Friday: Nostalgia & Tropical Bistro Madness
As planned, we hit up Tropical Bistro Friday night. It definitely lived up to the hype -- the menu is almost a clone of the old Kahiki menu (the drink menu is the exact same picture as the old Kahiki drink menu), the atmosphere tries -- it's kind of heavy on the Chinese Buffet-style decorations, with the golden dragons, pagodas and the like, but it's also got some tiki heads, polynesian lamps, and when we were there Friday night they had a ukulele player from Hawaii playing some awesome Aloha-jams.Drinks-wise, they have a lot of great choices, including all the Kahiki standards, in their distinctive mugs (which you don't get to keep any longer, unfortunately)... I had a Headhunter, which is rum and various tropical juices. Laurie had a Smoking Eruption in all it's dry-ice glory. Amy was tempted by the Vicious Virgin, but asked what was in it, and it was NOT virgin at all... Even for a non-drinker such as myself, the drink selection was a lot of fun.
Food-wise, the menu is split into "From the East", "From the West", and "From the Islands" just like the old Kahiki menu. Standards such as the Royal Pu Pu platter, Beef/Chicken Skewers, the Tahitian Mermaid (crab & cream cheese between two steaks - excellent), and such are still there, augmented with new choices like lettuce wraps and sushi. I had the beef teriyaki skewer, which was filet mignon cooked pefectly, on a skewer with a whole onion, some pineapple and some tomato, served with rice and a teriyaki dipping sauce. The whole thing is on a big metal skewer and finished off with an open flame tableside by the server. Lots of fun, and very tasty. Amy had the Sesame Chicken, which was good, Laurie spoke highly of her Tropical Chicken (served in a pineapple shell), and Gary had the aforementioned and phenomenal Tahitian Mermaid.
For dessert, pictured above, we had to get the Big Fat Mamasan, a Kahiki classic - a huge pile of vanilla and chocolate ice cream, with chocolate sauce and various fruits (including, or so Amy has told us, coochie fruit). How can you not enjoy a flaming, smoking mountain of ice cream?
So yeah, we had lots of fun, and I highly recommend the place to any good food lover, but especially to fans of the old Kahiki food and service. As a bonus they do daily lunch buffets (other than Saturday) and a brunch buffet on Sundays! For another take (and a horrible picture of me), see Laurie's review here.
Saturday: Evie Goes to Cincy
[pictures are here]
Me, Amy & Evie headed down to Cincy to visit with the Voellmecke clan. En route, as always, was a required stop at Sonic for a cherry limeade. Amy made a potty run at the La Rosa's next door and out of guilt bought a lifetime supply of LaRosa's pizza sauce in the industrial size "feed the whole famdamily" bag. We met up with some of Amy's family on her Mom's side briefly, then spent the rest of the day in the Voellmecke jungle. Saw pretty much all of them in the area, as well as the Chicago contingent. On the way home we hit-up Jungle Jim's... WOW. That's a helluva grocery store. Bought lots of fun stuff including:
- Jolt Cola
- Virgin Cola
- HP Sauce for Gary
- Gulab Jamun
- Palak Paneer
- Brown Bread in a can
- some Vegemite!
- Two kinds of etouffe mix
- various candies
- and some other stuff I'm not recalling at the moment...
[pictures are here]
Sunday we hit Dayton with Gary in tow for Alaina's first birthday party. Irene & Jeremy put on one heck of an awesome party. Some awesome grilled kebobs, chocolate-covered strawberries, an awesome strawberry snake cake, cornhole, and a huge inflatable jumping room. Plus the birthday girl herself, who is a heck of a lot of fun (I can't believe Evie will be up and around and doing those things in less than 10 months!) And on top of all the other fun and comraderie, we got to meet their new pug puppy, PIRATE! Check out this mug:
Only 9 weeks old and already in prison! A true pirate indeed!
