Tara Thai

Yummy local short pump dining written by mschiro2
Last visited this restaurant on March 24, 2007

First of all, we love ethnic food. It is our first choice when choosing 'where will we dine' (i.e., indian, thai, mexican, vietnamese, etc). To have a restaurant like Tara Thai, a stones throw away, is exciting. What is secondly exciting is the food. We have been there a number of time (at least 15 since it opened), and have loved the variety they offer. The food is fresh and yummy. The atmosphere is original. Even though the restaurant holds alot of people and is very open, we still have the opportunity to have privacy. We have only had 1 'bad' service experience and that really was not that 'bad'. We also order out. the portions when ordering out are comparable to the eating in experience. It would take a couple of really bad experiences to make us not return. So if you love thai food--go to Tara Thai!!

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Tara Thai rates a sigh written by metcalffe
Last visited this restaurant on August 21, 2005

Our favorite Thai restaurant is closed on Sunday, so we went to Tara Thai today, as it has generated enough good buzz to make us curious. We were quite disapointed. The place is cool looking for a first visit, but it might be a little much for regular visits. We can't be sure, as we'll never go again. Upon entering, we were immidiately whisked to the worst table ever. It was by the kitchen door, faced the idle waitresses seated at a duece doing nothing, and next to the bar with the sports channel on mute. UGH! The place was nearly empty, there was no reason to put us there, and I was somewhat miffed that they put us in that hole. However, they courteously seated us elsewhere upon being asked - nor did they seat anyone else there during our meal.
We had the Padang seafood and another curry. The menu noted hotness by number of chilis pictured with each item, we chose a one chil, and a 3 chili (the hottest.) We had the Tara Thai fresh lemonade which never saw any lemon since it was reconstituted from the powder it was made from. Yuch! I noticed other people's meals being brought out to them, and the food was distinctly unappetizing in appearance. Just gray stews. I hoped ours would be nicer. Well, one was an orange stew, the other was gray like everyone else's. Not a touuch of basil or lemon grass garnish, no visible peppers, no color at all. I could only hope that, given all we had heard, the taste would be another story - but no, same old story. The orange padang was heavy-handed with peanut and sugar, no other flavors evident, and the other curry was flat and essentially flavorless. Both had a mild heat from peppers, no difference in the burn between the one and the three pepper dish. It was edible. It wasn't worth even the moderately low price ($30 plus tip for two, no alcohol, appetizers or sides) and, as I said, we will never go back.

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