I still remember the first time that I set foot inside the Kiheki

supper club. Now the restaurant was located at East Broad Street and

Napoleon across from the Desert Inn. I must have been around 10 years old.

Now December nights in Columbus, Ohio were always cold and I can still feel the biting wind

that cut through the huge parking lot and made my eye sting

during the short walk from our station wagon to the restaurant.

Two 20 foot teaky idols to guard at the front door, beckoning me inside a building that looked as if a boat had

been sucked right out of the South Pacific and plopped down in the middle of the Midwest.

And that was just the outside.

Inside was a world apart from the frozen Ohio night.

Torches lined the walls, and the whole place was fragrant, warm, a little humid.

Probably a nod to some fictional place of tropical inspiration,

but it was pure magic. From America's Test Kitchen, I'm Bridget Lancaster, and this is proof.

From America's Test Kitchen, I'm Bridget Lancaster, and this is proof. The Kiheiiki Supper Club completely captured my imagination as a child.

And although I was way too young to partake at the time, I did see my parents get to experience

the added escape of a Mai Tai, and it was delivered to the table by a

Polynesian goddess of course. As an adult I totally get the appeal because a

teakie drink has the power to mentally transport me somewhere else different in every way from my reality.

It's a place that's warm, beachy, where my biggest worry is falling coconuts.

But I learned something recently that really got me wondering, and it's that the might

I was actually created in Oakland.

Not Hawaii, not Polynesia, not some tropical paradise, Oakland, California.

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