Still #1

After learning that I won a prestigious scholarship, I wanted to celebrate with Cashew. And what better place to go than our favorite restaurant in Atlanta? So it was time for our second visit to Pura Vida!

In the spirit of a real celebration, we started off the night with drinks. The caipirinha attracted my attention because it's made with limes and I love sour, lime-containing drinks. As expected, it was amazing. Cashew got the signature Pura Vida cocktail. The name skips my mind right now, but I think it was "Sex with Santiago." We had gotten a free sample from it after flirting with the bartender during our first visit there, so now she wanted the full version. Something you'd never guess from the menu or even by drinking it is that it contains a raw egg! Cashew and I know just because we're best buds with the bartender ;) The drink is great, not slimy at all. By the way, both drinks had just the right amount of alcohol.

For food, we wanted to further explore the exhaustive menu and try things we didn't get the first time. It was hard to pass some of our favorites, but we came up with five new options: Peruvian blue tilapia crudo, charred mushrooms, fall over chayote, mofongo con "carne frita," and chivo al vino en fufu. The tilapia was lightly cured and salty. I didn't mind the saltiness, and I don't think it was overwhelming. I think, despite being cured, the fish tasted really fresh. Just like some of the other dishes we got that night, it came with foam on top. After watching Food Network obsessively, I know that foam is actually really hard to make, and is one of the biggest trends in the food industry right now. I'm glad to see that Chef Santiago is up to date with what's cool in the culinary world :)

We got the charred mushrooms despite the fact that I didn't even like mushrooms up until a few months ago. Well, dishes like this one made me like them. The mushrooms seemed more like sauteed in butter than charred. Whatever the preparation method, they had an amazing taste and simply melted in your mouth. If all mushrooms tasted like that, I doubt I would have avoided them. [Note to Pumpkin: they taste like the mushrooms my mom made once.]

The reason we ordered the chayote was because we didn't know what half the ingredients were :P It was a chance to try something different. It is basically a salad made of a type of squash with tofu on the side, pepitas (pumpkin-like seeds), and calabaza puree (whatever calabaza is...). The dressing was umeboshi sauce (whatever umeboshi is...). The salad reminds of Vietnamese salads in style, but was a bit too sour. By the way, the tofu was cooked perfectly, and was much better than the famed tofu at Top Flr which was one of the 100 dishes to try in Atlanta.

Speaking of the 100 dishes to eat in Atlanta, the mofongo was on the list as well! I think mofongo is basically mashed up bananas that have been formed into balls and fried. Honestly, I don't remember much what they tasted like. I had really high hopes for this dish, but I was disappointed. The mofongo was unmemorable. On the bright side, it also had foam, and the pork was really really tender and flavorful.

Finally, the chivo dish was a type of giant dumpling. The Chef again showed off his creativity by fusing Italian (the polenta), French (slow-cooked meat in wine, here goat) and Asian (the dumpling) elements. Just like the pork before, the goat was perfectly cooked and was extremely tender. In case you've never had goat meat before, it tends to be tough and needs special preparations to tenderize it. I was very impressed with how it turned out in this dish.

So after trying 11 different dishes on two different occasions at Pura Vida, I'm glad to say that I still consider it the best restaurant in Atlanta. And the good news is, there are more items on the menu I need to try!