Tao Cuisine All-You-Can-Eat Japanese Buffet
Tao Cuisine Japanese Restaurant serves all you can eat Japanese cuisine for RM45++. As far as I know there are two outlets in Penang, E-Gate and Autocity. My last department dinner was held in E-Gate’s Tao so here I am presenting the food we had.
Some photos are crappy.. I had to snap them quick so that the others can start eating lol. Each of us is given a menu and you will give your orders to the serving waiter. The orders would be printed out in looong tickets and placed by the table. Every time food arrives the ticket would be taken off, that simple.
Sashimi Deluxe – This plate of raw fish costs RM40!! And we ordered 3 of this, too bad some of us (including me) had to forcefully finish them in the end.. Honestly, while chewing the cuttlefish I felt like I was chewing rubber haha. Tell me, is it supposed to taste like that at all? I just couldn’t learn to appreciate it.. And FYI for every 100gm of unfinished food Tao will charge RM10.
Because Tao prepare the foods fresh (as claimed) upon order and there were more than 10 of us, the food came in extra large quantity.
The only food which I can remember the name (because I ordered it for it’s unique name) – Firecracker Sushi. Firecracker Sushi! How cool can a sushi’s name get?
These are steamed scallops with some mayo or thousand island sauce if I am not mistaken. Tasted a bit spicy too but I like it.
One thing I didn’t really like was the constant nagging of the waiter. He repeated the same things over and over again about food wastage whenever we placed orders.. OK you made your point, bring on the foods man!
Some sort of boneless fish that tastes a bit like Unagi.. Really, you can even eat the heads.
A big piece of juicy cod fish
Lamb chops, they were piled like a small mountain. Too bad they were overcooked and the meat was hard. Must have been quality control issues.
California rolls and dumplings. The california rolls are damn expensive, RM7 each from the ala carte menu! Can you believe the 5 6 rolls above would cost more than half of one person’s buffet bill?
More california rolls. Mike and I simply went on a frenzy ordering for sushi and skewers.
Chicken and seafood skewers, yum yum!
Unagi, salmon and Ebiko sushi
Then there were some fried food like beef and egg.
And lastly some cooked beef that I couldn’t care to talk about lol. They were just normal tasting. After all the buzz I have been hearing about Tao Japanese Buffet, it wasn’t that great for me. This citizen’s blog is an interesting read about Tao, and I had to agree with some of her experience even though it happened than a year ago.
Technorati Tags: Tao Cuisine, Japanese Restaurant, E-Gate, Tao, Sashimi, Sushi, Buffet
February 5, 2009 - 5:01 pm
hi…
i plan to go to eat at tao but im not sure auto city or e-gate one is the best, i’ve read the comments up there that r saying e-gate service is bad, so any suggestion?
vk: hi jas, from my experience at E-Gate, it was OK.. no complaints. But that was already 2 years ago. I think you should listen to the comments and head for TAO at Autocity just to be sure.
March 2, 2009 - 2:09 pm
never try AutoCity Tao before..but e-gate yeah…it’s really annoying when the food are served 2gether with a msg frm waiter / waitress ” Must finish”..and they automatically cut down your orders if repeated or last call…Manager/Supervisor service are bad!
Honestly, the food are nice..and worth…it’s impossible we can get those food frm the menu with only the amount we paid per pax at TAO..
Is a nice place for food..
March 23, 2009 - 12:10 am
Hi actually the owner is a canadian taiwanese.He has earlier branches in Canada but it did not do well n decided to open in Penang.However last i heard that many of the workers in Juruauto city the head chef ,sushi chef n many others had left him n join a new restaurant in Penang island.I had not been there but was in E gate b4,was told by my friends that the food had deteriorated since that.They had left him since december08.Think it must be true lor.
July 29, 2009 - 1:06 pm
TAO really worth & nice ler… worth.. meal is big & fresh…delicious … enviroment very nice… i just try out E-gate TAO service quite ok… not sure bout auto-city yet… going be try 1 day….
August 3, 2009 - 10:02 pm
me 100% can finish the food
August 16, 2009 - 1:39 am
When me and my brothers go to Tao, we always order the sashimi deluxe. We order like 5 sets and on top of that, we have the scallops which are amazing!! By then, were too full to eat anything else but it’s so worth it in cost.
The boneless fish you mentioned is actually pregnant fish. There are eggs inside.
I miss Tao.
August 16, 2009 - 1:41 am
Tao is a great place to eat. I have tried both the one at autocity and the one at e-gate. In my opinion, the service at e-gate is MUCH better than at auto-city but the environment at auto city is cooler. In terms of food, i think e-gate is slightly better.
November 28, 2009 - 9:40 pm
any one have tao contact number?
December 6, 2009 - 8:07 pm
Tao is like the buffet with very very mixed response. It used to be good, I’ve eaten there not less than 15 times throughout 2 years ago. In fact I used to be a damn big fan and a regular there.
Tao is already very horrible. I’ve tried both e-gate and juru autocity, and their standard have dropped tremendously. Completely banned in my books.
FYI, currently, they limit your orders to 2 hours for public holidays and weekends. A lot of the Menu item are always sold out. Let’s start with why it’s being banned for me:
1)Food size is extremely disproportionate , I once ordered spicy salmon handroll, and i’ve got a handroll PILING up with rice and the size of the salmon is less than half an inch , i remember taking a picture at this ridiculous-ness. Unagi Don have a bowl filled with rice and the unagi size is about a square inch.
2) Extreme bad service : During one of the e-gate visits , we arrive at 5:30pm and the lady ( boss or manager not sure ) placed us OUTSIDE the restaurant saying it’s fully booked, so we had to sat at the outmost corner where the waiter/waitresses always always ignore. Later on, i realized there was no reservation, less than half the restaurant was seated up until 9pm. Orders are very slow, missed out and sometimes even wrong. To be fair, they could be understaffed, but that still amounts to horrible business attitude.
3) Menu downgrading: A lot of good stuffs are removed , the cod fish thingy shown in the picture above is gone. If i’m not mistaken, it’s White Tuna. Sashimi deluxe used to have more varieties but are now packing with cheap tuna and very little salmon on my last visit.
4) Horrible quality : Quality used to be moderate ( better than average P.Tikus restauarants but worse than Kampachi ) but it is now horrible. Having ICE inside sashimi is one of the biggest sin for japanese reastaurant and is a full nono. Unfortunately TAO has it. Some of the sashimi are so frozen they’re icy inside.
THere’s just too much bad stuff to be listed here. So much so that I can’t think of any other reason why I would wanna go there anymore.
To be fair they have one thing good though, they always manage to keep their food decently presentable.
December 14, 2009 - 10:41 am
I wan to go ~~
but can i have the map of this ?
December 31, 2009 - 4:09 pm
har…u never go eat before???omg…….u come from jungle????