Almost great

In case I haven't mentioned it before, I love Scoutmob. This is a website/phone app that gives you deals at various vendors, including restaurants. I've chosen many of the places where I eat based on whether they have a Scoutmob discount or not... I also learn about new restaurants through the app. This was the case with Top Flr (no misspelling), a nice restaurant on Piedmont Rd., close to Georgia Tech.

Cashew and I made a run to Top Flr on a random week night just because we wanted to try it. It had some interesting items on the menu, but we came to an agreement about what we wanted pretty quickly. For appetizers, we had the Tuna tartar and the Purple and green cabbage salad. Both of those were AMAZING! The tuna tartar was served on top of flat bread, a presentation I hadn't seen before. It had aioli on top. If you remember, I vented once about how I don't like aioli. Well, the overall flavors and textures of the tuna tartar were so good that I didn't mind the aioli. My only slight complaint is that the taste of the tuna itself got lost in all the other ingredients. The salad, however, I have nothing negative to say about! It was sooo light and tasty. The dressing didn't overwhelm the dish, it had the perfect amount of Gorgonzola cheese, and the caramelized nuts and granola weren't too sweet. I could eat that salad every day. By the way, our waitress said the same thing.

After these two dishes, Cashew and I got really excited about the restaurant and even started comparing it to Pura Vida. So, we couldn't wait to try the entrees: duck breast and apple-orange tofu. I wouldn't usually order tofu in a restaurant, but this one was supposed to come with bok choy and eggplant (miso), two ingredients I love, so I was intrigued. We also ordered a side of quinoa with tomatoes and curried onions. Honestly, I was pretty disappointed with all three of these. The duck breast seemed so sad sitting only in some kind of jus. The tofu didn't have any flavor until you dipped it in the eggplant miso. The quinoa seemed underseasoned. The curried onions seemed very out of place in the quinoa dish because they represented a strong flavor in the middle of no flavor. That could have turned out ok if the curry flavor wasn't so overpowering by itself. Needless to say, the comparisons to Pura Vida didn't continue by the end of the night, and Pura Vida is still the best place in Atlanta!