Tag Archives: Restaurants

Kowloon Restaurant – Saugus, MA (near Boston)

Posted by The Tiki Chick in Bar & Restaurant Reviews and tagged with , , , , ,

Kowloon in Saugus, Massachusetts, is both a restaurant and roadside attraction. Its giant A-frame, pagodas and Ku tiki entice hungry motorists from route 1 north of Boston, and its fellow conspicuous neighbors include the Leaning Tower of Pizza and the huge neon cactus sign of the Hilltop Steak House.

The Wong family started Kowloon as a small Chinese restaurant in the 1950s, and later expanded it into this behemoth that seats up to 1,200 people (twice as many as Bob Chinn’s Crab House). Patriarch William Wong was inspired to give it a Polynesian-esque feel after traveling to Hawaii during the mid-century craze for the South Seas.

The restaurant is divided up into various themed rooms, like the Thai Grille with a beachscape mural and the Tiki Lagoon with thatched huts against the walls and a not-very-tiki-looking statue looking over the central fountain.

There seemed to be a different hostess for each dining room, and they can be quite assertive about seating, so you might want to already have an idea where you want to eat. I insisted upon the Volcano Bay Room. I loved the lifeboats hanging overhead, ship’s rigging, nautical lanterns, and especially the illusion of the erupting volcano.

The drinks aren’t of the highest caliber compared to some of the best tiki bars, but I award bonus points for customized glassware. They had several cocktails “for two” that arrive in a souvenir glass and I chose the Mai Tai ($16.95). It should go without saying that this isn’t a purist recipe.

Kowloon has a very extensive menu offering Cantonese, Szechuan and Thai food, plus sushi. Each cuisine is prepared in its own kitchen. One of their signatures is the Saugus Wings ($8.75), which are covered in a sweet, garlicky sauce that’s pretty addictive. For appetizers we also ordered the boneless pork spareribs ($8.50) and crab rangoon ($6.25), but these were the favorite.

The Flaming Ambrosia ($14.95) is another famous dish. This retro-style delicacy consists of half of a pineapple filled with sweet and sour chicken (or shrimp) and set on fire!

We rounded out our feast with still more sweet and sour chicken ($9.50, which we would have skipped if I’d realized it was basically the same as the Flaming Ambrosia), General Gau chicken ($11.75, fried chicken with spicy ginger sauce), pork lo mein ($8.75), and beef fried rice ($7.75).

We also ordered the kung pao chicken ($10.95) and beef and mushroom chow yoke ($12.25); the latter I would definitely get again. The portions were quite large and between seven (and a half) of us we still had leftovers for days, though there wasn’t any General Gau chicken left so that must have been pretty decent too.

A display case near the entrance had a bunch of souvenir mugs for sale, both generic ones and signature mugs produced by Tiki Farm. I picked up these first two here — the fogcutter and the mug recreating the tiki found on their vintage mugs. The stock was running pretty low though at the time, so I hope they’ve gotten some more.

Tiki spots are few and far between in Massachusetts — even more so now with the recent closing of Pago-Pago in Milford — and this is one of the best and most beloved. Nowadays, you can get a carefully made tiki-inspired drink at bars like Drink in Boston, but I think you have to give old-school places like the Kowloon their due.

Kowloon
948 Broadway
Saugus, MA 01906
781-233-0077

Trader Vic’s Los Angeles – L.A. Live Downtown

Posted by The Tiki Chick in Bar & Restaurant Reviews and tagged with , , , ,

While many major cities lack even one Trader Vic’s, Los Angeles is lucky enough to have two! (Sort of. The Beverly Hills “lounge” is a story for another time.) This is one of the newer locations of this historic tiki chain—it opened in 2009 in the LA LIVE complex downtown.

Being so close to Staples Center, the bar is the perfect spot for a postgame drink—win or lose. Suffering Bastards are particularly popular when it’s the latter. Happy hour is Monday through Friday from 3 p.m.-6 p.m., offering discounted appetizers and a handful of $6 cocktails (Mai Tai, Bahia, Navy Grog, etc.).

The dining room does an elegant take on tiki decor, with high, angled ceilings, lots of bamboo, lanterns, green booths, green Chinese tiles and beautiful tapa cloth covering some of the walls. It’s a lovely oasis amid all the glass and steel of downtown.

I always try the signature drink for each location, here it’s the Big Kahuna ($12) made with light rum, undisclosed fruit juices, passionfruit, grenadine and brandy. Even better, you can order it in a Tiki Farm mug specially designed for Trader Vic’s LA. We also opted for the Peach Tree Punch ($10), a sweet slushie-like drink with light rum, peach, orange and coconut

It’s widely assumed that the food at tiki spots usually doesn’t compare to the quality of the drinks, but Trader Vic’s has a reputation for serving pretty good grub. The meal starts off in a unique way, with bread and peanut butter!

The Bongo Bongo soup ($8) is a classic Trader Vic’s dish, and according to Jeff Berry’s Taboo Table, this velouté of oysters and spinach was inspired by a special type of clam the Maori ate in New Zealand. It kind of looks like a swamp and it has a very distinct flavor that’s not for everyone, but I liked it.

Mr. Baseball is a bit of a pyromaniac so he loved that the Beef Cho Cho ($11) was served with a mini hibachi to finish cooking the seared steak with soy sake sauce.

And what could be a better follow-up to meat than…more meat? He thought the wasabi crusted filet mignon ($32) was well-prepared but he wasn’t so crazy about the smoked Asian ratatouille. It looks like they’ve added Hawaiian spiced fries to this item since we dined there awhile back.

I was really blown away by the chai tea duck with yam-scallion puree, long beans and sherry ginger reduction ($24). It was so tender and flavorful. Overall we had a wonderful meal and our server couldn’t have been nicer.

Trader Vic’s has also teamed up with the Regal Cinemas at LA LIVE to offer a dinner and a movie special that includes a three-course meal and movie ticket for $30 per person, just in case you needed yet another reason to get down there.

Trader Vic's on Urbanspoon

UPDATE: Sadly, Trader Vic’s LA closed March 18, 2014.

Chef Shangri-La – North Riverside, IL

Posted by The Tiki Chick in Bar & Restaurant Reviews and tagged with , , , ,

A few months ago, Mr. Baseball and I had the pleasure of visiting Chef Shangri-La, a Chinese restaurant in North Riverside in the western suburbs of Chicago. It was opened in 1976 by Paul Fong, a chef from a restaurant called Shangri-La (hence the name) who had also worked at the original Don the Beachcomber and Mai-Kai before that.

Mr. Baseball wanted to know how a Chinese restaurant could be tiki, so I explained that when Donn Beach opened his first Polynesian-themed restaurant in the 1930s, his chef was Chinese. Cantonese cuisine seemed “exotic” enough for the time and it became popular with tiki spots. Likewise, Chinese restaurants around the country embraced the trend by adding tropical drinks to their menus.

The decor is kind of eclectic, with Chinese touches mingling with Christmas lights and tiki masks, but most impressive are the Orchids of Hawaii lanterns and large carved Witco tikis. According to Tiki Modern, the restaurant acquired the Witco pieces not long before the iconic furniture company shut down. (This was after the mid-century heyday of tiki, after all.)

It just happened to be the third Saturday of the month, when the restaurant hosts an event called “An Evening in Shangri-La” with live bands and a free tiki-themed raffle. We were lucky enough to win a neat Exotica 2003 poster (now up in my tiki room) and we thoroughly enjoyed the sounds of The Western Casuals, especially their cover of “Folsom Prison Blues.”

I love crab rangoon, but Mr. Baseball doesn’t like seafood so we started off with an order of potstickers ($5.50). These suckers were huge!

And it was a cold November night (I know, I’m trying to catch up) so Mr. Baseball warmed up with a bowl of wontwon soup ($5.25).

I was quite pleased when the “Volcano Beef” ($13.95) arrived at our table and it was ON FIRE. It wasn’t as pyrotechnic as the Flaming Ambrosia at Kowloon in Boston, but still a nice touch.

Fortune cookies and almond cookies come with the bill. I don’t think either of our fortunes were very exciting since I didn’t think to hold on to them. (As if I wouldn’t have lost them by the time I finally got to posting this.)

What also makes Chef Shangri-La stand out is that they serve their own original cocktails in addition to classic tiki drinks like the Fogcutter, Navy Grog, Scorpion and Mai Tai. For the first round, I went for their signature Dr. Fong (seen in the pic at the beginning of the post) but I preferred the Port of Love. After dinner, we went to the bustling bar area where there’s a few booths and a circular bar capped off with a thatched roof.

I thought the drinks were pretty good for the price ($6.50 for small, $9.50 for large) and we had a ton of leftover food. It’s quite a trek from the north ‘burbs, but I’m looking forward to getting back to Chef Shangri-La again when I have the chance.

Chef Shangri-La
7930 W. 26th St.
North Riverside, IL 60546
708-442-7080

Chef Shangri-La on Urbanspoon