It feels a bit bad calling this a 'review', Tao was until very recently my favourite restaurant in the world. It also houses my most-favourite cocktail ever. Despite knowing all of the ingredients and quantities have never been able to recreate.
Tao, another semi-hidden gem on E 58th Street never fails to be fantastic. We opted to go for lunch, the lunch menu is not just spectacular food but ridiculously good value. We were lucky with our seating, grabbing a bench along the back wall near the all-seeing Buddha. I didn't even look at the cocktail menu - two Tao-tini's were soon whisking their way to us. I really don't get how they can make it so consistently good in New York and Vegas, years apart. I'm baffled that I can't do it too!
The lunch menu has a selection of best selling dishes on, and comes at an incredible $27.50 for three courses. For starter we opted for satay of chicken with peanut sauce and spicy Thai seafood dumpling soup. One thing about some set menus that represent such amazing value - the portions are really small. Not in Tao. The portions are enormous.
After M spent far too long savouring the chicken and peanut satay (I was jealous...my dumpling soup was demolished in about 15 seconds) it was onto mains. M had opted for kung pao chicken with steamed rice. Moi? Asian BBQ fried hangar steak with pepper spiced fries. One of the interesting about having basically steak and chips is eating them with chopsticks. Not your common bed fellows...
The steak was absolutely delicious, so tender and the sauce was amazing, perfect for dipping my chopstick powered fries into. If one thing would have made it more perfect, it would have been more sauce to dip into.
The kung pao chicken was absolutely huge. Enormous pieces of chicken and lots of them. The rice was sticky and easy to manipulate with the chopsticks, and yes I did dip my fries in here too...After this, even I was pretty stuffed.
We had another tao-tini to let the first two courses settle. For dessert there was a chocolate parfait and a banana pudding. M couldn't decide which to go for, so we went one each. The banana pudding was warm and super bananary. The chocolate parfait was like a chocolate ice cream sundae. Both were excessive based on how much we'd eaten, but we gave it our best shot.
Tao, another semi-hidden gem on E 58th Street never fails to be fantastic. We opted to go for lunch, the lunch menu is not just spectacular food but ridiculously good value. We were lucky with our seating, grabbing a bench along the back wall near the all-seeing Buddha. I didn't even look at the cocktail menu - two Tao-tini's were soon whisking their way to us. I really don't get how they can make it so consistently good in New York and Vegas, years apart. I'm baffled that I can't do it too!
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| These aren't as pink as they look! M's flash making the lovely lighting |
After M spent far too long savouring the chicken and peanut satay (I was jealous...my dumpling soup was demolished in about 15 seconds) it was onto mains. M had opted for kung pao chicken with steamed rice. Moi? Asian BBQ fried hangar steak with pepper spiced fries. One of the interesting about having basically steak and chips is eating them with chopsticks. Not your common bed fellows...
The steak was absolutely delicious, so tender and the sauce was amazing, perfect for dipping my chopstick powered fries into. If one thing would have made it more perfect, it would have been more sauce to dip into.
The kung pao chicken was absolutely huge. Enormous pieces of chicken and lots of them. The rice was sticky and easy to manipulate with the chopsticks, and yes I did dip my fries in here too...After this, even I was pretty stuffed.
We had another tao-tini to let the first two courses settle. For dessert there was a chocolate parfait and a banana pudding. M couldn't decide which to go for, so we went one each. The banana pudding was warm and super bananary. The chocolate parfait was like a chocolate ice cream sundae. Both were excessive based on how much we'd eaten, but we gave it our best shot.
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| Those who say 'yes' have more fun! Too true |
Time to burn off some of those calories.
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