Aja in two takes

This week is Buckhead restaurant week. That means that participating restaurants offer 3 course meals at a pre-set cheap price. When most areas of Atlanta have it, the prices of the menus are usually $15 or $25. But because Buckhead needs to uphold its glitzy and pretentious reputation, its restaurants offer dinner for $25 or $35.

Anyway, on Friday night Cashew and I decided to try Aja, a so-called Asian fusion restaurant, i.e., they admit they serve Americanized Asian food... Well, the menu did look amazing, so we were excited to try it. For appetizers, we chose the Green mango salad with dried beef and the Spicy Cambodian fish soup. I liked my soup. It was light (read, no coconut milk) and not over-salty. The mango salad didn't have any mango flavor, so I was a little disappointed. I liked the dry beef, but Cashew says that it wasn't as good as traditional Vietnamese dried beef. Sometimes it is advantageous to never have tried the original version :P

Our entrees were the striped bass and the Masaman curry with beef. I loved both dishes. The bass tasted like really good pork, but with the light texture of fish. Sounds impossible, but I swear that's what it seemed like to me. The bass came on a field of rice with some kind of pesto. Again, the rice was really really light, especially compared to the sticky rice I got with my curry. As to the curry, it was the best Masaman curry I've had. Well, I have to admit that the only other place I've had curry is at Top Spice, and it is not a place for light food... Again, Cashew pointed out that real Masaman curry is better than what I got. It seems like I need to find a way to try more traditional Asian food...

Finally, our desserts were the Mango lassi and a parfait with pomegranate seeds and pistachios. The mango lassi was amazing. It tasted as if it was made with real fruit and not some weird juice concentrate. The same can't be said about the parfait :( I do like plain yogurt that's pretty sour, but the parfait had a really weird sour flavor that I couldn't figure out. Well, the pomegranate seeds and pistachios saved what it would have been an uneatable dessert...

The title of this post is "Aja in two takes." That's because I went to Aja today as well... Yup, that's right. I was supposed to meet up some friends from school for dinner, and they ended up making a reservation for Aja... The other choices on the $25 menu didn't seem too appealing to me, so this time I ordered off the regular menu. I got the miso soup and the wok-seared tuna with sauteed greens. The miso soup wasn't much better or worse than any other miso soup I've had. Haha, maybe miso soup is a fool-proof item that's impossible to mess up.

The tuna was pretty good, but not the best I've had (that honor is still held by Pura Vida). It was well seared, but it seemed a little dry. The sauteed greens were amazing, though. They consisted mostly of bok choi and something that looked like spinach (or a similar plant). They weren't soaked in oil, yet they had plenty of moisture. They were perfect!

While there were some good dishes at Aja, I'm pretty sure I won't go back. The two things I really liked, the tuna and bass, could be found at most good restaurants. I guess I'm not too excited about the idea of fusion Asian cuisine. The regular dinner menu at Aja had a section called dim sum. However, most all but 1-2 items in that section were not what I would think of dim sum. Aja did make me crave dim sum again, so I hope I can have it soon!

P.S. Especially for Pumpkin, I edited the pictures I took on Friday with my phone. I did remember to bring my camera today :)