Aja 30A — Restaurant in Alys Beach

Went last night to celebrate my girlfriend’s birthday. Our server / bartender was “Daria”. We had dinner near the side entrance on the patio and I wish I could say it was a nice time but it was pretty horrifying experience. We started off with martinis and some apps- the yellowtail app was the probably the only dish we enjoyed. We also had two sushi rolls and the patagonia salmon entree. While eating the two sushi rolls and dinner entree (had a significant portion of the entree left and 6-7 pieces of sushi) a massive cockroach crawls across the plate of our salmon entree. We immediately start squirming and stand up from the table and a male server comes over to see what is wrong- he sees the cockroach and apologizes and takes the plate away. He also informed our server Daria of what had happened. Daria comes out and and is laughing hysterically and says oh you had another guest join you and continues laughing while we are pretty shocked that she thought it was so funny. A huge cockroach crawled across our food then the rest of our food from the table and says so I guess you don’t want dessert, we said no we don’t we’ll take the check please. She comes back out with the check we were paying cash so we asked for a receipt and itemized receipt to which she replied. She would give us once we had paid. Our bill was $242. We said we would like to see the detailed receipt before we paid so at this point, we are holding her electronic device to check out because she thought we were paying with a card and hit the detail button to see that she was trying to charge us full price for the dish that had a cockroach crawl across it (that we were taking to go as there was probably 3/4 of the food left) so we asked her is it possible to get that dish taken off or remade since we’re being charged full price and we didn’t eat the food- there was a cockroach in it. She says she will have to ask and then informs us she could take 25% off of the salmon dish. She proceeds to tell us that we are sitting on the patio and things like that happen. We were in complete shock. Yes, we are sitting on a patio in Florida, which we have lived our entire lives however in a so-called upscale dining environment - you should not have to worry about cockroaches, crawling across your food and then be required to pay full price until you say something to which 25% of the item is taken off. Daria was unprofessional and a joke of a server. She thought the entire thing was so comical. There are dozens of AMAZING upscale, indoor-outdoor sushi restaurants along 30a. I am positive if something like that happened at another restaurant they would’ve apologized endlessly and at least offered to comp the dish that had the cockroach on it. It is your establishment - get better pest control or make it right with your guests by not charging them for something that wasn’t consumed. We wont be back and highly recommend literally any other sushi...

I was so excited to try this place out finally. I follow them on IG and I’m a big city foodie that just moved to this area. Sadly to say disappointment is the word I would use to describe my experience at Aja 30A. I came here for happy hour and sat at the bar. (This place is extremely small. All the tables are pushed right next to each other.) I was not impressed at all about the happy hour menu so I ordered off the regular menu for the night. Drinks were good, nothing great. They looked fancy though so it made a nice Instagram picture. I suggest going with the suggestion of the bartender or server, drink wise because the combinations are different. I paired a different drink with each of my courses to get the full experience.

It’s Asian fusion so not too many options when it comes to sushi. Sushi was good. Not a fan of the surf clam. Next I ordered some edamame. It was extremely under seasoned and IMO tasteless. Disappointing because I love edamame. Next I went to my main course which was the salmon in miso broth. It sounded good. But again disappointing because the food was extremely under seasoned. (Also note I hate over cooked salmon and I wanted my salmon med rare but was told since it came in a hot broth all the salmons are cooked the same) so yes because of this the salmon was a bit over cooked. (Annoyed because who wants to eat overcooked salmon, bad menu item IMO.) Broth under seasoned but the dumplings with the meal were great. Last I decided to get the crème brûlée for dessert. I loveeeee crème brûlée so I was excited to finally have something good on my plate before I left the restaurant. The crème brûlée was the WORST thing I had all night. Beyond disgusting. I’m not sure if it was oil or butter but it was a liquid floating on top of the crystallized sugar. Once again the crème brûlée didn’t taste like much, not even sweet. Not sure how you make a crème brûlée tasteless but they found a way. I took one bite and gave it right back to the bartender and told him it was not good. Still charged me for it anyways lol. I’m not a fan of complaining too much even if I barely touched it so I let it be.

4 drinks, sushi, an appetizer, entree and dessert for 1 person my bill came to about $200. Was it worth it. 100% NO. I really want to come back and give this place another try, especially with friends but I’m just afraid they will be disappointed as well. I think because this place is new they have somethings to work out especially on the food angle. For these prices the food should taste just as good as it looks.

IMO try it out if you want, it seems like other people may have different experiences here. Maybe I caught them on an off day but if you are a foodie like me probably not the...

Where do I begin? This was probably the worst Asian dining experience I believe I’ve ever had and my Asian family members were incredibly disappointed. For the atmosphere and price, you would expect something elevated, and it was anything but that. My wakame salad was not prepared properly to where it was slimy and the sauce was overwhelming and not complimentary. My mother-in-law’s crab rolls were suspiciously absent of crab. We thought that perhaps the entrees would be better; they were not. My husband’s pork ramen had poorly prepared pork that was just a pork rind and dry meat. The noodles were chewy, and the broth was so salty with this separated oily layer. The other family members tried the broth and almost gagged. It would make any self-respecting ramen cook want to commit seppuku. Now mind you, we have eaten at some of the best ramen, udon, and soba restaurants in Japan, so we know our noodles. This ramen was a tragedy. I wanted to laugh when my shrimp and chicken fried rice arrived. I don’t think I have ever had anything so bland, the rice was terrible, and it didn’t appear to be cooked properly. There was no evidence that it was ever fried in a pan. It was as though someone took steamed rice, and mixed it with huge bell pepper chunks and meat and called it a day. You would never see huge chunks of anything in a good fried rice. I have had the most humble food in tiny 4-person restaurants that would blow Aja away. I can’t describe how bad it was. I strongly recommend that the chef and his kitchen staff actually visit Asia to help them revamp the utter travesty that is this restaurant. I have eaten at the finest Asian restaurants and the most humble around the world, so I am fairly certain that I have a good experience base to know what’s delicious Asian fare and what isn’t. We will just consider our bill a donation and hope that this restaurant does better. If you want significantly superior Asian food at a fraction of the price, go to Domo Izakaya in Destin. I and my family will not return. It’s just so sad that the tourists who visit this restaurant will think this is what Asian food is supposed to be like. On a positive note, they made a good effort with the decor, but the floor was...