Twenty-One Genres and How to Write Them

19 Review

19 Review example: Kamin Thai Cuisine: A Cache County “Must Try,” Whitney Olsen For a small Utah college town, Logan seems quite opposite of a place that would have a wonderful, exotic restaurant like Kamin Thai Cuisine. It is everything a restaurant should be—appetizing, accessible, attentive, attractive, and affordable. It has a menu that pleases both the adventure-phobe and the investigative palate. The restaurant is easy to get to from anywhere in Logan and surrounding areas. Kamin’s staff members are polite and helpful, and the location is cozy, clean, stylish, and comfortable. On top of it all, the menu items are both generously portioned and modestly priced. Appetizing: The Cuisine Kamin has delicious, beautifully-presented food. The restaurant serves a wide variety of tasty, traditional Thai dishes. I’ve experienced firsthand that almost anyone, picky or not, can find something amenable to their tastes at Kamin. From sweet to spicy, light to hearty, the cuisine suits many appetites. There Review     129 are plenty of appetizers (from spring rolls to calamari), drinks both familiar and exotic (from Pepsi products to Lychee juice and hot Thai tea), exotic salads , unique soups, lots of entrees, and typical Thai desserts. Any dish can be customized; a choice of meat is offered for most entrees, as is a choice of spice level—mild, medium, or spicy. The menu features a number of delectable noodle dishes. Kamin has a delightfully wide selection, from Pad Thai (rice noodles with a bright orange, sweet and tangy sauce), a better-known Thai dish, to Pad Woon Sen (cellophane noodles with garlic). A number of varieties of fried rice are available too, like the tangy Phuket Pineapple Fried Rice or the spicy Basil Fried Rice. Noodles and rice dishes are served with a choice of beef, pork, chicken, shrimp, or tofu so the dish can be customized for both mood and taste. Don’t think that dining at Kamin has to mean light entrées. For heartier meals, Kamin offers many meat dishes like Med Ma Muang and Pad Preaw Wan (the Thai versions of cashew stir-fry and sweet and sour, respectively). Kamin’s Thai curries are heavenly, awash with clean, fresh flavors like basil and coconut in contrast to the more common but heavier Middle Eastern and Indian curries. The restaurant’s rendition of the traditional massaman curry is a classic and delicious blend of coconut milk, tender potatoes, meat, and Thai spices. The menu can appeal to anyone, from the gourmet chef to the wary Thai restaurant first-timer. For palates like mine, which seek fresh combinations of flavors and a variety of carefully-prepared cuisines, Kamin is a perfect solution to my small-town-restaurant blues. Their chefs use all the requisite ethnic ingredients like basil, tamarind, lemongrass, garlic, scallions, fish sauce, coconut milk, Thai chilies, and tofu. The meats are tender, the noodles are cooked al dente, and the sauces are neither too thick nor too thin. From visit to visit, I can easily find a new blend of flavors to appeal to what my palate is searching for, or order my standby favorites like Pad Thai and the massaman curry. Accessible: Getting There, Staying There Located at 51 West 200 South, Kamin is just half a block off of Main Street, so it is easy to get to from anywhere in Logan, Providence, Smithfield, and is even a worthwhile drive from farther locations like Richmond and Hyrum. A sign on Main Street, on the corner near the Best Western Baugh Motel says “Kamin Thai Cuisine” and points west—that road is 200 South. The restaurant has its own small parking area, a bonus given the crowded parking conditions at numerous other restaurants, even in Logan. There is also plenty of room out on 200 South to park. Kamin has very usual hours for a restaurant: 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and 11:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. Kamin is also easily accessible by bus. Cache Valley Transit District has a bus stop just half a block west of the restaurant at 100 West 200 South. 130    Genres Attentive: Kamin’s Service I’ll admit it: if we visit Kamin on a slow night, we sometimes have to wait a few minutes for the host or hostess (who also functions as a server) to return to the podium...