Restaurant Review: Naya Bistro & Lounge in Highland Heights, Ohio

So recently I haven’t been giving out many glowing reviews of restaurants in the Cleveland area. What’s the deal here people? I don’t think it is because my expectations have increased to unreasonable or non-attainable levels. The food that has been presented just hasn’t been very good. In my view, if it is on the menu, it should be made well with all the ingredients working together. For many places, I’ll give them some additional props for good service, a clean and well put together restaurant and all the other little things that make a meal special. If those are missing and there are sub-par meals delivered to the diner, the review won’t be overly positive. Take the Burntwood Tavern in Chagrin Falls for example. My food was not good (particularly for the price) and the other meals were mediocre. The place looked great though, and I gave them recognition of that. But the food wasn’t up to snuff, the table was dirty and the customer service was lacking.  All things were noted and the review wasn’t positive.  Same goes for Hiroshi’s Pub- again, poor service, bad food and a strange environment to eat in.  I was hoping that things would be different at the Naya Bistro in Highland Heights.  Let’s take a closer look.

When you walk into Naya, it has a fresh feel and is relatively inviting. The bar is well stocked and there is plenty of sunlight that shines into the restaurant through the massive wall of windows.  I have read that the restaurant was made with “green” building materials and discontinued furniture and fixtures.  Sounds great and the restaurant really does look nice when you walk in.  You can tell that there has been thought put into the overall layout and construction.

A friend and I stopped here for lunch after unsuccessfully trying to find the Dim & den sum truck in the area.  Naya should probably have been our first choice, but the idea was a great backup plan.  As we sat down at the bar, I looked around and noted that there were only three tables filled at 12:35 in the afternoon which is the prime lunch hour.  Hmm…

Let me start off by saying that the offerings on the menu look incredible. Just by reviewing the menu it is clear that a lot of time and tons of thought went into the dishes.  I have found more and more restaurants recently with mediocre to poor creativity displayed from their chefs. You will not find that at Naya Bistro. Most of the dishes have really interesting flavor combinations and there is an incredible depth of vegetarian options that you simply don’t find at many restaurants these days.  I give Naya Bistro full credit for carefully thinking through their menu and working on some really great sounding dishes.

It took us a solid ten minutes to figure out what we were going to sample for our lunch because so many things looked interesting to try. My friend who was with me at lunch is a vegetarian, so he went with the Baked Eggplant with goat cheese and tomato puree to start. I started with the Carpaccio Sushi with blue cheese and roasted peppers. We decided to split the Mushroom Pita and Vegetable Burger since we were both interested in those dishes and the manager said that both were good sellers.

The eggplant dish was clearly marinated in some type of oil based marinade. It arrived and looked nice on the plate, but had a very greasy feel. The best bites are those that are completely loaded with tomato and goat cheese, otherwise it just tastes like some heavily oiled eggplant. The tomato puree was under seasoned, probably intentionally since it would be expected to be eaten with the goat cheese which is naturally salty. The goat cheese ran out before the eggplant or the tomato, so the last couple bites just tasted blah.

Grilled eggplant with goat cheese and tomato puree. Photo by Scott Groth

I was psyched for my Carpaccio Sushi. It arrived looking great on a very cool plate which separated out the sweet soy. There were six rolls on the plate. I asked the manager for some chop sticks to which he replied that they had none, work it out with a fork. Strange, right? He didn’t even turn around from his inventory of the wine to say it to me.  Guess they are finger food, or here’s a suggestion: buy some cheap chop sticks- the dish looked great, why tarnish it straight off the bat without the proper utensils? Anyhow, that wasn’t nearly the biggest issue with the dish. It is made with what they call a wasabi risotto. It was a risotto mainly due to the use of Arborio rice, but had no flavor of wasabi and the rice was so undercooked that it was almost painful to eat.  The risotto also gave a really glutinous texture to the roll which was not pleasing at all.  The blue cheese was non-existent within the rolls. I disassembled a roll just to see if there was blue cheese there, and rest assured there was not. Who knows, maybe it was mixed with the rice?  What happened here? The concept is so cool, but the execution so poor. What a disappointment.

Carpaccio Sushi- looks great but wasn't firing on all cylinders. Photo by Scott Groth

Well, we were still looking forward to the mushroom pita and the veggie burger. The manager told us that the burger was made in house, which is pretty cool. Most restaurants simply use a Morningstar veggie burger or something.  When the dish showed up I noted that the kitchen took the responsibility of giving each of us half a burger and half a pita.  Made divvying things up much easier.  The manager never asked what kind of fry we would like, so they gave us both sweet potato and regular fries. The good news is that both types of fries were great. The kosher salt on the sweet potato fries was just the right amount and the regular fries tasted like fair fries- really fresh.

The veggie burger looked great. You could see the broccoli and cauliflower in the patty itself. There was what they called a spicy vegetable spread on the burger, but most of it was absorbed by the bun. I scraped some off with my knife to taste and it wasn’t spicy at all.  The burger could have used a lot more of the spread though since the veggie patty itself was dense and gummy. The flavor was good, but it was sort of like eating vegetable spiked paste.  I was glad that we split the burger.   Eating a whole one would have been hard to do. We were in agreement that this was a dish to pass on.

The veggie burger at Naya. Photo by Scott Groth

The moment of truth: the Mushroom Pita. The manager said that this was one of the best selling dishes on the menu, literally flying out of the kitchen. We asked him how he liked it and he replied that he was allergic to mushrooms.   Ok.   It is described as a braised mushroom stuffed pita with smoked gouda and crème fraiche. The mushrooms tasted like they were canned.  You know, rubbery, flavorless and generally lacking in all respects.  The mushrooms were plated on top of the arugula, which sogged out into a watery green mess before I had a chance to eat it.  It said smoked gouda but was almost non-existent, so didn’t add anything to the sandwich. The crème fraiche was just all right- it was really thick and tasted more like sour cream than crème fraiche. After two bites of the sammy without the crème fraiche, I smothered it with the sauce and it was only marginally better.

The fries in the background are great, but the Mushroom Pita could be much better. Photo by Scott Groth

Overall, I like the creativity of this restaurant.  The items on the menu alone make me want to give it another shot.  The food was really not great, particularly when the restaurant touts using the freshest ingredients etc etc and then delivers canned mushrooms on a pita.  If they weren’t canned, then there really is a bigger issue at hand.  I can cut some slack for the veggie burger- they are incredibly hard to make and it at least had good flavor.  A little less density would make it a really tasty veggie burger.  The Carpaccio Sushi was tough to swallow, literally.  I have heard that the tuna dishes are outstanding and some of the other appetizers are really tasty.  At this point, it’ll be a while before I head back to Naya.  If I am in the area and am hungry at the time, I might try something else just to see if the creativity can be translated into an excellently executed dish.