Best New Restaurant in Broward

The best new restaurant in Broward County never sent out a press release. It didn't cost $2.2 million to open. It doesn't have a celebrity chef, and waiters do not ferry convoluted cocktails to tables full of PR ladies clutching Kate Spade handbags. There are no "small plates." No ceviche either. Or anything -- alcoholic or not -- called a "martini." The menu is not divided into sections and subsections with poetic titles, ecstatic blurbs about a chef who worked in Paris and Manhattan, or overwrought explanations about technique. This menu has two almost bafflingly understated categories: "Japanese" and "Thai." That and a blackboard of specials that you may have to squint to read. But in the gaping void left by an utter lack of braggadocio, here's what you might find on an average night at Kaiyo: (1) boned, stuffed, deep-fried chicken wings served with a subtle homemade chile dip ($5.95); (2) crab Rangoon with fruit sauce -- deluxe, peppery, and crabfull -- that should make other restaurants serving Rangoon weep with shame ($5.95); (3) a spicy Thai seafood salad ($7.95) that has been known to temporarily silence the most inveterate blabbermouth; (4) a Thai cook in the kitchen who won't reveal the ingredients in, or sources of, her secret recipes; (5) squid stuffed with ground pork and served in ginger sauce with bright vegetables; (6) a sushi chef who sometimes makes up brilliant roll combinations involving mangos and oranges on the spot; (7) a list of sauces (peanut, basil, red curry, garlic, ginger) that all actually taste completely and enchantingly different; (8) lovely service performed by lovely people; and (9) a menu where -- excepting the big sushi boats and the occasional market price fish -- no single item tops $14.95.