Taro serves a variety of popular Japanese dishes at their licensed restaurant. A takeaway menu is also available.
Taro
Japanese Restaurant in Soho
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All In London Review
Unfussy Japanese offers swift eating
Japanese eatery Taro on Old Compton Street is unfussy and simple in both the décor and the menu. Wooden tables and benches match the wooden flooring, while the menu is unpretentious and reasonably priced, which no doubt accounts for how busy they get. Even tonight, a rainy Sunday evening, there are few free spaces.
The menu has sushi sets, noodles, curries and meat dishes, starting from as little as £5.90. Feeling hungry we both opt for bento boxes. I go for the katsu don bento while Friend, currently on a non-meat-eating tip, chooses the vegetarian option. Service is swift and within minutes we are served two bowls of tasty miso soup, shortly followed by our rather large bento boxes.
The slices of deep fried pork are covered in breadcrumbs that are a little on the dry side, however dipping in Soy sauce remedies this. Pieces of tuna and salmon sashimi, prawn and vegetarian sushi and a large bowl of rice complete the filling meal, along with pickles, tasty edamame, and bean sprouts. Afterwards I feel both healthy and sated, and all for just £11.80.
Vegetarian Friend couldn’t even finish hers, which consisted of fried tofu steak, deep fried potato croquettes known as korokke, and vegetable sushi, along with the same side dishes as mine, all for £10.80.
We washed these salubrious meals down with Asahi beers £3.60, and then had to decamp shortly after 10pm, by which point Taro was pretty much empty. Diners come and go fleetingly, and as such Taro is much more of a quick-meal eatery than a place where you take your time with food.
Reviewed by Leila
Published on Jun 16, 2010
User Reviews
dantheman1000
Feb 14, 2012
May I firstly say I am just a normal customer and not linked to any companies or individuals. I am always skeptical when I read reviews of places thinking the best reviews are close friends of the owner or the owner himself and the bad reviews are their competitors. This is actually the first review of a restaurant Ive ever done and its because I feel so strongly about the food I got from Taro that I am writing this. In other words I am a very angry customer and feel I should write this whilst its all still fresh in my head. I went into Taro on Saturday just gone and ordered £132 worth of food to takeaway. This consisted of starters, sushi and main dishes. The Karaage had hardly any meat in them and was mostly just flour. The meat used for the Gyoza didnt smell very nice. The Edamame was cooked for too long. As for the main dishes, Salmon Teriyaki consisted of extremeley thin layers of salmon served with vegetables that were not fresh at all. The Chicken Teriyaki was burnt (microwaved too long). The taste was also not of Teriyaki at all (I should know as Ive been to Japan many times). The egg nigiri should be a nice bright yellow colour but these were whitish/greyish which I think comes from mixing the eggs with something in order to make more. I also had Beef Teriyaki which was okish but my main problem with all the main dishes was that they were obviously prepared already and just microwaved quickly to warm them up. They didnt smell, taste or look fresh at all. The sushi I ordered was ok as was the Tenpura Udon. My friend and I were so disapointed with it and I felt very guilty as I chose the restaurant telling him it would be really good (id been once before a few years ago and I cant remember the food being bad so this may be a recent thing). To sum it all up, overall the food was the worst 'Japanese' Id ever tasted. I couldnt eat half the stuff and I felt like I had been ripped off. It may be that the food served to eat in the restaurant is better quality but
Carlos M. Gomez
Aug 25, 2008
The food is very, very good, the teriyaki chicken don is perfect, and sushi is delicious. Generally all the menu is good. The attitude of the staff was very good, they are friendly and patiens with me and my wife, because we´re spanish and don´t speak english well, they explained to us very well the menu.
In spanish: Si algún español va por el Soho y está interesado en probar comida japonesa debe ir a este restaurante, es bastante bueno, la atención es buena y sobre todo el teriyaki chicken don es espectacular, además cualquier plato de sushi está buenísimo, no dejéis de probarlo.
For me and my wife... very good.
In spanish: Si algún español va por el Soho y está interesado en probar comida japonesa debe ir a este restaurante, es bastante bueno, la atención es buena y sobre todo el teriyaki chicken don es espectacular, además cualquier plato de sushi está buenísimo, no dejéis de probarlo.
For me and my wife... very good.