearest and dearest to a tiki yuletide feast.
Immediately upon entering (and crossing the obligatory bridge over halogen-lighted water) we were greeted by a large tiki statue with moving eyes and mouth, who said in recorded Japanese, among other things, "Hey, thats not the same girl you brought in last night!"
We were then graciously and swiftly seated right beside the stage. Or should I say, the faux alligator-volcano-clamshell orchestra pit. We arrived in the middle of a set by the featured entertainers, some rock-on Japanese hipsters who were hell bent on mangling the oldies to the best of their abilities, whether they knew the words or not. My mother's chosen mission throughout the evening was to record their set list on the back of a receipt I had in my purse. Some of the highlights were: "Rak Aranda Cat" (Rock around the Clock), "Santa Cross Is Commie Two Tone" (Santa Claus is Coming to Town) and "Diana".
I was pleased to see the wait staff was decked out for Christmas, Hawaiian style - they had on mini santa suits, and were sporting leis. In any other place, I might have felt a little sorry for them, but I got the impression that in Japan, the idea of wearing a silly uniform to work isn't a badge of shame, but a badge of honour. I could be totally wrong on this, but I just felt none of the "Oh my god I am SO embarassed to be here" vibe that you sometimes get with the employees of other 'themed' restaurants.
We set right to ordering the fruity drinks. We were recommended 'Santa and Mary' drink, which was a coconut based thing in a large glass with 4 straws, 'guaranteed' to please two people. Well. after one sip each, we were done with it. Delicious, yes, curiously named, true, but portionally inferior I'm afraid. So we ordered another round of fruity concoctions and got to work on the menu.
The food is 'Izakaya style' which means you order a shitload of little appetizers and share it all. Quite a nice idea, cause there was so much on the menu I wanted to try. This is one area where Tiki Tiki has a leg up on Ohio's famous Kahiki - at Kahiki, it wasn't easy to find something vegetarian to eat. At Tiki Tiki, we ordered 12 mostly meatless things and were still raring for more.
Inbetween the delicious flaming dishes I would grab my brother and run around the restaurant snapping pics with his camera (my famous 'older than I am goddammit' Pentax has no flash). I'm sure the other patrons thought I was nuts, but by that time, I was used to Japanese people thinking I was a screwball gaijin, so I didnt care.
Then, the Hawaiian dancers came out, complete with coconut bras and grass skirts. In fact, we stayed long enough to see them come out for a couple sets, and for their last set, they changed from their traditional grass skirts to a sassy little miniskirt "Santas-Little-Red-Polyester-Clad-Helper" number. Even better, they dragged my brother up on stage with them and taught him a little hula. Who said white boys can't dance? Actually, I said it, so nevermind.
After eating countless incindiary foods, and listening to countless 'golden hits of the fifties and sixties', I turned my attention to something that had been nagging my peripheral vision for a while - namely two girls, peering through the bamboo fence that separated the stage area of the restaurant from the rest of the establishment. Apparently. our Japanese answer to Ricki Martin up on stage had some groupies. Two rather homely twenty-something japanese girls had had their face presed to the screen just behind my mom for our entire meal - lip synching the words to all the songs. Once I realised they were there, I couldnt stop watching them. It's as if they were seeing Elvis himself for the first time - Their eyes were moist, their attention was beyond rapt - these women were literally swooning. I had decided earlier that I wasn't going to leave without a picture of me with the band, but after witnessing these girls, my mother warned me against it "lest they tear my eyes out".
I did it anyway.
Another interesting bit of people watching was the couple beside us with the coveted stage-side seats. A middle aged Japanese business man with his younger, more attractive date. They said not one word to each other through out their entire meal. I thought I had never seen two more miserable people on a date, until I ate out a little more around Tokyo- apparently the city is just rife with unhappy couples on shitty dates. But I digress. When finally he paid the bill and they left, with out speaking a single word to each other, my mom and I (after wondering whether or not she was one of Japan's famous 'compensated dates') wondered if we should grab their tiki mug, as the lady had ordered the coveted "Tiki Tiki" drink, which came in a real tiki mug.
In a fit of conscientiousness, I decided to order my brother and I our own "Tiki Tikis" instead, despite their hefty price tag of 900 yen (about 14 dollars Canadian). I assumed at this price we would get to keep the mugs, (as you can at the Kahiki for a similar price) but silly me, this is Japan after all - to keep the mugs is an extra 1000 yen on top of the drink price, as we discovered after a lengthy translation session between my brothers girlfriend, Natsumi, and the waitress. I debated this expenditure for about, oh, 7 seconds, before deciding to hang the expense. Hell, I paid enough to get to Japan, am I really going to balk at the chance at a couple of well endowed tiki mugs, no matter how inflated the price? I think not!
Besides, they came with mucho fruit, ice cream, and some funky Zulu swizzler sticks with googly eyes.
By this time, our Christmas dinner was wrapping up, we were pleasantly full, but of course, being hungry westerners, not too full for dessert. I had spied a yummy young elf-attired male specimen pushing a dessert cart around earlier in the evening, and I enquired after his wares. Unfortunately, he had said his alohas for the evening some time before, but our waitress graciously brought out the dessert selection for us to peruse, even though we were really pushing our time limit as far as eating was concerned - things close early in the land of the rising sun.
After selecting some tiny and delicious (and sinfully expensive) desserts, I requested that Natsumi ask our santa-suit clad waitress if I could have my picture taken with her. Under one stipulation - that she don a lei like the rest of the wait staff (I guess our girl was the only full dress-code dissenter). She agreed, and came back with leis for all of us. How nice, we thought. What a thoughtful gesture for the silly foreigners! We all put them on, I had my picture taken, and then, after the snapshot was taken, the waitress just stood there looking at us expectantly.
What had I done wrong, I thought? What is she waiting for?
Finally, she embarassdly asked Natsumi to ask us to return the leis. Apparently, they were from the gift shop, and were not free. Embarassment all around.
Well, by this time, things at the Tiki Tiki were wrapping up - the band had changed into their street clothes (and were probably glad of it - something tells me this ain't their favourite gig - Maybe it was the change from Hawaiian shirts and straw hats to leather pants and Metallica shirts that was the big giveaway) so we got the bill. For Japan, quite a reasonable price - 18,000 yen, or about 270 dollars US for four people. Plus, as an added bonus, our still-embarassed waitress brought us some farewell leis for us to keep - not quite as good a quality as the ones for our photo op, but they still had their gift shop price tags on them, so you know she had gone out of her way to do us a favour, so that was a really nice surprise.
All in all, I give the Tiki Tiki in Yokohama a 5 star rating. Even though my only other Tiki experience has been the Kahiki, I have been informed (by the bible of tiki bar hunters, the Tiki Bar Review Page http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Fuji/2185/tikimain.html
) that the Kahiki is the standard to which all other tiki bars must be held - and the Tiki Tiki held its own. With bonus points for doing it all in Japanese, to boot.
Next up? The brand-spankin' new "The Hut" in Pontiac, Michigan!
PS. Do you know of a Tiki bar in YOUR town? The fishstick is willing (as you might have gathered) to travel long distances to get to one! e-mail me with your dining suggestions!
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