Post #415530 by tobunga on Sun, Oct 26, 2008 5:13 PM

I dunno about being a celebrity, but Manuel and I went to the Luau on opening night. I brought my camera and took some pix.

I have to say, my first impression on walking in was "Wow!" A bamboo and thatch covered reception area/bar, blowfish lamps, framed tiki art, and Martin Denny playing over the sound system greeted us.(This is the first time I've actually heard exotica playing in any sort of tiki establishment that I didn't have to program into a juke box).

We were seated and immediately began gawking at the decor.
The dining room is not very large, giving it an intimate feel. I spotted Tiki-Ray's tiki, and also noted that there were Moai lamps draped with palm fronds.

Directly over our heads, and visible from the entire room, was Bamboo Ben's blowfish extravaganza...

There was also a few pieces of Oceanic art on the walls, including a large, framed tapa cloth.

We were excited to peruse the drink list, knowing of the origins of some of them. For the opening night, the Luau was serving complementary drinks: the Bo-Lo (served in a hollowed-out pineapple) and the Bahia (served in a whole shelled coconut). We tried both, as well as the Mai-Tai and the Pearl Diver. The Mai-Tai and the Pearl Diver were both very strong, and not on the sweet side. The rum had an aged-in-wood edge. They were easily the most expensive drinks I've ever had! ($14-$18)

I won't bore you with the details of getting vegetarian items from the menu, and I didn't note the prices on the meaty-meat dishes, other than that they were not cheap, sorry to not be of much help there.

The restrooms were up a flight of bamboo lined stairs. At the top was a small insanely-bamboo covered room: walls, doors, and ceiling. It was very cool!

We didn't spend much time in the bar, but I snapped a pic of the tiki painting and the lamps. I've heard them described as Turkish, but the seemed to be covered in a tapa cloth like material. Is this Tapa? In the environment, the seemed tapa to me, and I didn't think they weren't, but the references to the Turkish lamps makes me wonder.

So is it tiki enough? I saw at least 10 examples of Polynesian or Oceanic-inspired pieces in the dining room, most of them without having to move from my seat. And I've never seen more blowfish in one location! Besides the centerpiece in the dining room (containing 37 or 38 fish), there were three over the host station, and (I think) three over the bar. And Bamboo Ben's incredible work! The walls and ceiling were covered in bamboo. There were two support beams that were made to look like lashed together bamboo poles, tied up with rope.

Oh, and the music! Martin Denny playing almost the entire time we were there! That went a long way in setting the mood. As we sipped our Mai-Tais, "Quiet Village" wafted through the air, and it was great!

I know there is some concern about the Buddha imagery. It seems to be concentrated in two areas though: the back-lit cubicles and the big hands at the bar. I honestly didn't even notice the bar hands (but then, I was not in the bar very long). At one point, Denny's "The Left Arm of Buddha" (currently my obsessive favorite piece of his) played, and I couldn't help glancing over at the Buddha cubicle and picking out which were left hands.

The over all impression is a very nice, up-scale restaurant. A definite tiki bend, if not totally tiki. Certainly not at the level of the original Luau, as evidenced in the pix posted here by Sven, but still tiki, at least to me.

A few things though, make me not all together ceartain it wants to be tiki. From the LA times article:

"When asked why he decided to open a tiki bar in Beverly Hills' pricey Golden Triangle, the first thing [owner Andrew Hewitt] does is disavow the "T" word. "It's not tiki," he says emphatically. "I call it Polynesian panache."

And possibly more telling: As we were having dinner, a woman approched us and mentioned that our tiki shirts seemed appropriate atttire. She introduced herself as the designer, and asked us what we thought of the restaurant when we said we were into tiki. We said we we liked it, and she said that was good, considering she'd never been in a tiki establishment before, other than the original Luau (which must have been in her childhood). She seemed almost proud of her lack of tiki experience.

Oh, also, the logo on the business card and etched onto the glasses is the Buddha hand. Again, not tiki at all.

So anyway, that was our Luau encounter...

http://ericoctober.com

[ Edited by: tobunga 2008-10-26 18:05 ]