The food at Chopsticks House Restaurant is as fresh as the daisies you’ll find in the vases on the table.

"That’s our trademark and our primary ingredient," said Jerry Zaks, one of the four owners of the restaurant. "All of our food is fresh daily. We don’t carry anything over from one day to the next. If it hasn’t been consumed by the end of the day, it’s thrown out."

Three of the owners of Chopsticks Restaurant, (l to r) Jerry Zaks,
Nataya and Santaya Pleesonti, await customers outside the Cutler Towne eatery

You’ll find Chopsticks House Restaurant in the middle of the Old Town Centre at 20553 Old Cutler Rd. It’s a dual-menu restaurant offering both Thai and Chinese cuisine, with daily luncheon specials from both sides of the menu priced from $4.95 to $5.95.

If you like curry, try the Gang Dang on the Thai side of the menu. It is a delicious blend of sliced chicken, pork or beef cooked with red curry, coconut milk, bamboo shoots and sweet peppers. If you like your Chinese food spicy, you’ll like the Hunan chicken, pork or beef, with cabbage and water chestnuts in a light, but tangy sauce.

"All of our Chinese dishes have a Thai influence," Zaks said. "They’re less heavy and a little sweeter and tastier than you’ll find in other restaurants."

Zaks is a partner in Chopsticks House with the Pleesonti family — Candy, her son, Santaya, and his wife, Nataya — which hails from Thailand. They opened Chopsticks about five years ago and it has become well-known for its cuisine throughout south Miami-Dade county.

"People come here all the time from Brickell, Coral Gables and Coconut Grove," Zaks said. "We’re so far away from those places, it’s really a tribute to our food to have people from those areas come here and then keep coming back."

Aside from the freshness of the food, Zaks said another secret to the restaurant’s success is the preparation of the different sauces.

"All of our sauces are delicious and have been developed over the course of years. There’s a lot of work that goes into preparing these sauces and they really make the food taste great. Of course, we also use the finest quality meats and trim away all the fat."

Reservations are not necessary in the 30-seat restaurant. Seating is on a first-come first-served basis and it can get a little crowded on weekends. They’re open daily for lunch from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and for dinner from 5 to 9 p.m., with an extension until 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. Lunch is not served on Sunday. For more information call 305-254-0080.

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