Orange County Register

 ”In the tiki, tiki, tiki, tiki, tiki book/there’s a lot to read and learn and see, go take a look!”

Ah, right. Sorry about that. Somewhere in Disneyland the animatronic parrots are screeching in horror. But the point that Pedro wanted to make is this — you want to track down the best tiki bars, drinks, decor and more in the land? You need a guide, and James Teitelbaum is happy to oblige.

“Tiki Road Trip: a Guide to Tiki Culture in North America” (Santa Monica Press, $16.95) is just out in an updated second edition and for tiki-philes its essential.

It’s got plenty of sites in Southern California, including in Orange County such well-known spots as the Enchanted Tiki Room at Disneyland and Sam’s Seafood in Huntington Beach (closed last year, now slated to reopen) to places that have just a bit of the tiki touch — the Bagel Shack in San Clemente with a large carved tiki out front — or places such as Christian’s Hut in Newport Beach which are long gone tiki.

We rang up Teitelbaum to chat about the book and all things tiki. For more, read on after the jump….

Q: Why update the book just a few years after the first edition?

A: A lot has changed in the past four years. A lot of things that were listed as opened in the old book have closed. And of course a lot of new places have opened, and I definitely want to make sure that the people who are trying to create a tiki revival get some credit.

Q: What places should someone like me, living here in Southern California, be sure to check out?

A: You guys are living in a good place for that kind of thing, because obviously Southern California is ground zero for all things tiki. It got its start there, when Don the Beachcomber opened in Hollywood — that was the beginning.

“Some stuff that’s still there, in los angeles there’s the Tiki Ti, which is a a tiny little tiki bar which probably makes the best drinks for a couple of hundred miles. Of course down in San Diego you’ve got the Bali Hai, which is sort of their classic holdout.

Q: Why’d tiki come back in the ’90s get so popular again?

A: I think because anything that was cool in the ’40s and ’50s came back in the ’90s. The ’50s have really come back every decade. In the ’70s you had the ’Happy Days’ version, and in the ’80s, you had the B-52s version, and in the ’90s, you had the lounge version of the ’50s.

But tiki was meant as an escape from your daily grind. A way to take some of the stress of your daily life and transport yourself into a fantasy land. It was sort of Disney for grownups, or Disney with booze and sex, or at least the implication of sex with fertility symbols and hula girls.

Q: And it’s still growing?

A: Unfortunately things are a bit scary in the world right now with Iraq and all the talk of global warming and terrorism. And I think that more than ever people just sort of want to go into this little paradise and hang up their little troubles at the door for a few hours.

Q: Is there tiki everywhere?

A: There were two states where I absolutely couldn’t find anything — Delaware and South Dakota. I even found stuff in Alaska.

Q: Your top three tiki places in the country?

A: The three must-sees I’m going to say are the Mai Kai in Ft. Lauderdale, the Hala Kahiki in River Grove, Ill., and I would say Tiki Ti, just for drink quality.

– Pedro

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