text: I once went to a perhaps unsurprisingly now defunct Trader Vics in Washington for happy hour and was impressed by neither the food nor the drinks this is not that storynnAn almost empty restaurant making our reservation comic relief excluding the bustling bar area slightly after the end of happy hour on a holiday despite a welldecorated hall brimming with Tiki kitsch should have given us an indication but since I was there for a family dinner with a picky family and this was already a compromise location it was a bit late to change courses and among the goods for which we bartered werenn Cosmo Tidbits Enough fried and meaty flavors for three but nothing of noten Lamb Curry A flavorless cream of lamb soup that would have made Campbells proud as a special I have no idea what the chef was thinking with thisn Polynesian Snowball Coconutencrusted vanilla with chocolate sauce done welln Chocolate Macadamia Nut Torte Adequate appropriately sweet but forgettablennIf I would gone to Outback Steakhouse and paid commensurate prices I would have been pleased with the results and thus it might fare better for happy hour despite a previous experience at another location but for near Ruths Chris costs I expect near flawless execution especially on a special the failure of which overshadowed the experiencennI cannot decide if Victor Bergeron the real life Trader Vic was any or all of the followingnn A shrewd capitalist genius who traded pittances of mediocre food for large sumsn A C team stock trader who went long on odds based on our dining experiencesn A victim of continued posthumous branding that has brought shame to his namen A onehit wonderquack who never surpassed or fully channeled his Mai Tai inventionnnHowever I have decided that I am comfortable leaving this islander mystery unsolved