Kaya

 Located at 3925 Sedgebrook Street in High Point, Kaya offers Korean and Japanese cuisine. Lunch specials are available.

 

Tucked into a shopping center off 68 near the High Point-Greensboro border, Kaya hits a number of hidden gem checkboxes: it’s unassuming and easily overlooked, it’s family-run and popular among locals, and the food is, by and large, good. That said, I would hesitate to give this place a rave.

 

A no-frills establishment, Kaya is nevertheless quiet and clean. It offers a familiar selection of hibachi dishes, but Korean is the main draw here. A large, pictorial Korean menu greets you upon entry. For those seeking authenticity, dishes like spicy squid or braised pig trotters let you know that you are in the right place.

My wife and I opted to split a seafood pancake, a bimimbap, and a spicy pork. As expected, they came with an array of banchan, and portions were plentiful. Though food quality varied, nothing was worse than average. The spicy pork was delicious. It was served hot with onions and slathered in a delectable sauce. The seafood pancake’s dough-to-seafood ratio favored the former though it was still tasty. That said, the bimimbap was a mixed bag. I appreciated the array of vegetables included though it was fairly light on meat. It also was not served sizzling, but that was my fault for not realizing that I needed to order the dol sot (stone pot) version.

 

Staff here are polite, but they will leave you alone unless you specifically request something. Chalk it up to custom rather than any kind of intentional indifference. For what Kaya charges (entrees in the teens), the plastic silverware and styrafoam cups felt like penny-pinching.

 

The variety of Kaya’s offerings and the quality of the spicy pork alone make me want to give this place another chance, but I would probably opt for takeout rather than dine-in in the future.

Chez Genese

 

Located at 616 South Elm St. in Downtown Greensboro, Chez Genese serves French cuisine for breakfast and lunch from 8 a.m to 2 p.m. daily. Reservations are not accepted, tipping is not expected (the staff earns a living wage), and takeout may not be available during peak hours. Catering is available, and Chez Genese regularly hosts community events.

 

Like A Special Blend, Chez Genese provides employment to adults with developmental and intellectual disabilities. While that is a commendable mission, a good story alone does not a good restaurant make. A tantalizing menu full of well-executed dishes is a powerful draw, however, and here is where Chez Genese shines.

 

One of the few area eateries to offer French fare, Chez Genese provides a strong representation thereof. Crepes, quiches, tarts, and charcuterie are all accounted for, the rotating daily lunch specials include things like bouillabaisse or beef burgundy, eggs come in everything from omelets to cocottes (cups) to tartines, and, of course, croissants and baguettes are available as well. Good luck trying to make a decision when it all sounds so good.

 

For our late breakfast visit, my wife and I ultimately went with lemon ricotta pancakes and a smoked salmon with dill crème fraiche omelet, respectively. We (thankfully) didn’t have too long a wait for our food, and what arrived at the table was plated beautifully. The omelet, though firmer than expected, was not overdone, and its flavors were excellent. Its accompanying fruit plate was fresh and varied, and a baguette offered a nice combination of crusty and chewy. We were concerned that the pancakes would prove too sweet, but the lemon notes thankfully added balance. A homemade blueberry syrup paired well with them.

 

“French” is often conflated with “fancy and expensive,” but that was not the case here. Chez Genese has a casual café vibe, and pricing proved fairly reasonable. Each breakfast dish ran in the teens and offered plenty of food. Servers were pleasant as well.

 

That being said, Chez Genese is not terribly large, and it keeps quite busy. You could be in for a wait without much room to actually stand and wait. Though not uncomfortably loud, the ambiance here can best be described as “bustling.”

 

Should you be able to snag a seat, Chez Genese offers one of the best breakfasts in the area. I look forward to eventually trying them out for lunch.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

 

After helping to save the world, Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), the Avenger known as Ant-Man, has settled into life as an author/speaker and a father to his teenage daughter Cassie (Kathryn Newton). Inspired by her surrogate grandparents’ (Michael Douglas and Michelle Pfeiffer) adventures in the subatomic Quantum Realm, Cassie builds a device that can send a signal to it, which ends up trapping her and her family there instead. Once inside, they find themselves caught in a conflict between a motley group of rebels and Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors), a despot exiled from the surface world who has a history with Janet van Dyne (Pfeiffer) that she has kept hidden, upsetting her daughter Hope (Evangeline Lilly).

 

Up to this point, the Ant-Man films have been both fun and funny yet fairly disposable. They’ve boasted a likable performance from Rudd, a few laughs and exciting stunts, and precious little in the way of character depth or dramatic heft. The third entry in the series is a longer and darker affair, but much like Pfeiffer’s character, it cannot escape its past. The result is a film schizophrenically torn between trying to remain fun and trying to up the stakes, and while still quite watchable, it doesn’t really succeed at either.

 

Quantumania is, in a way, a victim of Marvel’s success and its own strengths. The Quantum Realm is a strange and colorful place, full of bright lights and bizarre-looking beings (and Bill Murray as a sleazy ex-rebel leader), which would be impressive had we not been entreated to the mind-bending visuals of the Doctor Strange films or the weird aliens of the Guardians of the Galaxy films. Majors and Pfeiffer give strong performances. The former is cold and cerebral yet still physically formidable, a man whose dominion over time has left him isolated while the latter is hellbent on not repeating past mistakes. Unfortunately, this makes the other performances seem weaker in comparison. Rudd nails affable everyman perfectly, but his angrily protective father never quite lands, and while Corey Stoll’s version of classic comic book antagonist MODOK (a giant-headed cyborg with a vast array of weapons) hits the character’s grandiosity but otherwise feels like a waste. Even the film itself seems to realize how ill-equipped it is for its ambitions. As Majors dismissively tells Rudd, “I am Kang. You talk to ants.”

 

So why watch it? Maybe Majors’s Kang is a big enough draw. Maybe Pfeiffer, Douglas, and Murray appeal to your nostalgia. Maybe you’ve enjoyed the Rudd-Lilly chemistry up to this point. Maybe you want to see what a third actress stepping into the role of Cassie can do with more screen time. Maybe you’re willing to sit through this chapter of the on-screen Marvel saga to get to the next. Or maybe, given Quantumania’s disparate nature, the half of the film that appeals to you is enough to make you overlook the half that doesn’t.