Aku Aku Tiki Bar

I liked this place a lot. The kitch was pretty great. Even has a full dug out canoe hanging from the ceiling. Lots of picture of Kon-Tiki, showing their pride of their local hero. Drinks were high quality and at really great prices. Music wasn’t exotica or Hawaiian while we were here, but it was really nice chilled jazz, so it still felt cozy. And the service was friendly with a bartender who knows how to make a proper tiki drink. This place is definitely worth a visit if you’re in the area.

Like others have pointed out the decor is great. All modern music, total miss. Bar tenders are hit and miss. Ordered a Daiquiri and a MaiTai (neither on the menu) and total fail on both. Zombie and Jet Lag were passable. If you passing through Oslo and need a little Tiki go for it, do not make it your destination. As for cost it is very expensive but no more than everything else in Norway.

I had never put it together, never connected the dots, never followed the path back to the logical explanation that the Tiki boom was all due to a crazy Norwegian explorer who, in the 1940s after having survived a near-drowing event as a child and never having had learned to swim or get over a fear of the water, had a crazy idea to tie a bunch of reeds together and go to sea off of South America to see if his idea that early people from that continent could have sailed to Polynesian. Thor Heyerdahl, I salute you and apologize for never really putting to and to together to get fire. (That's all the Norwegian I got folks except for a curse about going to sea and an exclamation most recently heard by a drunken older Norwegian woman stumbling around a North Sea ferry.)
However, Aku Aku , like the Oslo neighborhood around it, is more hipster than Tiki at this point. Folks around us were drinking beers. Another table got daring for Norwegians and got Rums and Cokes - look out! Sinatra was on the sound system, Drinks had things infused into them and the Tiki standards - Mai Tais, Zombies, etc. - that were pictured in previous visits by others no longer appear on the menu. I ordered the Coco Cabana and it was OK-ish. My husband had the Witch Doctor and it was infused with chilis and was OK. My Mom ordered off the menu with a Pina Colada and it was OK. OK is hard to swallow when you're paying almost US$20 per drink. Oh and the Tikis were for display only - no take home/buy mugs. Verdict as of September 2017 - go for the awesome decor (some of which is on loan from the Kon-Tiki museum across the harbor - but skip the drinks until Aku-Aku finds the plot again.