A 4 star meal at a fun place.
	Reviewed By mikehamm	Sep 07, 2008

Very kitchy place but actually the tables are nicely dressed with cloth napkins. That's a big plus for me as I don't care for paper ones. We didn't order any mixed drinks, I know huh!, just a Pinot Grigio for my wife and I had a dark Stout beer. We started with the chicken and lettuce wraps. A "some assembly required" appetizer in that a half head of iceberg lettuce comes on a plate and the ground chicken, some bean sprouts, crushed peanuts and sambal oleck comes on another plate. You peel off a leaf of lettuce and take some of the other goodies and put them in the lettuce. Very tasty chicken and the sambal had plenty of kick.
My wife had a Thai beef salad. Lots of assorted greens, cucumbers, some marinated and cooked shredded beef with a Yuzu mint vinagrette. Seemed like it needed a crunchy carb. Maybe a rice noodle or something like that. Otherwise, very tasty.
I had the New York Steak and frites. Wagyu Kobe beef steak and sweet potato fries. The fries had a mildly spicy seasoning on them. The steak was simply seasoned only with salt. Perfect. I ordered it cooked "as rare as the chef will cook it" and it came out perfect. Just a nice crust on the outside and just warm in the middle. Like carpaccio with a crust. It came on a bed of steamed spinach. There was a pesto sauce for the steak and some sweet onion ketchup for the fries. The pesto went begging as I like my steak unadorned. It was table knife tender, full of flavor and needed no help. The ketchup was very tasty and a good contrast to the fries.

Sort of an odd thing: I went in expecting to hear "Island" music and the music was far from that. More like techno, which is fine, but not what I expected for a place with Tiki in the name and that kind of decor in the place. There are televisions around the restaurant playing surfing movies all the time also.

I should mention the service. It was great! Water glasses were kept full and our waiter got our orders right and didn't get them mixed up at the table.