Port of Call – New Orleans, LA

Posted by The Tiki Chick in Bar & Restaurant Reviews and tagged with Burgers, New Orleans, Port of Call, Restaurant Reviews, Restaurants, Tiki, Travel July 19, 2013

There are many restaurants in New Orleans that are famous for a particular dish: oysters Rockefeller at Antoine’s, barbecue shrimp at Mr. B’s…and burgers at Port of Call. The latter had been highly recommended to us by a Southern friend, and several other locals we encountered in The Big Easy also told tales of the huge hamburgers and super-strong drinks.

Dating back to 1963, this nautical dive bar is located on the northeast edge of the French Quarter, on the border of the Marigny neighborhood. (A couple blocks farther over on Frenchmen Street is Port of Call’s sister establishment Snug Harbor, which serves up the same burgers. It also offers a more extensive menu and is a decent jazz club, apparently.)

Because of its popularity among both tourists and locals, there can be quite a wait some nights when you put your name down for a table. (Your other choice is to hover behind somebody at the bar in hopes they eventually give up their seat.) However, we had no trouble at 5 p.m. on a Wednesday (upside of being jet lagged).

There are only about eight tables in the sunken dining area behind these bamboo poles, plus a few more tables in another room down a hallway from the L-shaped bar. Nautical lanterns, an aquarium and colorful Christmas lights brighten up the dim space, and the wood-paneled walls are covered with ship replicas and prints, a life preserver and ship’s wheel. Above your head is a canopy of rope woven together like a fishing net.

For the record, I didn’t see any tikis anywhere except the tiki mugs depicted on the menu, which is likely why Port of Call merited a mention in James Teitelbaum’s Tiki Road Trip book. (Besides the fact that there isn’t much tiki in New Orleans — though that is starting to change…)

The cocktails are served in big plastic cups, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that the emphasis is quantity over quality. (They’re not half bad though if you come in with proper expectations.) For perspective, here you can see the difference between the jumbo size ($10) and a regular/half order ($5.50). The unofficial signature drink is Neptune’s Monsoon, described as “an old recipe used frequently as a last request by pirates condemned to walk the plank.” It’s a Hurricane-esque drink made with passion fruit, “tropical juices” and two kinds of rum. We also tried the Huma Huma, which had too much melon for my taste. I’d say stick with the Monsoon.

The menu is short and simple, just salads, steaks, baked potatoes and burgers smothered with shredded cheddar cheese and mushrooms. These are not those gourmet burgers so trendy nowadays, but I still thought they were damn good. Instead of fries, your starchy side is a hearty baked potato you can load up with bacon bits, chives, cheese (+$1.25), sour cream (+$1.25) and mushrooms (+$1.50). A burger and a baked potato may sound like an odd couple but here it works. Ask for extra napkins — things are gonna get messy.

Our server was very friendly and even asked around to help us find a bar nearby where we could watch the playoff hockey game. (If you’re looking for the best place to watch hockey in the French Quarter, head to Ryan’s Irish Pub.)

Port of Call is just the place if you want to stuff your face and consume entirely too much alcohol. And if you haven’t finished your drink but need to be on your way, you can request a plastic top and take it to-go because that’s part of the fun of being in New Orleans.

Port of Call
838 Esplanade Ave.
New Orleans, LA 70116
504-523-0120

Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room 50th Anniversary Merchandise Event

Posted by The Tiki Chick in Events and tagged with Disney, Disneyland, Enchanted Tiki Room, Shag, Tiki, Tiki Art, Tiki Mugs July 9, 2013

Last month marked the 50th anniversary of Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room at Disneyland, so you know what that means — merchandising opportunity! Disney held a product release event June 28-29 at the Disneyland Hotel (and an even pricier $185 cocktail reception with Shag on Saturday night).

It wouldn’t be Disney if there wasn’t a line involved, right? First, you had to go to registration to sign in and confirm that you received all the paperwork (assigned time for the artists signing, etc.). After that, you headed to another station to pick up the merchandise you’d already purchased through the RSP (Random Selection Process). Cast members then unwrapped each item to doublecheck they were correct and intact.

Friday night was so understaffed that this whole process took up to three hours for some people. (Strange since this event had been sold out for weeks so it’s not like they didn’t know how many people would be showing up.) There hadn’t been anything special scheduled for Friday night so I’d decided just to go Saturday, and the wait time was significantly shorter.

So what would compel all these people to pay $89 apiece to basically just shop? For starters, this was another Disney collaboration with Shag, plus several other amazing artists, like Kevin Kidney and Jody Daily. They designed a whole slew of stuff, including pins (oh so many pins), tiki mugs (and a bowl inspired by Disney’s Polynesian Resort that snuck in under the radar), postcards, coasters, prints, a purse, shirts, tiki figurines, original art and more.

Working with The Mouse I believe for the first time was Doug Horne, another one of my favorite artists on the tiki scene. He created these two pieces: “Pele, Goddess of Fire and Volcanoes” and “In the Tiki Room,” which are also being sold as prints ($40).

Everyone was encouraged to wear Hawaiian/Polynesian attire, and it was fun to see folks who really went all out for the occasion.

One woman had turned her walker into a functional work of art by covering it with moss, cardboard packing material, flowers, shells, parrots and tikis.

Upon walking into the huge ballroom you were immediately struck by the scent of pineapple infusing the air. The logo and a few images from the Enchanted Tiki Room were projected on the walls, and surf and exotica music helped set the mood. (I don’t think “In the Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Room” made the playlist, funny enough.)

The ballroom was mostly a space for people to relax or engage in pin trading — a running theme of the event —- but there was also a photo-op area where you could pose with Stitch (and a Stitch-inspired tiki) in front of a beachy background. How could I resist?

Dole has been a sponsor of the Enchanted Tiki Room since 1976, and they supplied goodies for the event, like cans of pineapple juice, fruit cups and recipe cards (the same ones I’ve picked up before at the Dole Whip stand).

All attendees received two free commemorative gifts: an Enchanted Tiki Room bottle opener (doubles as a magnet) and a wooden sign made to look like the 75 cent tickets that Disneyland guests had to purchase to visit the attraction when it opened in 1963 (because technically the Enchanted Tiki Room was not owned by Disneyland but by Walt’s personal company, WED Enterprises). And if you had registered for the event right away you also got an “Early Birdies” pin. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of all the swag.

However, the part that truly made this event worthwhile was the “Memory Room” Q&A panels with original imagineers from the Enchanted Tiki Room and their contemporaries who recently worked on restoring the attraction. Bob Gurr talked about drawing the birdcages that hide some of the mechanics, while Rolly Crump relayed “cute stories” about designing the tikis in the garden and what it was like working with “The Old Man” (Walt Disney).

Many of the merchandise from this event was not limited edition so it’s probably already landed at shops in the park, but I’ve seen how tricky it can be for the stock to keep up with demand. For us, this event was worth it for the convenience and peace of mind (and all the extras Disney ended up throwing in). To paraphrase a famous proverb: “A (tiki) bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.”

Tiki at Lake George…Minnesota

Posted by The Tiki Chick in Other Tiki Topics and tagged with Minneapolis, Minnesota, Psycho Suzi's, Tiki, Tiki Mugs June 26, 2013

Please pardon the recent radio (interweb) silence, but I just returned from another trip to the land of 10,000 lakes (and a few tikis). For years we used to have family reunions at Lake George in Minnesota — a four hour drive north of Minneapolis — until the owner sold the resort.

Now we rent cabins at another nearby lake, but we still take the occasional sentimental drive along the shores of Lake George and that’s when I spotted this tiki out on the sand. Sort of funny since there’s a whole tiki resort, naturally called The Tiki Resort, at Lake George in New York. (In fact they’re hosting the annual Ohana – Luau at the Lake event this weekend.)

In actual Minnesota tiki news, Psycho Suzi’s in Minneapolis just released a new signature mug — this one is tied to the Ports of Pleasure bar in the Shangri-La Cocktail Lounge upstairs. Designed by local artist Carolyn Kopecky and manufactured by One Hundred 80 Degrees in St. Paul, it features a mysterious mermaid on the bow of half a sunken ship (and is available in the online gift shop for $20). I was very impressed by its unique shape — it’s already front-and-center in my collection.