Birthday @ Tao's

Having woken up late, I frantically looked up on the internet on the morning of my birthday for a place to eat. After googling for shopping spots to go and browsing through makansutra for eateries, I settled on two locations: "Tao's Restaurant" (at Paradiz Centre near Dolby Gaut), and "Lee Kui (Ah Hoi)" (Teochew Food at Mosque Street, Chinatown). And so mum and I, us being the only members of our family still living together went together to try out Tao's, which serves up a 6-course lunch at only $20 per person. To my surprise, the 6-course meal, which serves up an appetizer, a side-dish, a soup, a main dish, a drink, and a dessert, is especially filling.


Appetizer:

Cheese & Ham with Toasted Bread: The oven-roasted cheese and ham was tasty, albeit a bit salty. It goes really well with the bread, which has slightly toasted surface and a soft chewy body.

Soup:

Chicken with Sharkfin Melon: Sweet (not in a sugary-way) chicken soup that'll make you ask for seconds.

Mushroom Soup: Made with fresh Shiitake mushroom, this thick, creamy soup is chock-full of finely-diced mushroom that will enlighten your taste-buds. Most def' the best mushroom soup I've ever had.

Side-Dishes:
Chicken salad: The usual mix of veggies with chicken breast meat, topped off with a unique tangy-sweet, sesame sauce which really hits the spot.

Fruit Salad: Fruits mixed with chopped mock-crabmeat, which go strangely well together.

Main Dishes:

Honey Pork Ribs: Tao's signature dish, claimed to be amongst the top dishes (reviewed by a food magazine or something), the meat's rather soft, but not that soft like it'll melt in your mouth. If I were to choose between this dish and Cafe Cartel's St. Louis pork ribs, I'd still go with Cafe Cartel's. However, the ribs' served with a addition of a sweet potato paste with yam cracker and tomato prune that's decorative as it is tasty.

Grilled Fish with Cheese: nothing too spectacular, the cheese topping is similar from the appetizer I had from the start.

Drinks:

Rose Apple & Peach with lemongrass: nothing special, both drinks have a flowery-scent to them and taste just sweet enough.

Desserts:

Creme Brule: An egg-based paste with a hardened caramel surface that's really neat to crack with your spoon. Unfortunately it's way too sweet.

"Yangsheng" Pear: a skinned whole pear cooked in some tonic concoction, served with red dates. The pear is rather bitter.

All in all, Tao's fusion of Asian-Western cuisine is a refreshing dining experience for me. The food's really well-presented and first impressions were great. The service there is also really friendly; Frankie, one of the waitors there was really generous, offering my mum and I a tiramisu when I told him that the creme brule was too sweet - on top of that, as it was my birthday, I was given a scoop of ice cream with a candle on it, with an addition brownie (when I told him the tiramisu was again overly sweet). At $20 per person, it's definitely an affordable place worth going for a casual eat-out.