My spouse and I dined for lunch at Tao on a Saturday
afternoon in late December 2014. We had planned to eat farther uptown at a
restaurant where we had a gift card, but we realized en route to that
restaurant that we did not have the card with us, so we made an alternate plan.
We checked our Open Table app to find nearby restaurants with availability, and
Tao seemed to fit our needs – it had a table available, it was located nearby,
and we were familiar with the restaurant name. We booked a table using the Open
Table reservation system, and the hostess seated us immediately upon arrival despite
the crowded restaurant. Tao is open Monday through Saturday for lunch, Sunday
for brunch, and daily for dinner.
Tao Uptown is located on East 58th Street
(between Madison Avenue and Park Avenue) in the Midtown East/Theatre District
of Manhattan. (Another NYC “branch” of the Tao chain is located in on 9th
Avenue in Chelsea at the Maritime Hotel, and two other Tao venues exists in Las
Vegas.) A coat check is available upon entry to the restaurant. In the winter,
the property adds a canopy/vestibule enclosure to protect diners from the harsh
weather. The greeting area (with no fewer than four somewhat scantily clad hostesses)
also includes a table piled high with beepers/pagers (the type of device that
chain restaurants provide waiting diners to indicate when they should return to
the podium to be seated). Although both my spouse and I noticed the pagers,
they did not set off any warning bells that perhaps Tao might not be our type
of venue. Across from the hostess area is a lounge that contains a bar as well
as small, low table groupings.
The main dining room of Tao Uptown
is located in an old building that was originally a
19th century stable for the Vanderbilt family, and then later a balconied movie
theater, so the space features huge soaring ceilings. In the main room, Tao
offers a variety of seating options: tables large and small towards the center
of the main dining room on the street level, smaller tables/semi-booths around
the perimeter of the dining room, and seating on a second-floor mezzanine that
is open to the main dining area. (The hostesses, because of their skimpy
dresses, should take greater care when climbing the stairs, because they
display more of themselves than they probably intend to the diners below.) The
restaurant features exposed brick walls. A two-story (16-foot tall) giant Buddha
sits in a shallow reflecting pool filled with Japanese carp. The general
restaurant decor features artifacts from China, Japan, and Thailand.
Restrooms are located on the basement level, although we
heard someone inquire about a handicapped facility on the main level. The Yin
and Yang symbols on the men’s and women’s bathroom doors caused great confusion
on which symbol pertained to which sex. Although we knew that Yin is female and
Yang is male, and that the Yin symbol is the shaded/dark part, whereas the Yang
symbol is the lighter part, it was still difficult to tell where we belonged!
At the suggestion of our waiter, we ordered five dishes to
share (which was too much food, even though we have hearty appetites). We ordered
three starters to share, followed by one entree and a side dish. Disappointingly,
our waiter delivered all five dishes together as one course, and our food
arrived less than 10 minutes from when we placed our order. Therefore, we had no
time to anticipate our food, savor our drinks, or get comfortable. Our entire
meal at Tao was over in less than an hour, which was too fast for us. (We
prefer to linger over multi-course meals, which tends to make every meal an
event.) We shared the duck spring rolls, the pan-fried chicken dumplings, and
the squab lettuce wraps (which were intensely flavorful). For our entree, we
ordered a pork lo mein dish, accompanied by a side order of tempura asparagus.
We passed on dessert. (It seemed clear to us that we ordered two courses – one
appetizer/starter course and one entree course -- yet the staff delivered all
of our food at the same time.) A 3-course prix fixe lunch is available for
$27.50 per person, which sounds like a reasonably priced meal if the limited
options appeal to you. On Sundays, Tao serves a dim sum brunch, although the
brunch menu is not markedly different from the regular lunch menu.
Service was disappointing; at first, service was very fast, but
after the server delivered our food, our waiter disappeared in favor of serving
larger parties with more diners who would ensure a larger tip. We would have
ordered an additional round of drinks, as well as dessert, if our waiter had
not gone missing.
The best thing we can say about our meal at Tao was that we
can now cross the restaurant off our “to eat” list. Our meal was less than satisfactory,
but at least it fulfilled our curiosity about the restaurant. However, it seems
that we were in the minority with how we felt about our dining experience. Most
of the other diners at the restaurant seemed to love it. They enjoyed the
comfortable food (dishes that they could get at any suburban Chinese
restaurant), tables that could seat large parties (several had a turntable at
the center to ease sharing), and reasonable prices (for Manhattan). Although Tao
was not a restaurant that suited us, it seems to please others.
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