11.4.25 | Talking Tiki

Cool Cats, Cocktails, Tropical Fruit & Spam … That's Right, I'm Talking Tiki

Some of you may know we will be doing a Tiki Take-Over Week at Zunzun from November 11th through the 15th. 

What does that mean? 

It means we'll have our regular menu, but with a few special tiki-themed options to benefit the RARA Pet Pantry. We will be offering a prix fixe menu, specialty tiki cocktails, a rum tasting flight, and a coconut bowl filled with salt water taffy. All proceeds of these items (and any extra donations made) will go towards feeding our hungry fuzzy-wuzzy friends.

I have always grown up with animals and I can't imagine my life without them. But why tiki? Why tropical flavors, loud shirts and rum drinks? I blame it on my upbringing. I grew up on the top of mountain in the country on a hippie farmstead, but our house was nothing like our surroundings. Woven sake kegs, Paluan carved storyboards and posters of the merry monarch festival adorned our walls. 

My mom was born and raised in Honolulu and my father was born and raised in Salem, VA. When he was 18, he enlisted and got himself sent to Guam. My great grandfather warned him not to go off and marry some hula girl, but apparently my father isn't one to follow the rules.

After meeting, my parents bounced around Micronesia, Palau, Truuk, Yap, etc, etc, etc. After a few years in Hawaii, they came back stateside with a bouncing baby boy (me) and girl (my sister). We eventually found ourselves in the woods, on a farm, in the country surrounded by free-range chickens, stray cats, runaway hounds, and any other animal that walked or crawled. My friends all thought it was weird that we ate sushi and noodles and hot tea while they were eating hot dogs, Velveeta, and the sweetest of sweet teas.

I, like most, am a sum of my parts, Tiki and tiki food is also the sum of many parts. I love what tiki brings to the table: rum drinks, American-made spam with a Japanese sauce, a combo created in Hawaii. Tiki might skirt the line of culturally appropriative (not sure if that's a word). It usually includes items like spam, noodles, crab Rangoon, anything under the umbrella terms of “Asian, Polynesian, or Hawaiian.” If it includes pineapple it gets put in the blanket category of tiki. So while I find pride in one's culture important, it's not so important if it delivers me tasty food, crispy fried spam with “Polynesian” BBQ sauce or the combination of rum, pineapple, lime, and orgeat.

Everyone deserves a good Mai Tai. Everyone should treat themselves to a bastardized version of Filipino adobo beef (which actually, is in itself, a confluence of Spanish and Filipino culture). We all deserve good rum drinks, pineapple upside-down cake, and puppies and kitties with fat full fuzzy bellies.

So put on your loudest shirts, your grass skirts, throw your inhibitions to the wind and kick your flip flops up for an evening out.

—Matt