Out to eat: AmerAsia

Micah Wright, night manager and beer expert, stands ready behind the bar to explain the eclectic array of brews at KungFood AmerAsia in Covington.

Located in a nook along Covington’s Madison Avenue, KungFood Chu’s AmerAsia at first seems like a hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant, but looks can be deceiving.

Has there ever been a Chinese restaurant that proffered more than a 100 craft beers? Well, they do. Besides the booze, there’s also quite affordable food to pair with the beer. Finally, Eastern delicacies meet Western microbreweries.

The mood: On a weeknight, the place wasn’t buzzing like it does on the weekends but that just means the wait staff had more time to converse with their customers. The dining room can hold about 20 people while the bar area has a few chairs for those who really want to get to know resident bartender and beer expert Micah Wright.

Tonight, two other tables and a couple of the seats at the bar were taken up by the restaurant’s main clientele, hip twenty- and thirtysomethings who knew about the best kept secret in town. Kung Fu Panda and Enter the Dragon posters compliment the red-painted walls along with dangling Chinese lantern lamps and various graffiti artwork splashed on the walls around the bar.

The glass dining table tops house fish bowls with a live fish in it, magazines and various fortunes that give advice like, “Never set the tiger free if you live in the mountains.” On the lone TV, martial arts programming like a Jackie Chan movie screened followed by the Arnold Schwarzenegger flick Hercules in New York.

A blend of reggae and trip-hop music softly played in the background including a reggae cover of a Radiohead song.

The food: Chef Chu makes everything from scratch, which means there aren’t any frozen egg rolls here. Most entrees can be made with a protein of choice or made completely vegetarian.

The boyfriend and I began with a couple of appetizers. We ordered a veggie spring roll ($2.50), a cup of egg drop soup ($2.50) and a cold beef salad ($5). The beef’s marinated in ginger, sesame oil and is mixed with peppers and bamboo resulting in a smoky, flavorful dish.

For the main course, I ordered Pad Thai with tofu ($10) and he chose their special, squid in a pod ($14). In the Pad Thai, a whole fried egg plants itself among noodles smothered in brown sauce, and the squid comes in a metal pan that resembles its namesake. The food was delicious and everything, but the real star is the beer.

The drinks: AmerAsia doesn’t have any beers on draft – just bottles from all over the world. They have a happy hour list with the average bottle costing $3.50 and their regular list consists of beers between $4-$7. The usual craft beer suspects like seasonal versions of Goose Island, Rogue, Schlafly, Bell’s and Rivertown are available but more obscure breweries Ename and Anderson Valley incite curiosity.

A chalkboard announces rare reserves that range from $15-$25 for those beer-o-philes who want to splurge. Bartender Micah knows everything about each beer on the menu and he happily makes recommendations. A customer desired a hoppy beer, so he served him a Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale to his liking. Myself, I’m more into porters, so I ordered a Boulder Planet Porter and the boyfriend tried a Corsendonk Abbey Brown Ale from Belgium. My beer tasted like mocha coffee and went down smooth, but I preferred the Corsendonk’s dense, fizziness and fruity finish.

The verdict: Who would’ve known Chinese food and craft beer would merge together so seamlessly. My fortune read, “Look to your inner being for guidance.” But, if you replace “inner being” with “beer,” you will most certainly reach nirvana, AmerAsia style.