Tai Chi 8 — Restaurant in Kolkata

Visited Tai Chi 8 last Saturday with my mother for lunch because she is a frequent follower of the owners' youtube channel and I have a lot to say.

Firstly, this decor is beautiful. It's minimal but extremely classy. The mural of the Chinese lady is wonderful. I have always been a fan of Calcutta 64's decor and Tai Chi 8 lived upto the expectation. And the menu is extensive which we love.

Secondly, coming to the food we ordered the following -

Spinach & Tofu soup with Chicken - warm, light and comforting, the soup was really well made. I would have loved to put some chilli vinegar to adjust the tang to my liking but other than salt n pepper, no condiments were present on the table.

Korean Green Chicken - Fried Chicken morsels in a green sauce. I liked the taste but it didn't appeal to my mother's palate. The sauce, I felt, was a little runny compared to appetiser standards but I liked the overall taste of dish.

Spicy Thai Chicken Dimsum - I have major complaints with this dish, not because it wasn't flavourful or anything but for the misleading description given in the menu card. The description for Spicy Thai Chicken Dimsum given in the menu card was "Spicy Chicken Cooked With Lemongrass and Ginger and Steamed" which gives the impression that the dimsum stuffing is going to have thai flavours and we will get 6 pcs of steamed dimsum with their house special dimsum sauces (which I was quite looking forward to) but unfortunately a completely different looking dish came out. It was 6 pcs of Chicken Dumpling, siting in a kind of thai curry flavoured gravy and without any house special sauce because the server said the flavours won't mesh well so we don't provide them with this dimsum. Nowhere in the menu was it mentioned that this particular dimsum is gravy based. Don't get me wrong, the gravy was flavourful but the description differed from the dish that appeared in front of us and we weren't happy.

Som Tam - This was the BEST out of all the things we ordered. It's a raw papaya salad which was tangy and sweet and crunchy and packed with flavours. I cannot even express how amazing it tastes. Definitely a must try here.

Thai Basil Fried Rice - It was a little spicy than your usual friedrice but we liked it.

Prawns in Butter Garlic Sauce - The flavour was quite mild but meshed well with the spicy fried rice. The size of the prawns were decent but the coating could have been thinner. The prawns were tasting a bit doughy because of the thick coating.

Chicken in Japanese Pepper Sauce - Did not appeal to our palate at all. The gravy had a very unsual taste that we did not like. It's our fault we didn't choose the usual ones.

Muay Thai - A decent refreshing mocktail.

Salted Fresh Lime Soda - Can't go wrong with this one ;)

So my recommendation would be -

-Add a few more condiments on the table like some soy sauce, some chili vinegar and chili sauce so that the guests can adjust the flavour of especially the soups and some gravies to their liking and doesn't have to ask the staff seperately.

-Re-evaluate the description of the dishes to identify if any description is misleading from the actual dish.

-The service can be a lot better being it the time of service and knowledge about offerings.

Overall we had an average experience but we are hoping that they will improve much more with time. Will visit again later to try out things from rest of their menu.

All the best...

After strolling at Gariahat for 4 hours, we were alsmost full after snacking at various road side stalls.

However, suddenly remembered a place at Gariahat called TAI CHI 8 which was recommended by one of our friends and specially for sneha debojit.

Decided to go there just to have a look at the ambience and try 1 or 2 items at max as we were already full.

We ordered Burnt Garlic fried rice with Chilli mushroom. Waiter kind of hesitated taking our order mentioning that how come you can take rice and a starter. Acc to him one should take main course dish and starter separately. To which we responded that this is how we wish to eat. He placed our order.

I noticed that on the other table there was a hot red chilli homemade sauce which they usually serve with dimsums and fried snacks. I requested the waiter (different waiter) to get us some of that red chilli homemade sauce to taste. To which he agreed and went to his service station and picked a bowl, suddenly the waiter came who took our order and whispered something in his ears. After which he put down that bowl and gave us normal condiments which most Chinese restaurants serves (soya sauce, green chilli sauce and vinegar). We again asked him to bring some of the red homemade sauce to which he responded “IT IS OVER”. We were like shocked to listen that how come a basic homemade sauce could be over at 7pm in the evening which is served with most of their starters.

We ignored and started enjoying our food. We liked the food. However after paying the bill and while leaving the place, we noticed that they were serving the same red homemade sauce on other tables which seriously felt disrespectful.

It’s not about a mere 5-10 mL of sauce we would have eaten, but they would not have lied to us. Even after we were full, we went there as it was a recommended place. But this small incident ruined our experience and...

The most horrifying experience of my life.

I was excited to try this place, considering my previous experience. But unfortunately, my experience was not as great as I had hoped, it was rather pathetic. While the food itself was decent, I found a broken piece of plastic in my dish, which appeared to be from the packaging of the container. It is more than alarming and made me question the attention to detail in their food preparation and packaging process. Please handle with the situation with kind of seriousness it deserves.

To make matters worse, after I had already left the restaurant, I received a call from the staff asking about my mode of payment. This was confusing and a bit uncomfortable, as I had already paid for my meal when I was there. There version was they cannot see any payment notification from swiggy, zomato or any platform. Where as I booked my table from swiggy dineout and payed by the same.

It was really surprising to me as I took the call and assured the staff there that I will send an ss of the payment . Astoningly, 5 to 10 mins later staff called again I was outside in the middle of something important. Unfortunately I was so embarrassed upon the second call that I dropped everything and send screenshot immediately.

It was a clear case of mismanagement, carelessness and neglect. They should have asked me about my payment at the restaurant itself and checked maybe , instead of calling me directly after I left the place.

And definitely the piece of hard plastic cover in my food is beyond imaginable, unacceptable and appalling.

I hope they take more care in ensuring the food is free from foreign objects and improve their communication. Until then, I’m hesitant to return. Really disappointed...