aria.

we're ready for yet another stop on the chicago top chef restaurant tour ...

this time we went to aria : "a new world asian experience" by chef beverly kim, the chef de cuisine... we saw her wandering about the restaurant floor. so that was obviously exciting.

i have been looking forward to going to aria for a very long time ... mostly because chef kim's menu has a vegan item on it regularly. yay!

here's what i had.

garden greens :

icicle radish, asian pear, tomato & carrot-ginger vinaigrette.
this salad was great. fresh and light. and i had never had (to my knowledge) icicle radish or asian pear, so that was fun + exciting. (yes, i know that sounds lame... but these are the kinds of things that are exciting for vegans!)

vegan singapore :

tofu, snap peas, curry, coconut & peanut.
 one word = yum. this was a delish vegan dish. there were noodles of some sort on the bottom to give the plate more bulk (obviously a like on my part).

a few more specifics about this dish:

 - a perfect size portion.

- in my opinion, not enough tofu... i actually can't remember there being any on the dish, to be honest. 

- the best part... this dish doesn't have a real sauce or anything on it... instead, the flavors of the fresh ingredients are what give taste to this dish. a vegan dream.

so overall, aria is pretty great... and i would definitely head back in the future. hoping that chef kim keeps her vegan dishes on the menu!