THE GURGLING COD: Tropocopolitans

Gael Greene reviews the restaurant she was born to review, and delivers like she was driving a big brown truck:

Clearly, Hawaiian Tropic Zone is the consummate place for dinner to keep our guys happy that Sunday night of The Big Game. (Don’t ask me which game. There’s always a game.) Amazingly, it is not because our lithe, tattooed waitress in a few wisps of polyester from Nicole Miller dips in to do our bidding so adorably. That midriff. That tattoo. Only my gal pal and I are noticeably obsessed. Their “Y” chromosome eyes are glued to the plasma screen as a kitchen runner delivers the pupu platter of our pubescent memories—really good ribs, oddments of pork, deep-fried prawns, spring rolls, skewers, and more ($41 to feed four). “You guys still working on that?” our beach bunny asks. Okay, so we gals are just guys, too. It’s not just real estate and wide-screen playmates between the plasma screens that lifts this gambit above Hooters. It’s the ambitious food, unleashed from the imagination of star chef David Burke, so much better than it needs to be. Actually, it was almost fabulous the first time we came and Burke himself was at the range. Tonight, to be cruelly frank, the gargantuan crisp fried pork shank is sadly dry. But the veal chop is splendid and the chicken is not overcooked, always a plus. Happily, our guys are so distracted by the intense last-minute football play that my pal and I get to ravish the sensational banana split before they lift a spoon. The crunchy little candies lurking in the superior hot fudge are a real Burkesonian touch.

As I read this review for the first time I had the odd sense of rereading some famous passage from the hinterlands of the New Journalism, like "Frank Sinatra Has A Cold," + pupu platter, or Fear and Loathing + plasma screens, and the whole thing lightly edited by a not-actually-dead-just-locked-in the-attic Erma Bombeck. My favorite part of the review may be how it is actually very difficult to form any impression of the food.
Sometimes, it is much better than Hooters, but can fall short of that mark. In all, not much to dissuade me from suggesting that sneaking a couple of bahn mi into Scores would not be a better bet.