A very spur of the moment decision got us to London for our tiki bar tour (we also managed to squeeze in a
few 50s diners).
Trailer Happiness was holding the Notting Hill Rum
Club and this months “Why Trailer Loves Navy Rum” was excuse enough for us to
book our train tickets.
Early train on Sunday morning got us to London around 11am.
We jumped out straight into Ed’s Easy Diner in Euston for our morning pancakes
and milkshakes.
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| First pancakes of the weekend! Yum! |
This place was ace. Enormous milkshakes followed by
tasty pancakes drenched in maple syrup. Yum! The décor was spot on, with the
cute speakers on every wall, rock’n’roll on the jukebox, red and white 50s
booths and a laid back atmosphere. We’d only been in London for 5 minutes. This was a good start.
After filling our bellies we got on the underground and made way to our Hotel - Pembridge Palace. We found this place on Late Rooms the night before we came down. The
room was really tiny but perfect for us as we just needed a place to drop our
stuff and crash at night after drinking copious amounts of rum. Really cosy and
warm, overlooking a lovely park and, most importantly, within walking distance
of the Trailer Happiness!
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| Lovely view from our hotel room |
Having dropped off our bags we ran straight out
and began exploring Portobello. After a couple of hours we decided it was time
to move on to our next destination, across town, Fatboy’s Diner.
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| Fatboy's Diner - original import from America |
Martin had found this place online. An original 50s
diner, imported from America, with all original features. It looked incredible
from the outside and I couldn’t wait to go in. Unfortunately the food didn’t
live up to our expectations. It seems such a shame that someone’s gone through
all the trouble of bringing it over, dumped it in a really random place, in the
middle of nowhere and now just serve up poor quality food. I was happy we went
and checked it out but wouldn’t go again.
From Fatboy’s in East India to Clapham Junction for our first Tiki Bar of the Tour – Sugar Cane -
this place did not disappoint in terms of decoration. Enormous carvings
surrounding the entrance, lead us to a dimly lit tropical haven. As we walked
in there were tiki huts to our left, amazing wicker furniture to our right, a
bamboo bar and a cave room. I ordered a Zombie
and a Rum Punch and ran to the cave.
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| Big tiki carving at the entrance of Sugar Cane |
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| Hanging out in the tiki cave! |
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| Cool wicker furniture |
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| Amazing tiki table. Want! |
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| Tiki Huts |
The cocktails were not fantastic, pretty standard. We
didn’t have time to try many cocktails but the ones we did have were pretty
average. The price was quite reasonable and these were the cheapest drinks we
had all weekend. Sugar Cane: great décor, average cocktails. 7/10
On to Trader Vic’s, the home of the original Mai Tai,
located in the basement at the Hilton Hotel.
This place definitely had the wow factor as soon as
we stepped in. It lived up to our expectations. The decoration was incredible
and the tiki mugs on display and for sale made me want to buy them all!
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Martin wanting to buy all the tiki mugs
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The decoration was much more traditional tiki
Polynesian style than Sugar Cane.
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Amazing tiki decoration
|
The cocktails were delicious, more expensive than
Sugar Cane but you can taste the difference.
Trader Vics also do food which is a great concept and
helps to soak up some of the cocktails. We were feeling a bit peckish so
ordered some tiger prawns covered in lime and coconut. They were delicious.
I’ve already booked a table for our next visit to have a three course meal. Can’t
wait to sample the full menu!
Tried to purchase one of the ceramic Trader Vic’s coconut
mugs but unfortunalely, because they only had seven left they decided they
couldn’t sell so gave us this random Trader Vic’s sexy mug! We also got a free
“Tiki Minaj” which came with my Menehune cocktail. We ended up with a nice haul
of souvenirs.
We forced ourselves to wake up early the next day,
despite the amount of rum still in our system so we could go get breakfast and
explore Soho.
First stop was The Diner, where we had blueberry
pancakes and a coffee. The décor was really cool and the food was scrumptious.
We then explored Soho and did some shopping. Went in Choccywoccydoodah and bought some
chocolate. Martin tried to buy a ring from The Great Frog but unfortunately it
was too small and there was not enough time to get it fitted. There’s always
next time!
We also paid a visit to Rock’n’Roll MotherKutter
shop. Mr. Ducktail was in but not cutting hair as it was his day off. Really
happy we got to meet him. He’s such a nice guy and he let us take a look around
and a couple of pictures of his awesome shelves. I bought a Mr. Ducktail
t-shirt. Martin’s planning to get his hair cut next time we go down.
Sticking with the tiki theme, we decided to have
lunch at Kua Aina in Soho. This place was amazing. They had Hawaiian beers,
delicious burgers with avocado and the most delicious sweet potato fries I’ve
ever had. All the staff wore Hawaiian shirts and the guy who served us was
amused that Martin was wearing one too.
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Super tasty avocado burger
|
In the afternoon we did all the tourist shenanigans:
Big Ben, London Eye, Trafalgar Square, etc. You get the idea.
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| Trafalgar Square |
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| London Bus |
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| Trafalgar Square |
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| Big Ben |
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| Penguin |
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| Phone box |
On to Kanaloa, biggest tiki carvings and best
decoration I have ever seen. Drinks were great and actually came in tiki mugs
which you don’t see so often. Most expensive menu so far but great decoration
and great drinks.
They also do food which we’d like to try next time. We only
had a couple of drinks as we didn’t have much time because of the rum club
after but it’s definitely worth a visit. Kanaloa – Great drinks, amazing décor,
I don’t think it could be more tiki - 9/10
The Notting Hill Rum Club at Trailer Happiness was
then main reason for our impromptu trip to London.
The topic was Navy Rums, and included a very
informative historic talk with many interesting facts and stories. The format
of this rum tasting was different and they had three different brands
representing their own versions of Navy rum: Smith & Cross, El Dorado and Pusser’s. This was one of the best rum clubs
we’ve ever attended.
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| Best drinks of the weekend |
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| Our prize for the longest distance travelled for a rum club |
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| Delicious Zombie |
If you’re interested in finding out more visit The Floating Rumshack website.
These guys are wonderful and do really indepth reviews of all things rum. I
definitely recommend having a read of their review for this night.
The Trailer Happiness is more of a 60’s cocktail
lounge. Not very tiki but the décor and general atmosphere were great. Most
importantly they served up the best drinks by far. Awesome bar, awesome drink, awesome rum club. 10/10
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| Nice 60s lounge area |
On our last day we went to Camden, found quite a nice collection of tiki stuff in The
Best Shop in The World (that is what it’s called!).
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| Tiki souvenir for our Tiki Tour |
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| Amazing lamps (Mr. Peanut will be mine!) |
Mr. Peanut was
too heavy to carry so we decided that we’ll just have to come back for him next
month and do the Barbados Rum Tasting while we’re down there!
Mahalo x
