It’s interesting, after having lived in Southeast Asia for 23 years, to go to Asian restaurants here in the U.S. and see the differences between the menus you see there and the ones here as well as the similarities. One thing, for example, that seems to be the same with Asian menus anywhere is the size.
When I first went to a restaurant in Thailand I was amazed at the sheer size of the menu. There were about 100 dishes on the menu and I wondered how the kitchen could prepare that many different dishes efficiently. And the other interesting aspect of these menus is that there was a liberal amount of sharing of other cuisines.
You’d see Chinese dishes on some of the Thai food menus as well as dishes that seemed to be offered in any type of restaurant, be it Thai, Chinese, Vietnamese or any of the cuisines from the general area. Singapore-style chicken and rice is an example of a dish that seems to appear in all kinds of places where you wouldn’t necessarily expect it.
And in keeping with this trend, Kawa Sushi, in the Publix shopping center on Belle Terre Road, offers mostly Japanese cuisine but offers a full page of Thai dishes and also some noodle dishes that could originate from one of several cultures. And they have a fairly good representation of Japanese cooking styles as well as a varied selection of raw sushi and sashimi entries.
We’re not averse to eating raw fish and quite enjoy some of it. However, we’re also partial to the cooked varieties of Japanese food and on our recent visit here we were able to indulge in a number of dishes and cooking methods we haven’t experienced for a while.
So our menu selections tended toward sushi rolls, a few types of noodles and some of Kawa’s specialty dishes like the Christmas Roll (previous page). The Thai Summer roll was another of our selections and the noodle dishes we enjoyed were Pad Thai and Drunken Noodles, neither of which were Japanese. So we had a well-rounded meal cuisine-wise as we hit three countries at once.
The dishes were all competently prepared, showing good attention to detail and, most importantly, tasting quite good.
If you’re more of a sushi or sashimi fan you’ll find a huge variety of both with a number of what appear to be the restaurant’s own creations as well as many standards you can see at most good sushi places.
And then there’s a variety of other types of Japanese cooking. You can get tempura and katsu dishes as well as hibachi dinners. And there is a big selection of fried rice dishes, both of the Japanese and Thai varieties.
All in all, it would probably be difficult to get bored with this menu as it would take quite a while to get through it. To that end, we’ll be visiting again soon to work our way through some more of the dishes here whether they’re Japanese, Thai or Chinese as all are well made.
Kawa Sushi, Publix Shopping Center, 1475 Palm Coast Pkwy, 386-986-2266
