Kokita – Asian Dining in Sweetwater Tennessee

Once again we were scooped on a restaurant we hadn’t heard about.  As usual our friends Linda and Norm beat us to it… We love Asian food, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Thai specialties, sashimi, sushi and more!  No sooner had we heard about Kokita, and we were on our way for dinner…

This restaurant doesn’t exactly grab your eye from the outside.  Kokita is occupying part of a space that was formerly an antique/craft mall style operation.

The restaurant is big and colorful with a lot of seating!  There are booths for 2 or 4, tables for 2 or 4 and on the raised platform along the wall in the first photo you can see 2 different styles of seating where patrons are actually sitting on ‘seats’ that are right at ground level. (Aka. Japanese ‘Zashiki’ seating) If I tried sitting at one of those tables, I’d need a crane to get me up.  I’m sure that younger, more flexible and adventurous diners will use this special and traditional seating but no one did while we were there.

Of course, even more seating is provided at the Sushi Bar at the back of the restaurant.  I’m not sure how well a sushi bar will be patronized in a small town like Sweetwater but we like the idea!

We ‘had to try’ a variety of items.  This was the Roti Canai…Indian flat bread served with curry chicken for dipping. ($4.98) The curry chicken was like soup and it was very tasty.  The only issue we had with this appetizer was that one piece of the nice flat bread just didn’t get the job done.  We solved that issue by dipping other appetizers in the curry and eating the rest of it with a spoon!

As I stated above, we tried a lot of different items.  This was the Kokita Platter. ($9.59) From the left, there are the Pork Spring Rolls, Chicken Satay skewers, fried Pork Gyoza (pot stickers) and Crab Rangoon.  At the top of the photo there was plum sauce, peanut sauce and soy sauce?

Laurie liked the Pork Spring Rolls, but with my admittedly limited palate, I wasn’t crazy about them.  We both agreed that the Chicken Satay were OK but the chicken was too dry. (I solved that by dipping mine in the Chicken Curry that came with the Roti Canai) The Fried Pork Gyoza were very good and Laurie did like her Crab Rangoon.

Laurie loves sushi so we also ordered a Philadelphia Roll. ($6.50) Philadelphia Rolls are called a ‘makizushi’ type of sushi.  It was made with sticky rice, smoked salmon, cream cheese and avocado with sesame seeds.  As you can see, it was served with wasabi and ginger and soy sauce. We both thought that this was a tasty and satisfying finale for our appetizer regime!   

For her entrée, Laurie ordered one of her standard favorites…the Szechuan Beef. ($11.99) It was plentiful and she liked it a lot.  After all of our appetizers, she brought half of her dinner home for a future luncheon.

I ordered my ‘go to’ Chinese entrée…General Tso’s Chicken. ($11.99) FYI, we learned something new…this dish is pronounced “so’s”, with the ‘t’ being silent. 

This dish is described as “lightly breaded” chicken cooked in a sweet and spicy sauce served with broccoli.  First of all, describing my chicken as being ‘lightly breaded’ doesn’t really match reality.  The chicken was heavily breaded…but even that would have been OK except for the fact that it was over cooked and the chef apparently didn’t believe I could possibly want it extra spicy.

I’ve eaten a lot of General Tso’s chicken and in this case the chicken ‘nuggets’ were so hard it was hard to separate the larger chunks before eating them.  I took home about half of the order, doused it with soy sauce and a bit of spice/heat…and nuked it in the microwave for lunch a couple of days later.

Despite an issue or two, we liked the atmosphere of this restaurant as well as  the variety of Asian food options featured on its huge menu.  Our waitress was helpful and pleasant.  We will return.  FYI, the on-line menu isn’t close to complete, perhaps just listing lunch items.  Kokita is located at 501 North Main Street in Sweetwater Tennessee.  Phone: 865-924-5843.  Website: https://www.kokitarestaurant.com/.

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave