Thankfully for us in the NOBREAD crowd, TAO recently updated their menu and an asterisk ‘*’ is used to indicate gluten free items! I love this new feature however, only seven, yes SEVEN, menu items are accompanied by this asterisk. So what can you have? 100% GF orders include the edamame, pad thai noodles with chicken, shrimp, or lobster, jasmine white rice, miso soup, halibut, and wok-fried potatoes. TAO’s menu is huge, and with so many options it can be difficult for both the gluten-free person and gluten-full person to decide what to order. Why? Naturally gluten free foods are drowned in soy, teriyaki and other nobread unfriendly sauces and sushi rice is malted with vinegar and other gluten culprits… I was incredibly excited, yet also nervous to go to TAO, as Asian food is difficult for a gluten free diet. Tables packed with celebrities, Wall Street types hosting client dinners, and girls celebrating “girl’s nights out” fill the space and Tao’s décor is an experience in itself. We finished it off with the famous fortune cookie, filled with mousse and the chocolate molten lava cake absolutely to die for.Since its opening in October 2013, TAO Downtown has been the talk of NYC. One thing you could skip would be the Rock Shrimp lettuce cups, just because it's a different vibe than the rest of the meal. The sushi was super fresh, and the beef was definitely tender. We also got the Mongolian Beef, Filet Mignon, Lobster Fried Rice, some Sushi rolls, and Rock Shrimp Lettuce Cups and not a single thing dissapointed. The Crispy Rice Tuna was absolutely delicious, I mean how could you ever go wrong with this, further bringing Tao into the competition against Nobu. We got the Chinese Five Spice Short Ribs and they were so good we had to order them two times, already coming pre prepared off the bone. That being said, the food is absolutely fantastic. People go for big birthday occasions, or with a promoter for the night out. it is a gorgeous interior with a live DJ that I would say is made for a younger crowd. I'll start of with the facts, Tao is a lively night scene. One of nycs finest surely didn't disappoint. I'd be curious to come back and try the nightclub though. Overall, the place looked great, but the taste just wasn't it. I think the Crispy chicken was probably my favorite dish, but it was a bit too salty (even without the seasonings) that I couldn't eat too much of it. We decided to try it, and honestly it was worse than what I can get from my local Chinese take-out. We wanted some beef, but the only options were very expensive at over $50 for the beef Mongolian. The one dish I was excited to try was the Chilean sea bass satay which ended up being tasty, but not the best I've ever had, and for just two small skewers for $28 was a bit too steep for what it was. It was actually quite tough to decide what to order since nothing specifically stood out to me. Luckily I did not, but the restaurant still managed to disappoint. I was wary of setting any expectations before coming here since it appeared this is a place more for the aesthetics and ambience than quality or value of food. He called the restaurant and over the phone he paid for 10 drinks for us. The best part is that the next day one of our friends called to asked had we liked the drinks. We should have insisted they give us the rest of the cake. The slices were slivers.They never bought out the rest of the cake for us to take home. We had brought a Birthday cake for one of our friends, the server bought out the sliced cake before some of us were not finished with dinner. At 9 PM we were still finishing our dinner and they started clearing the table. As soon as we sat down the server wanted to know what we wanted to order, we didn't even get a chance to look at the menu. From the minute we arrived, the hostess said with an attitude don't forget you have to be finished by 10 PM we told her we know that. It was the worst experience I ever had in a restaurant. 10 Friends and I went to the restaurant on on Friday, Feb.
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