THE MOST TRUSTED COPYCAT RECIPES
THE MOST TRUSTED COPYCAT RECIPES

Trader Vic's

Products: 12 of 2
Show: 24
  • Score: 5.00 (votes: 1)
    Trader Vic's Tom Ka Gai Soup

    With the sweet, sour, spicy and salty flavors that are traditional to Thai cuisine, tom ka gai soup is a party on your palate. It's a dish that I've been wanting to hack for years, but could not find a famous chain with a popular version. That is until recently, when Trader Vic's landed in Las Vegas at the Planet Hollywood Hotel and Casino. This upscale, worldwide Polynesian-themed chain adds eggplant to this soup where you would traditionally find straw mushrooms, and thinly julienned peppers where Thai chili peppers would usually be. Other than that the soup has the same traditional flavors of some of the best tom ka gai soups I have eagerly slurped up. 

    For my Trader Vic's Tom Ka Gai soup recipe, you'll need to track down a couple stalks of lemongrass—a whole stalk is about a foot long. Cut each in half and get medieval on it with a kitchen mallet so the flavors are released into the soup as it cooks. Before serving the soup, you may want to fish out the lemongrass and the chunks of ginger, or you may be brushing up on your Heimlich maneuver.

    You might also want to try my spot-on re-creation of Trader Vic's Mai Tai.

    Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 3 by Todd Wilbur.

    Read more
  • Score: 5.00 (votes: 1)
    Trader Vic's World-Famous Mai Tai

    Mai Tai creator and restaurateur Victor Bergeron well-documented his original secret formula: His recipe from 1944 is a delicious blend of 17-year-old rum, lime juice, orange curacao, simple syrup and orgeat for a subtle flavoring of almond. When Vic's Tahitian friends sipped his new creation, they said "Mai Tai Roa Ae"—Tahitian for "out of this world, the best." So Vic named his drink "Mai Tai," and the rest is cocktail history.

    The recipe has changed throughout the years using younger rums and various fruit and citrus juice measurements—you can find these other versions of the Mai Tai posted around the Internet. There is even a Trader Vic's Mai Tai mixer available in some stores. But nowhere will you find a formula for the "World-Famous" $9.50 caramel-colored cocktail currently served at the 30 Trader Vic's restaurants that dot the globe. Why not? Because the secret ingredient in the current recipe is a concentrated syrup that is only available for commercial use at the restaurant chain. And that's the first formula you'll duplicate in my Trader Vic's Mai Tai recipe below to get the exact flavors of the restaurant version into our home clone. 

    I secured some of this "secret" concentrated mix, and figured out how to clone it using a super-sweet simple syrup solution plus orange and almond extracts. That's the first step. After that, add lime juice, lemon juice and dark rum, plus the syrup to a glass full of crushed ice; apply the proper garnishes; and you will have recreated two refreshing servings of one of the world's most famous cocktails.

    Craving more famous cocktail recipes? Click here to see if I hacked your favorite drinks.

    Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 3 by Todd Wilbur.

    Read more