A letter to Tiki Tom's

Dear Tiki Tom's:

Hey there . . .

My wife and I have been to Tiki Tom's in Oakland three or four times before, and always enjoyed the place. Great location, good drinks, nice folks, good music, OK food, reasonably priced. We've been telling our friends about it.

But last night was the worst restaurant experience we've had in years. We ordered the ribeye, wife medium rare, myself medium. What we both got was nasty mealy shoe leather, "smothered" with burnt onion strings. Weird little paper thin leathery cut of pounded meat cooked until inedible. Cold veggies. And the waitress didn't seem to care at all when my wife brought it to her attention, just sorta shrugged.

The drinks were off too. My wife's first drink had a weird chemical flavor, so she switched to a cosmo, which was also terrible. How can you mess up a cosmo? Was the juice off? My navy grog was just fine, except that it was almost all ice, hardly any liquid. I was powerfully thirsty, had three drinks, felt like I got maybe one drink worth of rum.

And the band was pretty lame too, for that matter. I guess we've been lucky in the past, the Hawaiian band we've seen there before was pretty good. But the "Polynesian" band last night was doing the KOIT Lite Rock best of, bad Michael Buble and Eric Clapton covers. Yech. They were . . .OK, I guess. OK for a wedding at the Elks club, maybe. Musicianship was fine, in an Elks club wedding sorta way. But pretty lame for Friday night at a tiki bar on the water.

Sorry we missed the dancers. I'm glad you are supporting Polynesian dance, that's great.

We don't expect a Michelin 3 star experience. But for the $100+ last night cost us, we do expect a decent steak and a few good cocktails. Let us know if you ever get a kitchen crew that can cook, and when the bartender who knew how to pour a decent drink returns from vacation, and maybe we'll be back.

Thanks,

Roger Coryell