In the interests of verisimilitude, I thought I'd post a comment that I received today on a page of my website on which I talk about King's Tropical Inn at 5935 Washington Blvd, Los Angeles. Of all the places I've talked about, King's seems to get the most traffic. I found what he said really interesting so I thought I'd post the relevant part:
Here’s what I remember about this great place:
There was mynah bird in a cage in the lobby who let out a loud chirp or said some words every now and then. There were clouds projected on the ceiling that slowly moved “with the wind.” Hawaiian music played in the background and there was a real “tiki” bar (that only my dad could sit at and have a drink).
As for the food… King’s French Dressing is what made me a real fan of green salad. Our family bought bottles of it at the cashier and it became my favorite dressing EVER! I’m a pretty good chef and I’ve tried to replicate that taste, but haven’t nailed it yet. The dressing tasted like the smell of fresh paprika, but using paprika to make the dressing doesn’t translate; like the smell of fresh-roasted coffee beans doesn’t translate into the liquid brew. The color was a dark orange and it had the consistency of a thick tomato sauce. I actually hired a private investigator to see if he could track down the original recipe. He did manage to locate John King Jr’s mother (the father and son both passed away early) who was living in Denver, CO. When he talked to her about the French Dressing recipe and my search for it to be able to taste it again, she had paranoid visions I was going to bottle it and sell it and make a fortune. Her answer was a resounding “no!” She’s probably not around anymore and it’s a shame. But I’ll continue to experiment and, who knows, I might get lucky!
As for the Fried Chicken dinner, that’s where we used the honey packets on the crispy chicken crust. Crunch! And the corn bread was also memorable.
Funny that KTI went through a flood in 1933. We had our own Baldwin Hills flood in 1963, and although we were about a mile from the reservoir, our house still got five feet of water and we had to relocate for about a year until it was redone.
If anyone out there happens to have any info on King’s Tropical Inn French Dressing, please share…
So if anybody reading this does have the recipe, I'd love to hear from you.