I got drunk.

This is not a singular phenomenon, as a young woman living in what Bourdain (my biggest hero) proposed as one of the last “great drinking cities”. It is, however, a special occasion upon which I got ignominiously tipsy; because I went to Tonga Room, y’all.

The Tonga Room is located in the bottom level of the Fairmont Hotel and it is…magnificent. It’s a straight-up, old-school tiki lounge with a great menu and incredible drinks in a seriously cool setting. There’s a dance floor, a ship’s mast, little paper lanterns, and a pool with a boat that contains a live band. The pool used to be the main pool for the hotel…but now it rains. It rains, with thunder and lightning, into the pool every time the band takes a break.

And lava bowls.

We all got individual drinks, no worries. Everything from mai tais to hurricanes to margaritas to Singapore slings. I do believe there were three rounds. Which explains why I made my face do this when it started raining in the pool:

The winner was definitely Emily, who used her brains to figure out that for the same price as a much smaller drink, she could get this instead:

Good choice.

We did also get calamari, even after an intense dinner at Shanghai Dumpling King.

More importantly, we had dessert.

Emily’s blurry (two drinks in) peanut butter and banana cake.

Our flaming vanilla and…well crap. This is where I fail as a food blogger, because I’m going to be real honest here: I don’t remember what I ordered. I was just so disappointed that our lava bowl didn’t have a flaming center that when I saw the word “flaming” on the dessert menu, I just pointed and grunted. OK, I actually said “please” because etiquette matters.

We loved it. Who is we?

Simone.

Laura.

Caroline.

A motley group of ladies who would sporadically wander on to the dance floor for Jackson 5 and Journey hits.

A very good night.