This past Tuesday, my friend and I took the train into the city for restaurant week. We had researched participating restaurants and decided that we both wanted Asian food. Restaurant week is a two-week period, where normally expensive restaurants offer a prix fix menu for lunch and dinner at reasonable prices. My friend had an interview uptown, so we kept location in mind as well. After some back and forth on which restaurant to eat at, we decided on TAO, an Asian fusion restaurant. TAO has two locations, downtown and uptown, but we ate at the uptown location. My friend made a reservation, as we thought that it would be crowded, especially with restaurant week going on.
Our reservation was not until 12 p.m., so after my friends interview we made our way to the restaurant. Upon arriving, the restaurant was fairly empty, and we were taken to our table upstairs. My first impression of the restaurant was that it was pretty fancy. The decorations were tasteful, fitting the dimly light atmosphere of the restaurant. Decorations included a large Buddha statue above a pool of water with koi fish and smaller Buddha statues scattered around the restaurant. The restaurant even had its own snapchat geo-filter which my friend and I used to take pictures.
The restaurant week menu was three courses, a starter, main course and dessert for $29. My friend and I both had the lemongrass shrimp to start with. I had shrimp pad thai and my friend had kung-pao chicken. Both of us thoroughly enjoyed our meals, but were unable to finish the entirety of our main course. For dessert, I ordered a chocolate zen parfait and my friend ordered Mango sorbet with fruit and coconut milk. The Parfait contained layers of white and milk chocolate mousse and cream with peanuts and crunchy granola. As we were eating dessert, I noticed that the restaurant had become significantly more crowded, mostly business people and some young people as well.
Overall, the ambiance and atmosphere of TAO made for a great dining experience. My friend and I decided that we could have maybe split a main course, as the portions were fairly large, but each enjoyed our respective dishes. I don’t think I would have eaten at TAO if not for restaurant week. I would definitely take advantage of restaurant week in the future, to explore new and interesting restaurants from a variety of different cuisines.
