Start with dessert. It’s not often such a thing is recommended, but when the desserts are as delicious as they are at Lemongrass, it’s important to make sure you have enough room in your belly to savor every bit of them.
The mainstay Thai restaurant at Aria, which also delves into the cuisine of other Asian countries including China, Singapore and Malaysia, does many dishes well, but some of the best are the sweet courses. Bua loi features rice flour dumplings in a coconut milk broth that is so comforting. Coconut ice cream is a simple name for a dessert with many components. The namesake ice cream sits on top of coconut sticky rice and is flanked by shaved coconut, coconut jelly, black jelly and jackfruit.
The coconut desserts reinforce a flavor found throughout the menu and Thai cuisine. Tom Kha soup, for instance, features the exotic flavor permeating the broth. It is mixed with lemongrass and galangal to add layers to a mellow base. Abalone mushrooms are cut into fat chunks. Thick and meaty, they are the perfect vessel to pick up those other flavors.
For those looking for a little more smoke to their protein, check out the extensive satay menu with the highlights being the seafood skewers. Both the prawn and lobster satay are delectable, and the peanut sauce that accompanies them adds another delicious element. The cucumber, onion and jalapeño side salad is an excellent palate cleanser between bites.
Main courses are plentiful. Don’t skip the ribeye steak with tamarind sauce. The medium rare meat is perfectly cooked and enhanced greatly by the tropical sweetness of the tamarind. Maine lobster is torn apart and wok tossed with either ginger and scallions or salt and pepper. It is presented as if the whole crustacean is sitting on your plate after its wok fry, making for a striking visual element.
Similar staging is found on the crab fried rice, with the fried soft-shell crab sitting on top of the traditional rice. The rice is also full of lump crabmeat for those looking for a deeper taste of the sea. If that doesn’t fill your hankering for ocean creatures, the drunken noodle with seafood certainly will. Flat, thicker rice noodles are stir fried and pick up all the spices they are cooked with. Shrimp, scallop and squid stud the dish, giving seafood lovers an abundance from under the sea.
The restaurant features six curries with a choice of duck, beef, seafood or vegetables to round out the thick, stew-like comfort food. Red curry features coconut milk, pineapple, basil, bell pepper, bamboo shoots and Thai eggplant and pops with bold tastes.
Wash everything down with a creative cocktail like the Ginger Peach, a tall refresher that uses black tea as its base and adds to it Absolut Peach vodka, Domaine de Canton ginger liqueur, fresh citrus and fresh ginger.
Bookend your meal with a second coconut dessert. Yes, it’s that good.
Aria, 11 a.m.-2 a.m. daily. 877.230.2742
