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| - 3.5 stars. I've had the Kaya burger in the past as well as brunch yesterday. Kaya focuses on an "island" theme to their food and is located in the Strip District at the corner of 20th and Smallman St.
Brunch on Sunday starts at 11 AM. My companion and I decided to sit outdoors since it was a rare beautiful day of mid-November in Pittsburgh. We started out with their smoked salmon appetizer and their Jamaican Jerk chicken wings. For entrees I got the Kaya Benedict.
I ordered the smoked salmon b/c I like beginning my meals with some sort of cured meat, either a smoked salmon or some sort of antipasto. The smoked salmon appetizer came out with a large serving of smoked salmon topped with minced onion, cilantro, a drizzle of creme fraiche and two fresh tortillas from Reyna's Foods right down the street. We added the Jamaican Jerk chicken wings and it was definitely a good decision. Typically chicken wings are fried and then tossed in a sauce. These wings were super flavorful and crispy; I think they were marinated and then baked? I'll ask next time I'm there. The lime cilantro sauce was creamy and full of cilantro, but I would have liked a bit more lime for a little more zing.
The Kaya Benedict didn't meet my expectations at all. It was cornbread with roast pork topped with poached eggs and hollandaise sauce. The cornbread was sweet but it just didn't fit into the dish at all and clashed with the roast pork and the egg. It's texture was soft and made the entire entree mushy... The roast pork too... completely uninspiring. It came with grilled pineapple, which was pretty good as well as their house hash brown, which was a plated as a weird mound with slight crustiness on the outside and mainly mush inside. The spices of it just didn't click with me.
The Kaya burger though, is one of Kaya's saving graces (along with their happy hour). I ordered it medium rare and it came topped with bacon, avacado, tomato, cheese, special sauce, and a sunny side up egg. It comes with a side of chips, but you can substitute their side salad if you want. Gourmet burgers are always interesting because the chef's choice in combination of toppings and the bun shows a representation of his/her cooking style. As someone who views himself as a burger purist, I'm not too familiar with gourmet burgers in general, but the Kaya burger did impress me.
I'd probably just stick munching on some appetizers with drinks during their weekday happy hour from 5-7 PM.
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