Tag Archives: Restaurants

The Tonga Lei Room at The Beachcomber Malibu

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

I already like The Beachcomber Cafe in Malibu on its own merits, but its crown jewel is The Tonga Lei Room, located at the end of the bar in the building next to the restaurant.

This little enclave of tiki fabulousness can be reserved for private parties of up to 10, but we’ve had the pleasure of dining there for lunch and on slow winter nights. (The full menu is offered.)

This Bamboo Ben (Frankie’s Tiki Room, Forbidden Island) project pays tribute to the Tonga Lei, a tiki restaurant and motel from the ’60s portrayed in that framed picture. (He even incorporated the signature font into the signage.)

When I met Bamboo Ben last week, he told me that if you look out the window pictured above, you can actually see where the old Tonga Lei used to be before it was turned into a branch of Don the Beachcomber. It’s now the Malibu Beach Inn.

Towards the bottom of this Maori tiki it reads: “No Push Button – Make Tiki Gods Angry.” So what happens when you push the button? I guess you’ll just have to go and find out!

The whole room is wired with a sound system so you can set the mood with exotica music, though you’ll most likely have to make a special request to the staff. (On one visit it took a lot of tinkering for them to get it to switch from the sports station!)

As if there wasn’t already enough to look at, the glass tabletop displays shells and ephemera like postcards and swizzle sticks from various tiki spots and Hawaiian landmarks.

I love this place so much that we came here for my birthday lunch, and one of the new things I tried was The Bootlegger made with banana rum, orange and pineapple juices ($9). I’m not a banana fan so it wasn’t my favorite, what I really wanted was the accompanying mug, which is designed to look like a rum running crate. Crystal Cove, where the other Beachcomber Cafe can be found, has historical ties to that era. (For more, see my post on The Bootlegger Bar.)

Editor’s Note: Unfortunately the Beachcomber Cafe in Malibu, and therefore the Tonga Lei Room, closed at the end of 2011. The Beachcomber Cafe in Crystal Cove (Orange County) remains open.

The Beachcomber Cafe – Malibu Pier, CA

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

It takes a lengthy, winding drive from The Valley to get to The Beachcomber in Malibu, but the trek is definitely worth it for me. It’s from the same owners as the nostalgic (but sorta cheesy) Ruby’s Diner chain—in fact there’s a branch at the opposite end of the Malibu Pier—but the food and atmosphere here is several notches better.

With the wooden interior, peaked ceiling and green and copper details back by the kitchen, the dining room has a similar old-school feel to its sister restaurant in Orange County, but on a much larger scale.

The Tonga Lei for two ($16) is the best cocktail I’ve tried on their menu so far. It’s apparently made with three kinds of rum, mango, orange and pineapple juices, but it’s the bit of bubbles from the champagne that makes it for me. This drink is normally served in a Tiki Farm-made bowl customized for these locations (you can spot them in my Bootlegger Bar photos).

The Beachcomber has a bit of a hedonistic history, which is underscored by the fun presentation of the lobster, tomato and mango martini ($14). I love the olive garnish! (And the kicky guacamole at the bottom of the glass.)

The wild mushroom and truffle macaroni and cheese ($17) and the baked blue cheese and tomato soup are my favorite things to order here. It’s a big bowlful of creamy, ‘shroomy goodness!

On one of our last visits we mixed it up and got the grilled chicken with “pineapple carpaccio” (fancy way of saying thinly sliced pineapple), yuzu sauce, rice and veggies ($18). Not bad but I’ll be sticking with my mac!

Mr. Hockey (I forgot that Mr. Baseball requested a name change after the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup) usually has the filet mignon ($29) with grilled veggies and potatoes.

The “Gimme S’mores”(Some more of what?…You’re killing me, Smalls!) dessert ($8) is yet another martini glass filled with vanilla ice cream, hot fudge, toasted marshmallow and graham crackers. But even better is the…

Donut hole bread pudding! It’s topped with vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce and it’s a study in decadence. If you’re one of those people that criticizes desserts for being too sweet then this is not for you. (All the more for me!)

Yep, the food is good and the view is great (especially from their swank outdoor patio), but the best (and truly tiki) part about The Beachcomber is The Tonga Lei room!

The Beachcomber at Malibu Pier
23000 Pacific Coast Highway
Malibu, CA 90265
310-456-9800

The Beachcomber Cafe on Urbanspoon

Editor’s Note: Unfortunately the Beachcomber Cafe in Malibu, and therefore the Tonga Lei Room, closed at the end of 2011. The Beachcomber Cafe in Crystal Cove (Orange County) remains open.

Tonga Room – San Francisco, CA

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

When we first started planning our trip to San Francisco, I knew that we had to hit up the Tonga Room (not to be confused with the Tonga Hut down in NoHo), since it’s considered to be high on the list of endangered tiki establishments.

Unfortunately, the Fairmont folks have gotten the idea in their heads that they can make more money by turning the land where the Tonga Room is into condos. (Even more unfortunate is the fact that this is a familiar story. I’m looking at you, Beverly Hilton!) There’s an effort to Save the Tonga Room, but it’s going to be difficult to stop the developers.

The Tonga Room feels more like an attraction at Disneyland than a restaurant: diners are seated in an enormous A-frame with outrigger canoes or beneath thatched huts with a simulated night sky above. Not to mention the “rain storm” that occurs every 20 minutes or so, with thunder sounds and lightning and water falling into the lagoon (yep, there is actually a pool inside the restaurant).

The space started out in the 1920s as the swimming pool underneath the lobby of the Fairmont San Francisco, and then in 1945 it was transformed into this nautical-themed restaurant by Mel Melvin, a set designer for MGM. He kept the water feature relevant by ingeniously turning it into an aquatic arena for live music.

And that’s still done to this day! A cover band performs on a boat-slash-stage that they float out to the middle of the lagoon. As expected, their set was kind of cheesy, but their Jackson 5 renditions were quite the crowd-pleasers.

However, the Tonga Room wasn’t truly tiki-fied until it was remodeled in the ’60s with décor from Oceanic Arts (you might know them from another little project they were a part of…The Enchanted Tiki Room).

Ever since the word got out about a year ago about the seemingly imminent closure, there seems to have been a resurgence of interest in the old gal. There was a $7 music cover charge on the Friday night we went, but the place was still packed, with most people crowded into the bar area.

Not only was the dance floor built to look like the deck of a ship—complete with sails and netting, nautical lanterns and a tiki masthead—it was actually built from a ship. According to their history page, it’s made with parts from the S.S. Forester, an old schooner that made trips from San Francisco to the South Sea Islands.

The setting and decor are unquestionably awesome, but the food is widely considered to be bad. Most folks advise to go during happy hour, but we weren’t able to be so choosy with our time of visit so we took our chances with dinner and I actually was pleasantly surprised.

I ordered a mai tai, of course, but I wasn’t all that hungry so I got the mussels with Portuguese sausage, Maui onions and shoestring potatoes. The broth was made with Kona Longboard lager and it was so savory that I had to sop it up with the bread.

I also nabbed the miso eggplant from Mr. Baseball’s plate of flatiron steak, which was doused in a sort of sweet sauce that we enjoyed but not might be to everyone’s tastes. It will be such a shame if the hotel’s plans come to fruition because the Tonga Room is just on another level, definitely one of the top tiki spots I’ve been to thus far.

The Tonga Room & Hurricane Bar
The Fairmont San Francisco
950 Mason St.
San Francisco, CA 94108
415-772-5278

Tonga Room on Urbanspoon