Gary Robins has never been to Asia. He doesn't even blush to admit it. Indeed, he's never been to the Asian enclaves of Flushing. But he's been to Chinatown, swept up acres of cilantro, and now hunkers over the stove at Aja, searing, layering, sculpting, wafting, gift-wrapping all the perfumes and the fires of the Orient into amazing food, most of it delicious.   

         Just tucking a fork into his grouper oeuvre launches your mouth on an outward-bound voyage of discovery. No two bites are even similar. You might spear some shredded carrots and pungent shiso and a big chunk of lobster from a rich man's version of a Vietnamese summer roll with a shard of the grouper. Or perhaps some freshwater chestnut and a sliver of grilled shiitake, and a daikon sprout or three with chili-garlic dipping sauce here and a little lemongrass dipping sauce there. And a sprig of cilantro. "I felt the plate needed a touch of green," observes Robins, laughing. All this stuttering and stacking might be annoying if it weren't almost always good, occasionally brilliant. Or am I so mesmerized by the cunning busts of chili heat and Asian conceits orchestrated with American flamboyance that I'm too quick to forgive his cilantrophilia? Feathery spikes in eight out of ten dishes, Gary?

        "I tell my chefs, if it's Asian-inspired, it get cilantro, and if it's French-inspired it gets chervil," he admits.  

        "Well, how do you pronounce it?" I overhear an earnest young woman asking what appears to be the proud owner, a pas de deux in the parlor quadrant of what looks like four Off-Broadway stage sets rudely cobbled together in search of a drama. It's a vast sweeping space where, as the publicist notes, "artifacts from the past meet the materials and colors of the future," a mêlée (no, I don't mean medley) of every period known to man and a few not yet named. I am sitting Empire, I think, or perhaps Victorian, foot tapping an Oriental carpet as I watch a duo on a loveseat against the window, nibbling from a plate set on a low-slung marble table. He pops a tidbit into her mouth. She purrs.

         "Well, how do you pronounce it?"

         "Asia," he says.

         "Oooowoo," she cries. "Well, people who've traveled will probably say 'AhhJuh.'" They will also say "Aye Jha," and even "A Ya." And "Aha." But chef Robins and Laurence Jacobs, a 33-year-old investment banker in his entrepreneurial feeding debut, hope Steely Dan's album Aja will clear some confusion. Even if there weren't already a restaurant called Asia uptown, Robins would have resisted tying himself down with a promise so literal.

         Alas, the design team's flight from discipline is less amusing. In what could be an automobile showroom, a quite glorious glass-wrapped space, they have parked Shaker chairs and Gothic sofas, stained-glass panels and crinkled silver shades, antique piano stools, a faux balcony, and "carpets" painted on the floor. Colored beach glass in a jeweled band rings the walls. At any moment you feel something by Beckett will begin in front of the dramatic patchwork of asymmetrical wooden flooring and metallic leather on and above the rear banquettes. The carved wooden pulpit almost hides the maître d', and an uninhibited Art Deco screen on wheels muffles wind blasts at the door. No wonder the grand chandelier over the bar seems almost lost. But our town's rolling stones do love sofas, so the lounge could be a hit. Ditto the welcoming bar.

        And you may decide to just blink and smirk at the clutter, basking in the attentive service and loving Aja's food as much as I do. Choose spicy tuna tartare to begin, with sveltely elegant rice-cake twists and bits of avocado and daikon in a haze of sesame oil, or squab rubbed with Chinese five-spice and served with caramelized mango, kafir leaf, and fiery Thai chilies. The gently cooked scallops are not just seared, they can be pleasantly searing, thanks to roasted-chili oil cooled with tangerine, jicama, and crisp noodles.

        Somehow a warm, almost flowery '91 Corbières (just $20) tames the fevers. But there are also less challenging options on the prudently limited opening menu. Perhaps warm goat cheese rolled in a delicate tortilla shell standing tall over a salad of chicory, walnuts, apple, pear, and Asian pear-apple. Or skate with beets and lentils in the must of garam masala (clove, cardamom, allspice and coriander with a southwestern fillip of dried chipotle) and cooling cucumber, red onion, and greens riding in a radicchio cup on its wing. Or the foie gras with wine-braised pears, apple-celery-root purée, and toasted walnuts in a sherry-vinegar sauce with a port-wine glaze.

         "It's the one dish I've managed to refrain from putting cilantro in," the chef says.

         Like most of the Gotham Bar and Grill's gifted alumni, Robins just can't help being architectural. How do you know when it's stacked high enough? When you can bite off the top of the dish without lowering your head. My guest carefully deconstructs the skyscraper of honey-roasted chicken with its wonton pinnacle and butternut-squash dumplings, impossible to attack otherwise. I can see the flying pastry sail of the giant prawns and clams in a fragrant Thai-esque curry on its way across the room. But we're stuck in a shadowy spot, and we're bumbling about in the richness, wishing we could see all the exotic specifics of what we're eating.

         Since I've gone through the menu here with and without illumination, let me recommend the grouper, of course. The spicy lobster wrapped in an eggplant chemise with an undercooked long bean sash. The savory clams in green curry with prawns (if you don’t' mind peeling them). And rack of lamb. Two thick chops come rare as requested, painted with Indian spices and paired with green-chili potato samosas and a room-temperature bean salad that raids the produce-department: grilled baby zucchini, peppers, red onion, tomato, mint, parsley, garlic, shallots, lemon juice, "and a partridge in a pear tree," says the chef. His salmon on steamed spinach with a garlic flan is pure Alfred Portale, as Robins points out, though he likes to think what he does it more geometric than architectural and admittedly not as French as the master's.

         Greaseless apple fritters, tucked into a napkin seem almost classic -- well, except for the not-quite-discernible rosemary in the accompanying plum conserve. And it's worth ordering tea just to enjoy the loose leaves steeping in one of Aja's handsome squat metal pots. Maybe you won't notice the lemongrass in the pistachio nougat with passion-fruit coulis, ruby grapefruit, and mint. And the mango sundae -- with its bizarre chili-macadamia-praline brittle, tamarind-lime syrup, and threads of kafir leaf -- is perversely wonderful. I can't say the same for coconut rice in banana leaf with tropical fruit, peanuts, and spicy hot guajillo syrup. In the gloom, I mistook the leaf for green phyllo and tried to chew it. But my guest can't stop eating it. "I'm not sure why," she says.

         "Well it is politically correct," her husband notes. "No animal had to die for it or even be inconvenienced."

         Perhaps the kitchen will be slow till it gets in step. It takes fifteen minutes on a good day to construct these appetizers, the chef confides. As almost always these days, I wish new kids on the block were less wanton with our budgets. Entrées range from $17.50 to $25; desserts are a princely $7.50, though prices at lunch are more benign. How strong a hand runs the front of the house isn't clear. But I, for one, love these East-West shenanigans. Indeed, Robin's irrepressible exuberance makes Jean-Georges Vongerichten's brilliant Thai-isms seem almost monastic. The religious may quake. Pantheists will celebrate.