Is Tao as good as they say it is???

My girlfriend is coming to NY from Vegas. SHe loves the Tao there and asked me to reserve seats there for dinner. I reserved 2 seats for 830pm. Is this place as good as some say it is or is spice market better?

[pscurfield]

how about...terrible and over priced. go for drinks--that is the only thing worth it

[jeanki]

The food is above average but is nothing special. Decent well prepared pan-Asian/fusion standards, somewhat overpriced for what it is.

[fschil]

Try Buddakan or Morimoto for better food if you want the big , trendy asian thing...Buddha Bar for drinks is a hipper scene

[madrigalq]

if your gf loved tao vegas, tao ny has the same owners and the same executive chef designed both menus.

My only experience there was never making it inside. I made a 9pm Tues res. I showed up and they handed me one of those buzzers you see at Olive Garden or Red Lobster. They directed me to the bar until said buzzer buzzed, even though it was, at that very moment, 9pm. The bar was entirely full of, as a previous poster described it, 'the type of people that people here like to avoid,' and, more importantly, so damn packed I couldn't even wedge in to get a drink. By 930, the buzzer hadn't gone off, so I tossed it back to them and made a last-minute res at Aquavit, which had zero of the above problems and amazing food. Unless you want to live out some fantasy from a show like Sex and the City, there is no reason to put up with that much BS for any kind of Asian fusion cuisine in this city... it's not like it's tough to find.

Tao isn't that bad. It's not as good as many other restaurants in the city and it's overpriced, and it's full of the kind of people that people here like to avoid. But some of the food can be good, and it's a cool looking place. Don't run there, but don't dread it.

who the heck told you it was good? No NY'er told you that. Spice Market isn't great, and it's mostly the same B&T crowd now, but its better than Tao.

No. It is crowded, and the food is ok but not worth the price you pay. I had a girlfriend who loved it because it was trendy. She did not actually think much of the food.

Played. Bridge and Tunnel Crowd. Kind of a cool, grandiose space, but avg food and sort of expensive.

ok at best

I was about to ask the same thing.