The Tonga Room and Haight-Ashbury Adventures!
Hello all! It’s been a while, eh? I hope everyone had a great holiday and a happy and healthy new year! Things have been moving along in the land of I YUM. Dr. Awesome and I are renovating our apartment, so that’s been taking up a lot of mental energy and time. I have yet to post about our adventures in England and France. That’ll come soon after my California posts.
I joined Dr. Awesome and Co. out in San Fran again this year for 3 days and then went to LA to visit our friends Josh and Jena after. But I get ahead of myself. My first day back in the Bay Area, I met up with my friend Jason to roam around Haight-Ashbury. I hadn’t gone to this area the last time I was there, so it was great to go with someone who knew the ‘hood. Our mission was to get to Amoeba Music. Jason had been there many times before, but I was a newb.
Unfortunately, there were no crusty hippies hanging around. That was a bit disappointing. But the scenery, otherwise, did not.
An awesome hat shop.
Pork!!
Jason trying on stuff at a thrift store. Cue this song.
And finally, Amoeba records!
It’s huge.
I have to say, it’s been a while since I’ve been able to roam around a record store for hours on end, searching through rows upon rows of CDs. It was really liberating. I truly miss doing that and the whole record store vibe. I think Jason and I were in there for 2.5 hours or so. And it’s amazing that CDs I used to spend between $18-$20 on were only $1. *sigh* Got some great stuff though!
I knew holding off from buying the Wallflowers album back in the day would pay off. (Mainly cause I wasn’t a fan.)
Yup. But neither of us purchased it.
On the way back to the hotel, we got photo bombed.
It was pretty epic. I didn’t realize it until I started going through the photos on the camera and came across that. I still laugh every time I look at it.
All that shopping made us thirsty (but we’re always thirsty for cocktails). Luckily, Dr. Awesome and I saw an episode of the Layover (or No Reservations) where Anthony Bourdain went to this tiki bar in San Fran and got wasted. We were like, “yeah, we need to go there.”
That’s how we all found ourselves with a reservation at the Tonga Room at the Fairmont Hotel. It’s one of the first tiki bars in the US. I had video because every 15 minutes, there was a rainstorm at the pool. I think that video is gone forever. I’m very sad.
The drinks didn’t lack any alcohol. Next year, we’re going to eat there for dinner.
The Mai Tai’s are their specialty. And boy are they.
It was a great first night. I’m excited to go back there and try some other cocktails. The key is to go during happy hour. Always a good deal!
I YUM New York 
The Tonga room has some of the best drinks! Be sure to try the Zombie next time. I believe Anthony Bourdain had one on The Layover, when he came to San Francisco.
Good to know! Will definitely try the zombie and others next time 🙂 it’ll be hard to walk out of there!