Say Aloha to a Bit of Paradise Found in O.C.

There is a place in inland Orange County where trade winds blow and enchanted music plays and tropical birds squawk and roast pig beckons and a young Tom Selleck chases bad guys in a really cool car.

OK, so Tom isn’t around, but the rest of them are, even if the music comes only via LP and the tropical breezes sometimes need a boost from a ceiling fan.

Who knew the islands were so close?

Little pieces of paradise dot Cypress like so many pearls linked by the strands of Cerritos Avenue and Valley View Street.

Want to sample the wonders of Hawaii without flying 2,300 miles? Be here. Aloha.

Island Fever

Joe and Bonnie Salamanca’s strip-mall shop, Joe’s Aloha Collectibles, is as much about time as it is place. The time is the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s, and the place is Hawaii, as interpreted by restaurateurs of Southern California.

Joe Salamanca grew up in Long Beach, which was home to several tiki restaurants that held sway on an impressionable youth. After he and Bonnie met and married, they started collecting clothing, furniture, figurines, masks and mugs of the tropical style and period.

Eventually the collection outgrew their Rossmoor home, so in November they opened Joe’s at 4455 Cerritos Ave., Cypress, (714) 826-8795.

In the window, Polynesian-print shirts as subtle as a North Shore wave ($30 to $45, depending on style and quality) drape across mannequin torsos propped atop a rattan living room set (chairs $125 each, table $65).

“It’s hard to find them in this good of shape,” Bonnie Salamanca said of the furniture. “We know because we’re out there trying to find them.”

Estate sales are the Salamancas’ main source of inventory, which turns over more quickly than they had expected.

“We have to scramble to keep up with business,” Salamanca said.

Their customers range from retirees seeking to recapture a piece of their past to Gen-Xers who saw “Swingers” and “The Rat Pack” and now want in on the action.

Sometimes the generation gap shows. Joe’s carries a lot of vinyl records by ‘50s mood music artists Martin Denny, Les Baxter and Arthur Lyman. One day a customer in his 20s found a little red plastic spacer on the floor. He asked Salamanca what it was, and when she explained, he asked, “For a gun?”

No, she had to tell him, not that kind of 45.

Tiki restaurants often had different glasses for specific drinks, and Salamanca gets calls from collectors searching for, say, the mai tai mug from Trader Vic’s. If Joe and Bonnie don’t have it, they’ll try to track it down.

But it’s fun to shop at Joe’s even when you don’t know what you’ll find. You might come across a hand-painted, sequined circle skirt from the ‘50s ($48) or a vintage toy such as a GI Joe in all-white winter combat gear with snow shoes, skis and four teeny-weeny grenades ($195).

When this GI Joe heard “islands,’ he dressed for the Aleutians.

Joe’s Aloha Collectibles is open Tuesdays through Fridays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturdays, noon to 6 p.m. It’s closed Sundays and Mondays.

Poi To The World

Like the tiny outlying islands in the Hawaiian chain, Aloha Chicken isn’t the easiest place to find. It’s at the end of a row of pedestrian-looking shops that includes a dry cleaner and a nail salon.

The restaurant’s only nods to decor are orchids on the front counter, a faded wall-size poster of swaying palms at the rear, and silk gardenias at the center of the handful of plastic tables.

But the food far surpasses the surroundings at Aloha Chicken, 10488 Valley View St., just over the border into Buena Park, (714) 826-6672.

Owner Katsue Hanna Ogawa serves up Hawaiian feasts for a surprisingly small price. For $3.69 you get three pieces of seared Aloha Chicken. The meaty Lahaina ribs are $4.39. Side dishes include lau lau ($4.29), lomi salmon ($2.29) and, of course, poi ($2.29).

A favorite of regulars is the Waikiki Combo. It features generous helpings of your choice of two entrees, including the succulent kalua pig, on a bed of rice with sides of Hawaiian pasta and fruit (strawberries, pineapple and orange slices) for $4.99.

“Everyone tells me the food is better here than it is in Hawaii,” Ogawa said.

Aloha Chicken is open daily, 11 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.

Beautiful Plumage

The last time there was this much squawking this close to Cypress College was when a professor informed his class that the final no longer would be multiple choice.

Omar’s Exotic Birds, 9215 Valley View St., (714) 761-0868, is home to the brightest, most colorful and, yes, the loudest feathered creatures this side of the tropics.

Store owner Fran Gonzalez began breeding birds as a hobby in 1982 and opened the Cypress store with her husband, Omar, in 1985. Now there are three stores, with the others in Laguna Hills and Placentia.

A blue and gold macaw named Crackers often screeches a greeting to Cypress store visitors, who can get an up-close view of the birds because they’re out on stands instead of in cages.

Omar’s features more than a dozen breeds of exotic birds, ranging from a gray cockatiel, which goes for $59, to a pink cockatoo native to the Moluccan Islands of Indonesia, which fetches $1,600.

If you spring for a bird, you’ll also need a cage and/or a perch. A perch on wheels with a mess-catcher bottom and built-in feed bowls costs $250. Cages range up to the deluxe model big enough for macaws, with perches inside and out, for $800.

Omar’s also offers grooming, boarding and has toys galore, including a rubber ducky strung with brightly colored letters and numbers for $14.99.

Omar’s is open Mondays through Fridays, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Sundays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. However, the birds go to sleep an hour before closing so employees can clean up after them.

And yes, the birds do sometimes squawk about their early bedtime.

IF YOU GO

* Getting There: To reach Cypress, take Valley View Street north from the Garden Grove or San Diego freeways or south from the Riverside Freeway.

* Dining Alternative: If your tastes run east of Hawaiian fare, try Inka Grill, 10205 Valley View St., Cypress, (714) 484-0888. Among the Peruvian favorites is the Lomo Saltado, which features seasoned beef sauteed with onions, tomatoes, cilantro and French fries, served with rice ($8.95 for lunch, $9.95 for dinner).

Cypress

1. Joe’s Aloha Collectibles, 445 Cerritos Ave., (714) 826-8795

2. Aloha Chicken, 10488 Valley View St., Buena Park, (714) 826-6672

3. Omar’s Exotic Birds, 9215 Valley View St., (714) 761-0868