No love for Noche

I met an old friend for dinner at Noche tonight. I hadn't been since a good friend who was hooked on $1 Dos Equis moved to Africa a few years back.

From memory, Noche was squarely in the Srat/Frat-People-with-Real-Jobs category for me. Not really my scene. A lot of VaHi is like that these days. Seems that as they age, they migrate south from Buckhead.

Anyway, the atmosphere on a Wednesday evening was nicer than I remember. It wasn't too crowded for us to be seated immediately a little after 7. I liked the soundtrack (though it was definitely in the aging Srat/Frat genre), but after about 8, it got too loud. I guess as the restaurant filled up, they were trying to convince folks not to linger.

The server was friendly and gave us a bunch of recommendations--especially important when eating tapas as there are so freaking many choices! I was a little concerned because 75% of the recommended items were breaded and fried, but we had plenty to work with, at least.

We started with drinks--I had the Noche margarita and my companion had the pineapple upside-down martini. My margarita was kind of watery, and left not a whiff of tequila on my tongue. I hate weak margaritas. My friend reported that her martini was good, though. Maybe I just picked the wrong drink.

First course:
Chicken ravioli special-solid. It came in a nice cream sauce with roasted corn. The filling was more spinachy than chickeny, but it was tasty.
Calamari-mediocre. The big loops of squid look promising! But the flavor didn't deliver. The breading was bland, it was slathered in this heavy aioli and the salsa dipping sauce didn't work. It also needed salt. With salt and a squeeze of lemon, it was better than mediocre, but I don't think it achieved average.

Second course:
Fried green tomatoes-Breading was gritty and too-dry, sauce was thick and kind of dry and the manchego was wasted, I thought. Mmm...manchego.

BBQ salmon-the fish was cooked well, but the BBQ sauce kind of tasted like Kroger brand or something. The jicama salad that came with it was AWESOME, though. Very summery--cold, crisp, well-seasoned. The jicama salad was the best thing we ate.

Third course:
Dessert trio-
Bread pudding-Delicious. Moist, caramely and everything a bread pudding should be. The ice cream improved it, but again, it was sort of Kroger brand.
Flan-Ick. The texture was okay, but it had a really strong liquor bite to it that was not at all pleasant.
Chocolate mousse-like stuff-Respectable and wholly worth the calories I ingested for it. Chocolatey, creamy, really nice texture.

The price wasn't too bad--check was about $48 pre-tip. So, yeah, in the scheme of the neighborhood Noche is probably pretty decent for the type of food since it's pretty much surrounded by a sea of bar food, but for destination dining, get thee to Eclipse di Luna.