Mao Tai

One of my favourite restaurants, lucky we will so close. Fabulous food, excellent attentive service, great decor. Love it! Not cheap but well worth it.
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rachelpp - View all reviews by this user
9 Overall rating
Food 10 | Service 9 | Atmosphere 9 | Value for money 8
Thursday, October 27, 2011

I am so surprised by these bad reviews. I have been to Mao Tai more than a few times over the last 3 years as I live pretty close. I always leave having enjoyed a really nice meal, normally with a nice cocktail to start.

The duck pancakes are always a winner- never fail to impress.

I really like the decor- especially up at the front near the bar.

The only point I would pick up is the cost- you can eat very well in central london for the same price.
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VH - View all reviews by this user
8 Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 9 | Atmosphere 9 | Value for money 5
Friday, June 17, 2011

I have visited Mao Tai a number of times over the past couple of years and have to say that I love it. Its not cheap but I do think the food is very good. I lived in Hong Kong for many years and am a big foodie so I think I know good asian food when I come across it and the food at Mao Tai is tasty, fresh and doesnt contain msg's. I am very surprised by the reviews that knock the food. The decor isnt particularly exciting but it works and actually reminds me of many smart/trendy eateries I frequented in HK! They also do fab cocktails for pre dinner drinks and service has always been good. It is one of the best smart asian restaurants I have been to and would recommend to anyone.
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9 Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 9 | Atmosphere 9 | Value for money 9
Thursday, May 19, 2011

The moment I returned home from dining at the Mao Tai, I felt compleled to warn prospective patrons of its short comings. I was disappointed for a number of reasons. When I go out to eat I expect to be served good food in an atmosphere in keeping with the theme of the restaurant. I felt that neither the quality of food, nor the ambience were reflected in the price. If you are seeking a good oriental meal, go to elsewhere.
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2 Overall rating
Food 2 | Service 3 | Atmosphere 2 | Value for money 1
Friday, April 22, 2011

I disagree with previous reviews, I have enjoyed our visits to Mao Tai greatly. We often order our favourites, and it has become almost a tradition to have their take out in front of the X Factor. I love the crispy duck pancakes especially, and the deserts are always delicious! They have a wide range of amazing Asian dishes from many different cultures, and I love going for drinks with some friends. I would definitely recommend Mao Tai to anyone, for a fun night out, or an excellent take away.
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8 Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 7 | Atmosphere 9 | Value for money 6
Saturday, October 02, 2010

I LEFT ‘Mao Tai’ pulsing with resentment and feeling fat. After reasonable cocktails under amusingly quilled chandeliers, I was lulled into dwelling for dinner. A server suffering from emotional botox wove my friend and I into gridlock. Within a conservatory seemingly decorated by disciples of the design school of 1980’s Pizza Express, we encountered a barrage of corpulent, but washboard hard chairs.

In such a constricted space, the 15ft journey to meagre table - so intimately close to fellow diners that one could smell their sweaty perfume - could take as many minutes. Puncturing disco was the booming pap of an exuberant transvestite floating high on luminous rosé.

Mao Tai is determined to roll Asia’s cuisine into one sitting. Considering it’s the world’s largest, most populous continent, that’s one Titanic ambition. Their ludicrously broad mission statement proclaims food ‘from Thailand to Japan via Malaysia and China’ (and Vietnam). As expensive mineral water tinkled over ice cubes of Fulham tap, we contemplated a menu so vague, chaotic and costly that it took the best part of half an hour to decode and decide from its tonne of dishes.

With guidance never offered and by now very hungry, we chose ‘appetisers’ at random of minimistically titled ‘seaweed’ and ‘bang bang chicken’. The dishes landed in under a minute and a half of the order being scribbled, raising suspicions that they were another table’s rejects.

My seaweed stack evoked a Yeti’s pubic pelt. The gargantuan, well-greased, mono-tangle denied me the pleasure of texture without providing any relief from itself. Served at the same temperature as our welcome, the anaemically ashen, cotton like chicken tears languished a slimy slick which had all the charm of a Pepto-Bismol fanatic’s sick. In taste, it evoked Germolene gel spun with hospitality trolley instant coffee grounds. An accompanying ramekin of nondescript, denture adhesive grade gunk was redolent of very value range ketchup and was probably pooled from various dips recovered from other diners.

Wisely, when eventually managing to squirm through the Colditz of chairs to swoop clear these plated ironies, the waitress avoided enquiring as to quite how much displeasure they had engendered.

To follow the unappetising appetisers, chef systematically spoiled Scottish razor clams not one, but ‘three ways’. This massive underachievement, it transpired, meant coarsely dicing them whilst carefully retaining biting grit, then fluffing them with smelly, seemingly boiled chorizo, feeble chillies and sodden black beans. The venomous medley drifted in a bile of BP-esque slick puddle. Despite trying to catch the waiters’ attention in such a concerted gesticulation that it must have looked like one drowning, not waving, my prawns, ginger and flowering chives never surfaced. Thankfully.

I gauchely negotiated release from the Strangeways of seats, and requested a moment’s company with the architect of this outstanding detritus. ‘Not here,’ said the server as he fended a similarly blank looking diner up to the loos, possibly to purge himself of bang bang slime or other culinary quagmires. Immediately, another man came waddling in my direction. ‘Upstairs’, I told him, believing, from what evoked an unblinking, pervert’s gaze that he deduced I worked within. ‘Ha! No! I know where it is since I’m the owner’, proclaimed the surprisingly present absentee in a broad American drawl. ‘How curious, even though you’re apparently away,’ I responded. ‘Well I’m only here about half the year’, he answered. ‘And it shows,’ I posed, my prose pepped by the bad gut reaction his restaurant had caused me, adding, ‘your absence is apparent in all that I’ve tasted and in at least one dish which I haven’t.’

Instead of apologising, the larger than life sized Yank laughed like the drain I wanted to wretch in. ‘But it wouldn’t be full if there was anything wrong!’ ‘-Oh yes it would,’ I instantly quipped, ‘because this is London. And as a restaurateur in London, you can get away with murder, which you clearly are...’

Although it may sound arrogant to have uttered those last lines in my black bean, clam stenched breath, you have my word, as a big eater, that I believe them true. Faced with this, or another venue’s veneer of style, ‘reassuringly’ inflated prices and jargon slicked menu, diners, including me, are too often conned into flocking for this hollow formula.

Bewildering food served in a claustrophobic setting masterminded by an absentee, arrogant owner shouldn’t survive in a gastronomically grown-up city, and as London matures, nor will it here. Indeed, Mao Tai’s sibling misadventure on Draycott Avenue shut up shop some time ago.

Oddly bloated and considerably poorer despite scratching away service from what turned out to be just a three plate act, we headed for a pristine stack of bargain calamari at a family run Italian only a minutes huff away...
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Douglas Blyde
1 Overall rating
Food 1 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 1 | Value for money 1
Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Absolutely dreadful!!! My wife and I love Asian food and were really looking forward to this experience. The decor is fantastic and you really think you are in for a treat - but what a disappointment!!!

The alarm bells started ringing for us when we asked the person who was serving us to explain the menu and tell us which dishes were their best sellers. You would have thought we had asked them to explain Einstein's theory of relativity they were so dumbstruck. Could not explain a single thing on the menu. The 2 signature dishes they recommended were dim sum and duck pancakes.

The dim sum basket for 10 pieces are fine but hugely over priced and the duck was pretty awful too. They then took 20 minutes to clear the plates so we managed to sit there just staring at empty plates. Also they serve everything on cold plates which is just such a schoolboy error.

When I eventually complained to the manager he looked dumb struck that I was disappointed. Which, I find astonishing - will not be going back there for sure

Much better bets - E&O in Notting Hill the same price but a million times better

Or for less money Royal China on Fulham Road is much better and far more reasonable
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Alex Phillips
1 Overall rating
Food 1 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 2 | Value for money 0
Friday, November 13, 2009

I am SOOOOO FED UP.

Picture this: You stand at the bar waiting to be served a drink and then when it comes to paying you are charged Service Charge!!!! UNBELIEVABLE. I am not stingy when it comes to giving tips, but this takes the biscuit.
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Amelia
0 Overall rating
Food 0 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 0 | Value for money 0
Monday, July 13, 2009