PKNY (Painkiller) – New York, NY

Posted by The Tiki Chick in Bar & Restaurant Reviews and tagged with New York, NYC, Painkiller, PKNY, Tiki, Tiki Bars, Travel April 15, 2013

The craft cocktail craze of the last several years has spawned a slew of new tiki bars seeking to carry on the traditions of mixology masters like Don the Beachcomber and Trader Vic. Last summer we visited a few newcomers in New York, including PKNY and the now-shuttered Lani Kai.

Opened in May 2010, PKNY is a project from Giuseppe Gonzalez and Richard Boccato of Dutch Kills bar in Queens. It was originally named Painkiller but they were soon faced with a lawsuit from Pusser’s Rum, who trademarked the cocktail of the same name (which they did not even invent).

There’s no official sign, so look out for the blue door declaring “Tiki Bar” in bamboo letters. Then you’ll descend a few steps into the bar area. Beyond that, there are leopard-print booths (seating two, four or more) lining both sides of the long, narrow space. (It’s normally quite dark so you wouldn’t take as much notice of the cheap tiki masks on the bamboo-covered walls.)

The decor merges tiki’s romanticized vision of the South Seas with the owners’ nostalgia for the grit of New York’s Lower East Side in the 1970s — hence you have this graffiti art take on the sailors and Polynesian beauties from the cover of the menus at Trader Vic’s. My boyfriend got a kick out of the signed headshot (boobshot?) of porn star Marilyn Chambers on the wall. Meanwhile, the tiki tunes ranged from exotica (Les Baxter) to surf (The Ventures) to Andy Williams “House of Bamboo.” Good stuff.

I was admittedly overwhelmed trying to socialize while browsing the menu of 100-plus cocktails, including swizzles, frozen drinks and several variations each of the Mai Tai, Planter’s Punch, Zombie and more. (The menu is now on their web site so you can study up beforehand.) There are original creations as well as classic tiki cocktails based on the recipes uncovered by Jeff “Beachbum” Berry, who heartily endorsed PKNY’s versions. Housemade coconut cream helps elevate poolside libations like the Lava Flow ($16), a strawberry banana pina colada our server said was a staff favorite. We also sampled the signature “PK” ($12) aka Painkiller ($14 with Pusser’s) made with Virgin Islands rum, coconut cream, fresh pineapple and orange juices, and nutmeg. It was good, of course, but it was gone in a couple sips because of the copious amount of crushed ice.

For round two I went for one of the Scorpion Bowls (available in three sizes: for one, two or four). The Pahoehoe ($16) was a tart, puckerface-inducing concoction of silver rum, passion fruit, lime and housemade grenadine.

It was recently rumored that PKNY may move in July to the East Village with a new name and perhaps a food menu, so now’s your chance to check out its current incarnation. Every night there’s the Pau Hana happy hour from 6 p.m.-9 p.m. with half a dozen $9 drinks and a $39 Trader Vic’s 1946 Scorpion Bowl. And on Tuesdays, DJs Jack Fetterman and Gina of the Jungle present “Primativa in Hi-Fi.”

UPDATE: PKNY closed in July 2013.

PKNY
49 Essex St.
New York, NY 10002

Modernism Week – Retro-a-Rama at M Modern

Posted by The Tiki Chick in Events and tagged with Art, M Modern, Modernism Week, Palm Springs, Retro, Shag, Tiki Art April 8, 2013

In conjunction with Palm Springs Modernism Week, M Modern Gallery presents a group art exhibition. Last year’s “The Contemporary Idol” had a tiki theme, while this year’s “Retro-a-rama” skewed more mid-century modern.

Some submissions, like “Episode 9” by Glenn Barr (above) and “One Eleven” by Chris Reccardi (first image), went for a futuristic style that I was digging. Other featured artists for this show included Tim Biskup, Lynne Naylor, Bosko and, my personal favorite, Shag.

I was also pleased to find two paper sculptures from Kevin Kidney and Jody Daily, who create awesome art and collectibles for Disney (recently the 50th anniversary of the Enchanted Tiki Room). It’s fitting that they would find inspiration in Tomorrowland and its Utopian vision of the future from a mid-century perspective. I loved the sweeping lines in “Goodyear ’67” — named after the company that sponsored the PeopleMover.

It took me a second to realize the setting for Shag’s painting “The Refill” was the Kaufmann House, a Palm Springs local landmark designed by Neutra we’d seen last year on the Modernism Week architecture bus tour.

The M Modern owners also operate Shag: The Store and have worked with Josh Agle for years, so they often have rare items you won’t find too many other places, like “Shag Map of the World.”

“Drawn by memory from the artist Shag, based upon his travels of Planet Earth,” it amusingly matches signature cocktails to their cities and countries…Mai Tai to the Bay Area (for Trader Vic’s), Blue Hawaiian for Hawaii and so on. Shag’s web site has a larger, detailed version.

It was originally made for the “Shag: Outbound with the In-Crowd” show last November at the Outré Galleries in Australia. The remaining framed prints are only available Down Under, but M Modern has an edition of 10 giclées on stretched canvas priced at $4,000 each. (If only I could stretch my pocketbook that far.)

Well, that’s a wrap for our “Palm Springs Weekend” — hopefully we’ll be able to come back next year for some more fun in the sun and mid-century modern merriment.

Palm Springs Modernism Week – “Welcome Aboard – The Pan Am Experience”

Posted by The Tiki Chick in Other Tiki Topics and tagged with Maori, Modernism Week, Palm Springs, Pan Am, The Saguaro, Tiki, Travel, Vintage March 29, 2013

The tour of the Royal Hawaiian Estates was the main draw for me for this year’s Palm Springs Modernism Week, but there were a few other interesting things we were able to check out during our quick trip.

I was glad there was an event that gave us an excuse to see the rainbow spectacle that is The Saguaro. One of the ballrooms at the hotel was hosting an exhibition entitled “Welcome Aboard –– The Pan Am Experience.”

These days it’s hard to imagine air travel as anything but a hassle, but Pan American World Airways aspired to make it exciting and glamorous, as emphasized by this photo of Marilyn Monroe climbing aboard one of their planes.

Pan American Airways started in 1927 as an airmail service from Key West to Cuba and was America’s largest international airline, reaching its zenith in the Jet Age of the 1950s and ‘60s. According to the exhibit’s information: “Pan Am introduced the Boeing 747 creating the favorite airline of the rich and famous and was renowned for its stylish stewardesses, first-class amenities, including the first sleeper seats, fine dining and Clipper cocktails.”

The airline ceased operations in 1991 when I was still pretty young, so I don’t remember any personal experiences with it. Aside from the short-lived TV show in 2012, I’m probably most familiar with Pan Am from those blue and white bags with the iconic logo. They’re still so covetable that reproductions of those retro styles are still sold today.

The exhibit was all from the personal collection of actor Phillip P. Keene (“The Closer,” “Major Crimes,”) who has been amassing Pan Am memorabilia for 20 years. A wide variety of items were on display, including travel posters, uniforms, wing pins, toys, books (even a cookbook) and ephemera like matchbooks.

I was particularly amused by these lighters shaped like the Pan Am Building. This New York skyscraper opened in 1963 and was the headquarters for the airline. It was sold in 1981 and is now known as the MetLife Building.

We spent quite a bit of time browsing through the binder full of vintage travel brochures. Some had wonderful, over-the-top poetic descriptions like: “From the mists of Time, from the illimitable blue vastness of the Pacific, came the Polynesians. Searching for new homes eastward beyond the wide ocean, guiding their frail craft by the glittering pinpricks in the heavens, they came at last to Hawaii.”

I loved the juxtaposition here of the tattooed Maori native having his picture taken by the buttoned-up tourists, who look like Don and Betty Draper on vacation in New Zealand. Another brochure tempted travelers with this text: “A thrilling excursion into the primitive past, the ancient ceremonies of the Maoris, their little villages with beautifully carved meeting houses, are easily within reach through the magic of the Flying Clipper.”

Meanwhile, this Bermuda brochure (false advertising, much?) looked like something we would have seen at the “Mid-Century Mermaids: A History” presentation by Vintage Roadside at least year’s Modernism Week.

The collector himself was on hand during our visit. He was guiding around a few former Pan Am flight attendants that I believe were Scandinavian. It must have been an interesting sort of trip down memory lane for them…