Those who have frequented this blog since its start know my fondness for exotica music and tiki culture in general. Maybe it’s because of the restless bones I was born with, or something in my genetic makeup, but I love the music and the feeling of the South Seas and the tropics, and the culture that grew up around it back in the ’40s and ’50s. There are few pleasures better than nursing a boat drink in surroundings that take you away to another place and time, allowing fantasy to take over if only for an hour or two.

So it’s with great sadness that I have to announce the closure of two very cool places in nearby Scottsdale that provided wonderful venues for tiki culture, food, and drink – the wonderful Trader Vic’s at the Hotel Valley Ho, and the Drift Lounge. While we never got the chance to check out the Drift, I’m told it was a very cool place. But I find it hard to believe it could have been any cooler than Trader Vic’s, which was the place to go – not just for great tropical drinks and good food, but surroundings that took you away on vacation the moment you stepped inside their doors.

I know what you folks back home in New England are thinking: why not just check out some local Chinese restaurants to see if there’s anything like the Kowloon up on Route 1 in Saugus. You don’t understand – that’s just not how they do Chinese here in the Valley of the Sun. That unique mix of tiki culture and food that you find in New England for some reason never really took hold here; maybe it’s because we live in a sun culture where, if you want to see palm trees and swimming pools, just hang around your back yard or apartment complex – most, after all, have both.

Fortunately, there appears to be one place remaining in Phoenix worth checking out – Hula’s Modern Tiki, which we hope to check out this weekend. Judging from their website, I’m not hopeful: it looks like any other trendy place for young people to hang out, barely distinguishable from dozens of other restaurants you see in Phoenix and Scottsdale. But in this case, beggars can’t be choosers.