The Pupu Platter of My Dreams Is at This Decatur Tiki Bar

Before becoming the editor of Eater Atlanta six years ago, I was a cocktail writer dabbling in the history of drinks and the bars and bartenders behind the classics we still sip today. One of my favorite watering hole features was for Atlanta magazine and relaying the tale behind one of two Trader Vic’s left in the United States, and the only one still affiliated with Hilton. It happens to be located on the lower level of the Hilton hotel in downtown Atlanta. But before Trader Vic’s, there was Hinky Dinks. And there’s an ode to Trader Vic’s and its forebear popping up in Decatur.

First opened in 1938 by Victor “Vic” Bergeron, Trader Vic’s brought Caribbean-style drinks and “tiki-chic” dining to the masses in American-Chinese and Polynesian-inspired dishes like egg foo young and crab rangoon. Prior to opening Trader Vic’s, however, Bergeron and his wife owned and operated Hinky Dinks in Oakland, California, a restaurant born during the height of the Great Depression selling 20-cent dinners and beers for a dime. A fateful visit one evening to Donn the Beachcomber’s restaurant in Los Angeles in 1937, followed by a trip to study rum and cocktails at bars in Havana, Cuba, changed the game for Bergeron and the course of Hinky Dinks forever. He transformed the restaurant into a Polynesian pop palace, renaming it Trader Vic’s. Restaurants and bars like Trader Vic’s reached peak popularity in America during the 1950s and early 1960s, with the tiki genre eventually needing to tackle difficult questions around cultural appropriation.

For folks who follow tiki cocktail culture, Hinky Dinks is a familiar name. This includes for the owners of S.O.S. Tiki Bar in Decatur and the team behind Mothers Best, the pop-up and forthcoming fried chicken joint and cocktail bar from Ean Bancroft and Ross Winecoff opening around the corner.

Until Mothers Best opens later this fall, Bancroft and Winecoff are popping up at S.O.S with High Tide Hinky Dinks. The menu for this iteration of Hinky Dinks features a Polynesian-Cajun-Southern trifecta of Mothers Best fried chicken, Louisiana blue crab rangoon, rum-spiced boiled peanuts, Sichuan cold noodles tossed with potlikker collards and chili oil, and a Southern-Cajun take on the iconic pupu platter.

“I love the cold Szechuan noodles with potlikker collard greens,” Bancroft says. “They’re super rich from the tahini dressing, then have various chiles and spicy toppings. Great with a Zombie or any of those fruity fun tiki drinks [at S.O.S.]”

Cozied up in a booth with a rum-soaked Old Fashioned, High Tide’s Dude Dude is a deal at $45, easily feeding two to three people. Think of it as a sort of low-key omakase, but in a tiki bar, paired with a fastidious riff on the Zombie, a glass of house grog, or a boozy Singapore Sling.

Mothers Best

The platter comes with a sampling of bites from the menu, including the peanuts, blue crab rangoon, the aforementioned spicy cold noodles, shrimp boil cocktail with a yuzu avocado remoulade, and Hula Popplers — double-breaded Mothers Best fried chicken nuggets brined in a brown sugar mixture.

This pupu platter includes every snack I now want to eat at a bar — tiki or otherwise — and was definitely worth the trek in traffic in the pouring rain on a Thursday night from the west side of Atlanta to Decatur. Those crispy wontons are generously stuffed with lump crab meat and Philadelphia cream cheese. The crab rangoon is served with sweet and sour Crystal hot sauce. My chopsticks got a workout continually transporting the spicy cold noodles from the bowl to my mouth. I couldn’t stop eating these noodles, which carry hints of savory tang from the potlikker collard greens. I will also be making rum-spiced boiled peanuts at home for porch parties. Thanks for the inspiration, High Tide. And please let the Hula Popplers make the Mothers Best fried chicken menu.

You might get one more surprise with your Dude Dude: player cards. My platter came with three cards.

“We love garnishing all the food with obnoxious items that don’t really have any purpose. Hence, the baseball cards,” Bancroft tells me. “We have a lot of fun deciding what card goes where and why sometimes it’s three to four cards versus just a solitary ‘rare find’ card.”

Bancroft and Winecoff know when Mothers Best regulars are at the bar, too, and might slip them a card featuring Braves outfielder Ronald Acuña Jr. or even a throwback find they’ve come across as a hat tip and gift from the kitchen. Baseball card collectors, take note.

“The Dude Dude platter won’t be going anywhere. It’s too fun,” says Bancroft on recently changing the menu for High Tide Hinky Dinks. “And the cards are irrelevant and hilarious and that’s really the only reason we do it. Besides, we love baseball.”

Beth McKibben

Mothers Best

S.O.S. Tiki Bar and High Tide Hinky Dinks open Wednesday - Saturday, 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. Walk-ins only. Patio seating available in the alley.