Showing posts with label tiki. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tiki. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 21, 2025

Tiki-Ti


It's almost two weeks since we went to Tiki-Ti, so yeah, that sounds about right to blog about it.  I don't start work until later today - I close up things tonight - so I may as well take a little time to FINALLY get a blog post written.  Sad, Peter, very sad.

Enough of that, though.  Let's dive in.

Disneyland was Marie's birthday present, but the next day, when we were back in town, was her actual birthday.  Very early that evening we found ourselves in the Silverlake neighbourhood of Los Angeles, having dinner at Bacari.  We did not want empty stomachs for tiki night.  Shockingly, I did not take photos of the food - we shared everything, and I do not like making others wait for food that we are sharing.  It was great food, though.  We also primed our pumps, so to speak, with a drink with dinner.  A Last Word for me, something familiar to enjoy. 


It was a nice evening, mildly cool.  We sat out in an outside area - covered but open air.  And all of us looked great in Hawaiian prints of one sort or another.




Yes, Hawaiian prints.  This just after I post about Disney and comment on all the people there in their Disney gear.  And then here we are, tiki drag to go to a tiki bar.  So, yeah, I'm eating my own words as I sip my decaf here.  But come on, we looked great!  And, it turned out, we weren't the only ones to show up like that.

Tiki-Ti is an institution.  


Owned by one family for decades.  It's a small place, a hole-in-the-wall kind of place.  Not many seats, crowded,

and a queue at times to get in.  In fact, we had to wait perhaps ten minutes despite being there early in the evening,


beating out a bachelorette party of sorts for a place in line.  It was hardly hardship having to wait, though, and we were soon inside, standing behind the row of patrons seated at the bar before Marie seized on a table just vacated.  The one bartender was a little gruff, kind of a seen-it-all kind of guy. 

We had a round of drinks.

Honestly?  My drinks were fine.  I had the Ray's Mistake first. 


I then tried the Chief Lapu Lapu. 

And if you had poured them into identical glasses, I might not have know they were different drinks.  Fruity rum drinks, both of them.  Absolutely no complaints!  Each of us had two rounds save for Van,

and Marie

and Conrad

had very different drinks from one round to the next.  We admired the setting,


gabbed happily, then headed home, making space for others.

I discovered in Hawaii that Marie likes amari, and so when we got home, I got her to taste a few with me to wind down the evening. 


That was kind of fun, and vindication.  You see, Van had had the Rucolino on his first night on Ischia without knowing what it was.  It was warm and perhaps a bit cooked from being stored on a high shelf in the restaurant.  He swears he hates it.  That night with Marie, though, it was her favourite.  Bless the birthday girl.

Off to bed, and in the morning, she flew home.  I feel certain, though, that her short visit was a great success. 

Thursday, August 07, 2025

Monday in Vancouver


We had one full day in Vancouver to enjoy with Courtney and Robert.  Both of them had been to the city before, but Robert had never really seen it outside of the confines of a conference center or perhaps, IIRC, UBC.  We didn't have a car, but the weather was fine for being on foot, and we each had a transit card to use.  That made things easy.  A day lay ahead with moderate adventure to enjoy.

But I did get time alone as usual in the morning, arising before everyone else and heading out for a walk.  Passing through the northern edge of downtown to Coal Harbour where I watched the last moments of a Disney cruise ship coming in to dock, then headed past various art pieces and seaplanes, getting my steps in.  Nice, quiet time to myself, and I appreciated such a glorious morning for it.  Vancouver in the summer sunshine is exquisite.  So, a photodump of scenes from that walk, and then on with the rest of the day....












Our first plan for the day:  walk a nice mile to False Creek and hop a ferry



(well, an Aquabus)

and cross over to Granville Island.  Lunch (with margarita) at Alimentaria Mexicana,

and a mission to find postcards for Courtney and Nanaimo bars and butter tarts for Robert.  We successfully did all of those and more, poking around in a few stores and galleries on the Island, including stopping in to shop from and say hello to Hilary Morris, and then partaking of a spirits tasting at Liberty Distillery. 

I liked a couple of the gins enough that I bought a small bottle of one to bring home.  Robert was less enthused about the brown spirits, but he enjoyed doing a tasting.

Eventually we wandered past the marina


and under the bridge

and off-island so that Conrad could show them the Waterfall Building.  We poked in a gallery nearby, then caught a bus back to the hotel so that we could all get a naptime in before our evening plans began.

I should add that all of us, save Van, popped over to the Club for a drink late afternoon.  It was a boozy Monday, as you'll see!  But neither Courtney nor Robert had been to the Club, and I thought it would be nice to take them there. 

That Monday night, friends, it was a long-awaited return to The Shameful Tiki Room


With my sister, Chris, and Allister in tow, we had every intention of getting the Volcano Bowl.  And friends, we did! 


And then we each got our own drinks.  The Rum Barrel

and then the Three Dots and a Dash for me. 

We grazed through the various shared plates on their menu and had a really terrific time together.  Sated, it was outside


to wait for the bus - all of us sharing the same route at least at first




- and back to the hotel.  Courtney and Robert were due to leave the next afternoon, but I think we managed to have some fun in Vancouver with them.