Yet another day of dining alone at lunch led me to Yuka Roll & Pho in Suwannee.  I had eaten in the Thai restaurant at the other end of this plaza, but had never been to Roll & Pho.  When I walked in, I was greeted by the two chefs behind the sushi bar (which comprises the right wall of the restaurant) and a server led me to a table.  The place was fairly full, equally split between Asian and Anglo diners and when I opened the menu, it was quite expansive.  There were four or five pages of sushi choices – and most of the folks around me were eating sushi (that 50% off rolls sign outside was apparently drawing them in), but I’m not much of a sushi guy.

There were a few “Chinese restaurant style” dishes, along with pho, udon and bento boxes.  After deliberating for a bit, I ordered the chicken udon (udon is a thick whole wheat noodle), which was served with garlic, radish, carrots, onions and broccoli.  At first sip, I thought, “This soup is hot!”  Pure heat hot.  I let it cool a bit, added some sriracha (for a different kind of heat), then carefully cut the chicken with my chop sticks, placed a piece in the spoon, added a noodle and dipped it in the bowl to fill it with sauce.  It was a good meal for a blustery day, although it was a bit pricey – a little under $13.00 with a Diet Coke.

As I was working on this blog post, I found several articles on line referencing to Yuka having been closed by the health department in the late spring for failing two consecutive health department inspections.  It appeared clean to me, but the violations, according to what I read, related to the kitchen and their food handling.  I can’t find any reference to exactly when they re-opened, but they were.  All that being said, I probably won’t be returning.