An evening at Lucky Rabbit restaurant in Grand Harbour is the perfect cure for ‘karaoke trauma’, a term I have just invented, which is the fear of karaoke caused by a previous nightmare at the microphone.
My personal karaoke trauma came – appropriately enough – in a karaoke bar in Japan during a press trip, where my fellow journalists nominated me to represent our group.
I was halfway through ‘Let it Go’ from ‘Frozen’, when the realisation dawned that I was incapable of hitting the high notes yet to come, which caused me to miss all the notes I was currently attempting. The incredulous silence which greeted my performance caused me to avoid all subsequent karaoke invitations – until now.
Lucky Rabbit is one of the newer restaurants in Grand Cayman, being just over a year old, and is located halfway between Hurley’s supermarket and Salty’s bar in Grand Harbour. It says that its karaoke evenings, held every Thursday from 8pm, are for “seasoned singers, shower superstars or just those who want to be here for the vibes,” but the prospect of dying on stage once again made me approach its doors with the utmost caution.
Thankfully, there is no stage at Lucky Rabbit, a definite plus point for reluctant singers. Rather than having to perform in front of a crowd, like in other karaoke bars I’ve been to, the Lucky Rabbit allows you to sing at the actual bar, at your table or even hide away in the corner should you wish (and I did).
Japanese cuisine in Grand Harbour
The restaurant itself was smaller than I’d expected, being just one room with a dozen or so tables, and when I arrived (at 7pm, unfashionably early), it was almost empty. This didn’t yet look like the ‘good vibes’ evening which Lucky Rabbit had promised, but the night was still young and the serving staff were friendly and attentive, keeping my iced water topped up while I looked through the menu.
This was divided into bar bites, sushi rolls, nigiri, ramen, rice, sides and desserts and seemed reasonably priced ($16 for ramen, $10-14 for sushi rolls).
I ordered some salted edamame which thankfully arrived so promptly that I didn’t have to share them with my friends. When Jo and Katie did arrive, a shared fear of singing in public hung over us all, so I decided that the best thing to do was to order our food and then confront the karaoke issue head on, helped by the encouragement of a member of staff who had started things off already with a song or two.
My earliest experiences of karaoke were leafing through a phone-directory-sized book of available tunes and writing down song numbers on bits of scrap paper, but thankfully those days are long gone. A QR code on every table meant it was easy to download the KaraFun app to our phones and thousands of songs were instantly at our fingertips.
A quick decision was made and within seconds I had been given a microphone and was doing my best with ‘Flowers’ by Miley Cyrus. Things were going well until my heartfelt delivery of “No remorse, no regret” was slightly derailed by the simultaneous arrival of three sushi rolls, fried vegetable gyoza, yakitori skewers and tempura pickled onion rings at our table. Still, I made it through to the end in the right octave – take that, Frozen! – and my karaoke fears were vanquished.
Getting a song out of the way early on when the evening was just getting going was a great idea, as by the time Jo’s song had been teed up, she had a packed restaurant to entertain, and there had been some seriously good singers who set the bar high.
Welcoming atmosphere
However, Lucky Rabbit was a genuinely welcoming place for newbies and seasoned singers alike, with other diners joining in to help when someone was struggling, so it never felt like you were being judged for your song choices or ability to hold a tune (although we might have been over-ambitious with our choice of ‘Elephant Love Medley’ from ‘Moulin Rouge’).
There was a real mix of people who were vying for the mic, from a group of women called ‘The Party Girls’ singing ‘The Fresh Prince of Bel Air’, to a woman going solo with Dolly Parton’s ‘Jolene’ and Charles at the bar giving his all to ‘Born to Be Wild’.
It was easy to overlook the food in the party atmosphere but our flavourful selection of sushi rolls did the trick, with the Electric Roll – BBQ eel, avocado, cucumber, mayo, jalapeno, scallion and soy glaze – being particularly praised.
We left at 10:30 when the evening was getting really lively. Had it not been for work the next day and the lengthy queue of songs on the app, we would have happily stayed for more. ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, anyone?
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