Pan Asia

 For this Fun Frank Friday adventure, we take you to one of our favorite restaurants here in South Phoenix area.  Located at 24th Street and Baseline is Pan Asia.  We've been coming here for at least 5 years.  This is an Asian fusion restaurant which means the menu includes a combination of different Asian entrees from Chinese to Japanese.  We have found that our most favorite is the Pan Asian New York combo.  This consists of black pepper tuna tataki served in a martini glass with mango surrounded by the Pan Asia fire starter roll (spicy tuna topped with tuna and a spicy chef special ponzu garlic wasabi sauce) on the bottom.  They are telling the truth on the "fire starter" roll, it will set a blaze your mouth.  So make sure you have a full drink on hand before you pop any of it in.  The good news is the smooth smoky tuna tataki and the sweet mango help cool the fire down.

 We each decided that on this visit, we would order a salad.  Patti chose the seaweed salad, which has a slight crunch and a nutty sesame flavor to it.   It is quite enjoyable for even a novice to try.  I on the other hand decided to go with the Octopus salad.  This salad had octopus that was quite tender which was excellent because if they had overcooked it, octopus is too chewy to enjoy.

 One of Patti's favorite sushi rolls is the Lisa Lisa Crunchy roll.  This roll consists of shrimp tempura, avocado, cream cheese inside sushi rice and topped with tempura flakes for crunch on the outside then sprinkled with scallions.  The biggest selling point however are the three sauces on top.  A yellow one that gives a bit of spice flavor, a brown eel sauce which is a sweet soy flavor and the piece d'resistance is the red one which has a sweet berry flavor.  Note to all you non-sushi eaters, there is no raw fish on this roll at all.  This roll is one of perfect explanations of Asian cuisine.  The belief of balance between yin and yang is interpreted to mean that for every crunch there is a smooth, for every sweet there is a sour and for every bland there is a spice.  With these combinations, it makes the Lisa Lisa an excellent roll to try.

Since I am a big sushi fan, I can't just order one roll.  I must have at least two or five or however many I can eat without breaking the budget.  These three rolls are (clockwise starting top left) the dragon roll, the grand canyon roll and the rock and roll #2.  The dragon roll consists of shrimp tempura and cucumber inside the rice then topped with eel and avocado.  It is then drizzled with eel sauce and sesame seeds.  The Grand Canyon roll consists of a traditional california roll (crab, cucumber and avocado inside rice) but then topped with a baked crab mix, scallops, mushroom.  This warm mixture on top is then itself topped with eel sauce, masago (flying fish eggs) and green onions.  We always like to finish off with the Rock and Roll #2 roll because of the cool cucumber it uses.  This roll included tempura shrimp with mix crab and a tiny bit of rice.  This is all wrapped in thinly sliced cucumber rather than the traditional sea weed wrap.  And of course topped with special eel sauce.

To broaden our horizons and for the enjoyment of Fun Frank Friday readers, we also opted to venture off the sushi menu and order from the Chinese side.  So for starters we ordered the chicken pot stickers.  These were pan fried with a slight crunch.  The inside meat was well seasoned which paired nicely with the dipping sauce.
 Our next order was the Pan Asia salt and pepper calamari.  These just melted in your mouth!  The calamari was so tender and the tempura coating was so buttery that it was a tiny bit addicting.

Patti ordered from the "Chef's recommendations"  the chicken tempura with plum sauce.  Two large tempura fried chicken breasts but still juicy inside and then covered in a delicious sweet plum sauce.  This entree comes with plenty to share and served with a side of fried rice and broccoli.




I, of course, am more open to a little adventure so I ordered something new to me. The Sizzling Seafood Open Omlette caught my eye.  This consists of cooked shrimp, scallops, calamari, crab and white fish mixed with sweet peas and served over fried eggs.  It comes to the table sizzling on a hot plate.  This seafood medley is an ingenious combination that I would have never thought to add a fried egg to.  However the end result was so delicious that I am surprised I hadn't seen it before.


You are probably asking yourself, how in the world were we able to eat so much food?  Well, my friend that will have to remain an ancient Chinese secret.  And if you haven't tried a seafood open omlette yet, try it now.