kaya

always a great experience. wonderful service, perfect meal, great drinks. it was the perfect start to our saturday girls night!

not perfect, but i love it. kaya is almost a perfect restaurant. it's not too expensive, but not cheap at all. and rightly so... the food and drinks are absolutely top notch. the service is consistently good and sometimes great, and the location is appealing albeit slightly off the beaten path (one block back from the main drag in the strip district).

my favorite thing about kaya is that they give folks like me, who aren't exactly rich, a chance to enjoy their fine food and drink. their happy hour can't be beat... with half-price drinks, working stiffs can see what a $12 margarita tastes like for $6. but, i recommend the sangria.

halibut seviche... very good. jamaican jerk chicken wings? as the kids say, "the bomb." but in my opinion, the best reason to visit kaya is their burger. with bacon, cheese, a fried egg and avocado, it's possibly the best unique burger in the city. it's huge, too, and hard to handle.

on my most recent trip to kaya, i split the burger with a friend. without specifically asking them to, they served the burger halves on two plates, each accompanied by a side of home-made chips. after sharing a pair of appetizers and drinks, half a kaya burger had me filled to the gills.

my only real criticism of the place is the atmosphere... it's neither "special" or all that comfortable. it's just acceptable. so while it's a great place to go with a platonic foodie friend, it's not really the best place for a romantic date or an intimate dinner conversation.

for my entree, i had the fish tacos pictured above. it was one of those days where i just needed tacos. i loved the mix of tangy slaw, creamy avocado and the crisp fish. kaya also offers a number of vegetarian entrees- including tofu tacos. their tofu is awesome– deep fried with a sweet/sour sauce.

i am not a fan.. i went to kaya a couple of yrs ago.. i was working the classic car show in the strip. i ordered a grilled eggplant sandwich. aweful.. the bread was toasted/grilled and really dry& crunchy.. but the eggplant was so slimey, and nasty, cold in the middle, and the skin around it was rubbery tough stuck in my teeth...the nasty brown seedy mustard was so bad it nauseated me... soggy as hell by the time i picked it up.. bitter taste, squishy dead fish texture... how do they stay in business? that wqas my first, and last visit.. i was raised by italians, dont ever let me catch any of you wasting eggplant like this again! keep the change.. i gotta go... (to another place and get some real food, that wont make me throw up).

on monday evening i used my brandy-new employee discount at kaya to have dinner with my old pal jen and her husband, errol--here in town for a clay convention. even before i mentioned that i was now part of the bb family, we were alrea

yum!. i really enjoyed my first trip to kaya a few weeks ago. the three dip appetizer was great for sharing. i especially enjoyed the very seasonal and very delicious appetizer of mushrooms, ramps, and fiddlehead ferns. if that's not spring in one dish, i don't know what is! i had the avocado and tomato torta, which is really a sandwich. it was very good, albeit messy to eat. the side salad it was served with was nothing special, but it was fine. three people at the table ordered the paella and enjoyed it, we saw a few plates of the fried chicken (for "fried chicken thursday"), and they looked amazing. i'd recommend kaya, and i hope to return!

can't wait to go back. i have only been once but i can't wait to go back and try something else. the sweet potato fries were the best. all the appetizers we tried were really unique and delicious.

the cuban sandwich was awesome. the fried calamari and the sangria were also excellent. can't wait to go back.

best fish tacos on the planet!!! love this place!

i've been here a few times because i am a big supporter of small businesses before realizing that it was a part of the big burrito. although i was a little sad they weren't independent, the food is great here and the atmosphere is really cool. i love that they have such a wide variety of food options. it's like: here's our menu... would you like to take a trip to jamaica, asia, maybe st. louis? it's hard to have such variety and still have amazing food and i think thats great.

gotta try the kaya burger!. this is one of my favorites in the strip district! the kaya burger is a must try! it's fantastic! get it with a side of sweet potato fries. also the jerk wings are yummy!

fried chicken thursdays. i went here to partake in their fried chicken thursday. you get an entire half a chicken fried with old school pasta salad, a vinegary coleslaw and a stack of fresh tortilla straight from reyna's foods down the block.

we started off with the yucatan bean dip appetizer. if you've ever had the bean dip at mad mex you'll recognize it. it's beany, slightly salty and a little spicy. very flavorful.

i have to say, the chicken is a little steep at 15 dollars a plate but i thought it was amazing. the chicken was delicious and browned nicely and the ranch-style dip they give you is a really good with accompaniment. i love being able to pick apart the chicken and put it in the tortilla and make myself a little taco. i'm a huge fan of mexican food so blending southern cuisine with the containment system of a mexican tortilla is great.

i hate coleslaw, especially mayo-based. if it is a vinegar based slaw i tend to like it a wee bit more. the coleslaw i had at kaya was so good i ate all of it. it had little bits of pepper in it, a huge vinegary kick and a spiciness that i think came from ginger.

the pasta salad was like what your grandma would make. the chef at kaya really must like the sourness of vinegar, however, because it's really evident in this dish as well. luckily, i love that in food. i could see a lot of people being overwhelmed by it.

the only complaint was when my girlfriend ordered a mojito. when it came i took a sip and thought it was pretty bad. it mostly tasted like alcohol and the ripped mint floating inside overwhelmed it to the point where you couldn't taste the mint anymore so much as the leafy flavor underneath. i did not care for it at all.

i definitely want to check out what kaya has on their actual menu. i'll be back.

good, but could improve. i've never been able to say i had a great time at kaya. generally, the food and the experience is good, but something is always a bit off. usually, it's the amount of time the kitchen takes to put out food. when i went two weeks ago, my party ordered cocktails, and we were almost done with them by the time the appetizers showed up. then it was another wait for the entrees.

i'm not looking for a perfect dining experience, but i feel like i've been to kaya enough that i see a pattern in the slow kitchen. in fact, one of my dining companions (whom i'd treated to dinner at kaya before) noted that the food was slow coming out of the kitchen the last time we were there, also.

the food usually is good, fresh, and interesting. but then again, there are just enough bumps in each meal to keep me from calling it great. the corn/lentil fritters are good, but they're always tough. the server let me know that the pork quesadilla was spicy (which was what i was looking for), but it had no heat at all. finally, i find that the portions are a little too big. i usually don't finish my meal and my companions didn't finish theirs either. i'd rather have a more modest amount of food than have food go to waste.

sometimes i wonder if big burrito's stretched itself too thing to keep the restaurants really tightly managed. i get the sense that kaya emphasizes its cocktails and bar service, and i think the dining room suffers as a result just a bit.

i have been wanting to try kaya due to it being in the big burrito group. i went last night and the food was just as expected fantastic caribbean flavors. the one down side to last night was the server she never refilled my drink and i was there for over an hour. she said she was going to fill it and never did. the manager came over and made everything right and was very professional. so i will be back.

whose fault is it?. we had lunch there. it was good. we had to wait a veerryyy long time to get it. we had a waitress that seemed to care less about us. i had ordered sweet potato fries with my sandwich. when she brought the order out i told her that. she was in denial; until she read the order and then hurried back with a sweet face and the fries. i told her when she had brought the waffle fries to just forget about it because i could see she was miffed. we then asked for the check, that took forever!! the table next to us got their food promptly. i don't know, guess she didn't like us. i don't want to give this place a bad rating, the food wasn't bad but she ruined our experience.