Kaya’s Fusion Cuisine, Havertown
5 Brookline Blvd., Havertown
610-446-2780
Reviewed by our friends The Dining Duo in the Trend. (Sorry, review has been removed — If the Carnivore sends it to us, we’ll post it here!)
5 Brookline Blvd., Havertown
610-446-2780
Reviewed by our friends The Dining Duo in the Trend. (Sorry, review has been removed — If the Carnivore sends it to us, we’ll post it here!)
September 2, 2008 @ 5:06 pm
We tried Kaya’s tonight after hearing about it from friends who live nearby. We trust their taste and they went on and on about it. We decided after such a strong recommendation, we’d give it a shot.
Couldn’t have been happier. Decor was very pleasing, with good music playing. Very friendly and attentive service. Our waitress referred to “her brother in the kitchen” when explaining the freshness of the locally produced ingredients. It was encouraging to hear that it was a family operation and our initial expectations were not let down.
The food was fabulous. So fresh and delicious. Great flavors, everything was spiced so right. The Seafood Chowder in the sourdough was worth every cent. SO SO good. And I can’t even begin to explain how satisfied my wife was with her Seared Salmon Fillet.
They’ve only been open for 2 months and I’m gonna tell everyone I know about this place. I want it to succeed badly because it was so good I want to keep going back, again and again.
AND it’s a BYOB…. Love It!!
March 2, 2009 @ 7:11 am
We had a very, very uninspired meal there about 2 weeks ago. I hate when restaurants are out of dishes listed on the menu. I’m not talking about when I take a 9:30 reservation on a saturday night… I expect that if a restaurant orders fresh daily they may be out of some things at the end of a busy night. I’m talking about a 7:00 reservation on a tuesday. They have 7 apps. When we sat down they were out of 5… literally, they were out of more than they had… and also, they were out of a few entrees. On a very limited menu, it makes for extremely limited choices. By the way, one thing they were out of was hummus. Is it to much trouble to go 4 blocks to the Head Nut and buy some chick peas and tahinni? I feel when a restaurant is out of so many things on a slow day it’s a sign of a lazy and poorly organized kitchen or that they don’t have enough money to order what they need. In either case, I don’t really know if I want to eat there. As for the food: I settled on a crab bisque which was as thick as wall paper paste and loaded with shells. So many in fact that when the server came to take my plate away she commented on all the shells and went back to the kitchen and complained to the chef/cook. I only know this because we heard her from our table (we were the only ones in the restaurant). She came back and said, “Yeah, when I ate some of the soup eariler I had a lot of shells too… we have a new guy working in the kitchen and he must not know how to wash the crabmeat.” For entrees, we had the crab cake entree and a duck breast entree. Both tasted good, and the duck was cooked med. rare the way I ordered it. The only thing I didn’t like was apparently someone in the kitchen has discovered the joy of squeeze bottles. Both dishes were blanketed with multi-colored squiggles all over the plate, out to the rim. It looked like the circus was in town and a clown decorated the plates. Neither one of us could even eat our food without getting sauce on our hands and wrists… The meal simply lacked anything close to finesse. The last thing that annoyed us was that they charge a $3.00 corkage fee. I don’t mind a corkage fee if the restaurant has nice stem wear and swaps them out for you between red and white. Kaya’s only has one generic wine glass.
March 9, 2009 @ 7:48 am
First time here and on a Sat night. First thing I noticed was that I could actually hear the people speaking at our table. Not your usual din even though restaurant was full. Comfortable small byob with a very pleasant staff from hostess to waitress. The food was good and my dishes interesting. Enjoyed the venison chop which could be had as an appetizer (as I did) or entree. Flank steak with curried vegetables in make your own lettuce roll ups with yogurt sauce was nice and plentiful. Others at the table also enjoyed their meals. Not great, but nice middle of the road byob and worth an occasional return visit.
March 12, 2009 @ 10:14 am
My boyfriend and I ate at Kaya’s for the first time on a Tuesday night a few weeks ago. We walked in around 8:30 and sat down. The waitress came over immediately and greeted us. (A lot of times when we walk into a small restaurant that late… the server is not happy) This was not the case. The waitress was extremely pleasant.
We loved the décor and the atmosphere. We appreciated the fact that the server sat us at a 4 top even though there were only 2 of us…
My boyfriend ordered the homemade chicken and parmigiano ravioli appetizer and the duck entrée, which was cooked a perfect medium rare. The ravioli melted in my mouth. I, on the other hand, ordered 4 appetizers… they all looked so good and I wanted to try everything. The waitress again was perfect, pacing out our meal so that we did not feel rushed. We had a bottle of red and a bottle of white, which she noticed and started me with the seafood appetizers.
First, I had the crab soup which had a great amount of crab meat in it with a perfect flavor of fennel.
Second, I had the grilled shrimp. This was one of the most flavorful appetizers I have had in a long time. The JUMBO shrimp was marinated in Cabo Wabo tequila and lime juice. They were grilled and so tender and tossed in some mystery herb. They were served over chilled guacamole in a tortilla like shell. The hot shrimp and the chilled guacamole was a pleasant experience.
Third, we shared a salad. Spring mix tossed with goat cheese, candied walnuts, in raspberry vinaigrette. Very fresh! The only thing I was disappointed in was the amount of goat cheese.
Lastly, I had the mussels. They offered two types of preparation and I chose traditional. They were extremely good…Just the right amount of seasoning and broth!
Foe dessert we had the homemade Chocolate Cheesecake and it was sinful… yummmmm! The waitress must have overheard us talking because she wished me a Happy Birthday, which I thought was nice.
The chef/owner came out and spoke with us for a bit. He was very nice. He spoke of his training (because I asked) and his vision (again, I asked)
We are planning to go there this Sunday for their brunch. We are very excited.
Highly, Highly, Highly recommend this restaurant.
Thanks again,
Toni & Walt
August 12, 2009 @ 10:35 am
We tried Kaya’s last week after wanting to go for some time. We were warmly greated, and received pretty good service throughout the meal. We were generally pleased with our appetizers: calamari (nice and crispy, al dente and not oily) and the “special” goat cheese salad (which appeared to be basically the same as the regular goat cheese salad except the goat cheese was breaded and the “special” cost a few bucks more; and our entrees: duc (although the side of polenta was overcooked/dry) and fish special (aggresively seasoned, but that was good). Since the restaurant promotes its use of local ingredients, we were hoping that the menu would be a bit more seasonal, but some of the entrees (such as butternut squash ravioli) seemed more appropriate for fall/winter. But we probably will return when we want a break from the only other food (pub, “Italian” and “Chinese”) that is available Havertown.
October 31, 2010 @ 8:08 am
We hit Kaya’s Again after way too long, armed with a bottle of Parodocs Detour we set off without a reservation. We got there and were seated quickly, the menu hasn’t changed much but the specials sounded wonderful. My wife had the pumpkin soup which she described as divine, along with the mussels prepared with white wine (note: the names are actually backwards for the two mussel dishes, order by ingredient) I ordered the crab cakes which were STUFFED with crab meat and delicious, we’ll be back again!
June 9, 2011 @ 6:28 pm
We dined as a group of 4 on Saturday June 4th at 7:30. We did go primarily because of the $50 restaurant.com cert we had.
We had been there twice before. Food was very good. We had the scallop/soba noodle special, grilled chicken salad and two crab cake entrees.
On the down side, the cheese board special appetizer we pretty skimpy as a single app; 4 small portions of cheese that could be added to for $3 ea.
In addition, they ran out of bread and our waitress offered to go down the street if we “really” wanted more. Serving was very small to begin with.
They also ran out of 2 of their 4 main desserts, which I also thought to be odd as I did not consider us among the latest bookings.
Our server was a bit evasive on communicating both shortages initially, and instead, did not bring us bread when we first asked and not providing us a dessert menu until we asked.