Kaisen restaurant offers authentic Japanese, Korean food

Nov. 12, 2019 | Danielle Eaton
DanielleE@thereminder.com

Owners of Kaisen Restaurant Trang le, Louis Ryu and Dong Kim stand with Agawam officials during the grand opening of the restaurant.
Reminder Publishing submitted photo

AGAWAM – A new restaurant is offering Agawam residents a taste of authentic Japanese and Korean food.

Owners Trang Le, Louis Ryu and Dong Kim officially opened the doors of Kaisen on Oct. 27 after six months of work and setup. Kaisen is the second restaurant the trio opened together. The first, Kisara, opened two years ago in Easthampton and is still a popular dining spot.

Le, a resident of Hadley, told Reminder Publishing they chose Agawam as the location for the restaurant because “there’s not too many locations for sushi, ramen and hibachi around here,” he said. “So we want to bring something healthy and delicious to the community.”

Le, Ryu and Kim had originally planned to open the restaurant in September but ran into some issues, which pushed back the opening nearly two months.

“So we got delayed like two months later than expected. We expected to open in September, but there were some issues with the electric. We had to delay to almost the end of October.”

Despite the delayed opening, Le said business has been “quite steady.” Kaisen offers customers a variety of authentic dishes and foods including sushi, hibachi, curry, poke bowls, salads, ramen and more.

During winter months, Le noted, ramen tends to be a popular dish for customers. Sushi, he said, is popular all year. He also spoke highly of what he said is a “signature Korean dish” called bibimbap. On the menu bibimbap is described as “steamed rice in [a] stone pot with sliced vegetables, marinated beef, fried egg, with spicy sauce.”

Other popular dishes, he said, include “Korean bulgogi which is very popular spicy pork and chicken katsu are popular. But chicken katsu is Japanese, it’s crispy chicken in a sauce, like a plum sauce. It’s a little sour, sweet but more like sour flavor.”

Le said one thing that makes Kaisen unique is their team and the quality they try to provide for customers.

“It’s our team, because we try to provide a consistent food quality with fresh ingredients. We go to Boston like every week, like twice to get fresh fish and bring it here,” he said. “Also we import some, we bought some fish from a Japanese company in Korea to make sure it stays authentic.”

Le said their focus is trying to provide a casual dining space, and offering takeout during lunch for surrounding businesses. “Our main focus is to provide a space for casual dining for the locals, people around here and takeout, especially for lunch, because as you can see there are a lot of companies around here,” he told Reminder Publishing.

He also said there are a lot of combination meals on the menu, which makes a “great value for customers.”

Head Chef, Antonino Martin, said the menu offers “something for everyone” and has “lots of variety” including vegetarian and gluten free options.

Martin said they’re “keeping the public in mind” and had already made some minor adjustments based on the feedback they’d received. He said, “I love working with these five. We’re going to do great things in Agawam.”­­

Kaisen is located at 1325 Springfield St. in Feeding Hills.

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