Asiana. Remove the last two letters of the word and you have a vast and mysterious continent. Asia is also the inspiration for a vast, and some may say mysterious, restaurant.
Two years went by while Pewaukee’s Asiana, its building guarded by two carved Chinese Foo Dogs, took shape. Now that I’ve been to the restaurant, I see why it took so long to complete.
The edifice’s 11,000 square feet contain a teppanyaki room (where chefs cook and perform tricks like tossing shrimp into diners’ pockets à la Benihana of Tokyo), a colorful sushi bar, a main dining room with adjacent tatami rooms (for private meals in which diners go shoeless and kneel on pillows) and a separate bar for liquid meals. Asiana’s size doesn’t preclude it from being both elegant and whimsical, including the use of intricate woodwork, faux marble, murals and a quasi-koi pond.
The supersize location comes with a supersize menu – mostly Japanese but with some detours in the Thai, Chinese and Asian fusion directions. It’s an arduous task, getting through this menu. Including sushi and miscellaneous nori rolls, the options are up in the 200 range (just a shade larger than at its sibling restaurant in the Southridge Mall area, Japanica). Staggering.
But I think the diners who’ll get the most out of this menu have a palate for straightforward Japanese food – sashimi (raw fish), sushi (rice and raw fish), tempura, et cetera. The Chinese and Thai choices, with the exception of a spicy Thai green curry, are middling.
I like to christen an Asian meal, especially Japanese, with dumplings. It’s a warm, soothing beginning. The menu offers different ways to get there – a couple of Japanese choices (shumai ($5) and gyoza ($5) – the former, a steamed dumpling; the latter, like a pot sticker) and a couple of pan-fried or steamed dumplings. My favorite is the seasoned pork-filled gyoza. These are tender pillows, browned slightly, moist and drenched in sweet saltiness after a dunk in the soy-based dipping sauce.
The Japanese dishes are mostly, as Japanese food tends to be, a vision in raw. On the menu, my sushi/sashimi combo (for one) is listed two items above the Asiana Love Boat, another raw item. The boat has the sexy name, but the combo is a beaut ($24). It features flawless pieces of buttery sashimi served two ways: solo and laid on clumps of sweet sushi rice. The firm texture and mild flavor (of the salmon, red snapper, striped bass, two kinds of tuna, et al) make every bite a treat. The pepper tuna appetizer is seared slices of fish with a crushed pepper crust ($10). The texture is firm but nicely pliant. Sweet-salty from a bath of soy sauce, the tuna has a controlled jolt of heat from the wasabi mayonnaise. Practice your agility with chopsticks by picking up the stem-like pieces of crisp-fried soft-shell crab. These firm bites stand upright in a thick, somewhat syrupy (but appealing) sweet-chile sauce ($11).
Of the nori rolls (cylinders of rice and seaweed filled with raw fish, vegetables and condiments), the special rolls have more flair and flavor, like the Asiana roll – spicy tuna, yellowtail and a tempura crunch inside, a slice of dark-pink tuna laid on top of each slice ($16). The basic spicy tuna roll, by contrast, is the antithesis of its name ($5.50). I have to use a lot of the accompanying wasabi and pickled ginger to create interest on my tongue.
The menu, as I’ve said, is huge, the Japanese selections dwarfing the Chinese and Thai, but they’re there – dishes that pop up on many menus (General Tso’s chicken, Mongolian beef, pad Thai). The restaurant does a take on Chinese hot-and-sour soup, adding lemongrass, scallops and shrimp ($7). The soup doesn’t leave a throat burn the way a good hot-and-sour soup does, but it’s a compelling combination – like miso meets hot-and-sour. General Tso’s battered chicken is doused in a flavorless bright-orange sauce ($14). The panang (green) curry is creamy and fiery, with enough flavor to balance the spiciness ($15), but it’s odd there’s no directive listed on the menu about the heat level. The waiter doesn’t ask, but we specify hot, and the smooth coconut milk sauce seethes.
The Foo dogs guarding the entrance symbolize value and energy. They are said to ward off evil (like restaurant competition?). For now, Asiana dominates the strip malls in the busy Capitol Drive area just east of Highway 16. With a menu that reads like an encyclopedia, it may do well there. Lake Country is hungry.
Asiana, 1198 George Towne Dr. (east of Highway 16), Pewaukee, 262-695-3888.
Hours: L Mon-Sat 11 a.m.-2:30 p.m. D Mon-Thurs 4:30-10 p.m.; Fri 4:30-11 p.m.; Sat 2:30-11 p.m.; Sun 12-10 p.m.
Prices: appetizers, soups, salads $3-$12; entrées $10-$35; desserts $3-$5.
Service: friendly, hardworking.
Dress: whatever works for you.
Handicap Access: yes.
Nonsmoking Dining Rooms.
Credit Cards: M V A DS D.
Reservations: accepted.
