Bites Nearby: Asia Cafe

You could stand on a corner and look around until a restaurant sign draws you in. But we've got a better idea. Each week, Barrow Patch picks a great restaurant either in town or nearby that is worth checking out. Here's this week's choice:

Serving up the best of two international cuisines, Chinese and Thai, in a small Southern town, the Asia Cafe gives credence to the term “New South.” But you don’t have to be a culinary or cultural historian to know that the food is excellent. The cafe has lunch specials that include an entrée, rice, soup, spring roll and crab rangoon. These specials at Asian restaurants in America have become as standard and as anticipated as the lunch specials at traditional Southern meat-and-three restaurants. They are as pleasing to the palate as they are to the pocketbook. The lunch menu features Chinese meat, shrimp, vegetable and tofu dishes along with Thai curry, meat, vegetable and tofu dishes.

 The dinner menu is a masterfully orchestrated melding of flavors. Appetizers include egg and spring rolls, dumplings, coconut shrimp and crab rangoon, a deep-fried wonton filled with cream cheese, crab and seasonings. The menu offers the beloved wonton, sizzling rice, egg drop and hot ‘n’ sour Chinese soups, as well as a chicken or tofu coconut Thai soup. You will find the popular Chinese chicken dishes, General T’so, moo goo gai pain and kung pao here, as well as some surprises, among them, an orange peel chicken. Beef and pork lovers will be just as satisfied with selections that include Mongolian beef, firecracker beef, twice cooked pork and hot ‘n’ sour pork. The Chinese seafood dish, whose name invokes joy, the happy family, is on the menu along with shrimp chow mein. Vegetarians will fare well at the Asia Cafe and can choose from the best dishes both cuisines have to offer. Masaman and panang curries, as well as other Thai dishes, can be made with tofu, beef, chicken, pork or shrimp. The noodle and rice worlds are equally represented on the menu with lo mein, fried rice, pad thai, pineapple rice and other dishes. One restaurant, two cuisines and plenty of satisfied customers — that’s the definition of the Asia Cafe.

111 E. May St., Winder. Open 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Saturday. 770-307-0877. Pricing: Low to moderate.

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