Tao's Fresh — Restaurant in Newark

I ate here on numerous occasions, but due to my recent experience, I will not be bringing myself & my family here again.

The previous times that I've eaten here (around 5-6), I had an overall good experience. The food was great, the service was good, and it was just a good place for my family to dine in and enjoy the time overall.

However, on my most recent visit (the 11th), my wife and I decided to eat here to celebrate our son, turning 6 months. We went during a weekday in the evening, so it was pretty busy but not overwhelmingly busy.

We ordered a set of appetizers and our main dishes and topped it off with boba that they have.

We were not asked a single time on how we were doing and if we needed anything. We had to wait for the server to be completely free just to get her attention in order to get additional napkins. On top of that, the server only gave a single piece of a napkin, which absolutely felt like an insult due to their small size and the apparent cost cutting measures they were doing.

For the appetizers, my wife and I ordered their Pot Stickers and Walnut Prawns.

Prawns were good, well sized, evenly glazed, and topped with a good amount of walnut. It was crispy and very flavorful.

The pot stickers were bland, no crisp to them whatsoever, and the filling was average at best. Overall, it was just very disappointing, to say the least.

Onto the main entree, I ordered a rice plate with salmon and beef. Just like the pot stickers, it felt very bland, felt rushed, and for the extra beef that I added while ordering, it didn't feel justifable for what I have received to what was being charged. I've eaten here numerous times and felt unsatisfied with my recent visit.

The boba was spot on as always, no complaints, the brown sugar boba I had ordered was very flavorful, boba was soft and chewy, and had a creamy feel to it. The drink was good, to where I placed another order for it mid-meal. (10-15 mins prior to leaving)

Towards the end is where it was very disappointing. I attempted to pay online via their website as I typically did the previous times I have been here. I've tipped 15% each time I have been here, HOWEVER, this time, I have found out that with my recent visit, if you are DINING in, you are OBLIGED to pay a 15% tip that was not posted anywhere within the restaurant. Shoot, it won't even let you complete your payment online without tipping a minimum of 15%. There's an option to put a custom amount, which was what I originally intended to do, but even with that, you must call the server over in order to complete your payment. So then, I decided to pay up at front. Payment went smoothly, with no issues until where she printed the receipt for me to sign. As soon as she handed it over, she pointed with the pen and reminded me to leave a tip. I already had a negative experience and kept my mouth shut as I told my wife that we'll just dine another time to see if our experience can justify our negative one, but when I was reminded to leave a tip, it was that cherry on top that prompted me to leave no tip. So when it came to the tip portion of the receipt, I marked it with a line signaling that I was not tipping for the experience that my family and I received.

As I was done, I went to the bathroom to freshen up, reconnected with my family, and were heading over to the exit to carry on with our day. I told my wife to wait out at the front for the boba that I have ordered Mid-Meal that we haven't received yet as I intended to bring our son to the car to get settled and what not to leave the area.

Before I could walk out, after having had fully paid and what not, the OWNER stopped to confront me with the receipt I had signed earlier prompting me to leave a tip saying it was mandatory for ALL dine in guests regardless of their party size. I ALWAYS tip when I receive decent service and very rarely not. But when I chose not to tip for not getting decent service, I stood firm on it as I've explained to the owner. In summary, I wouldn't recommend coming here unless you don't...

The server (owner maybe?) DEMANDS that you leave a tip for an $18 lunch. Another reviewer (John Factor) had the same experience two months ago. I got the $18.27 (after-tax) salmon & udon plate. You order from a website and it says you can pay online. But apparently they don't allow it if you don't tip. I didn't tip because the food is expensive enough already.

I went to the front to pay and the guy who I assume is the owner gave me my receipt to sign. I drew a line on the tip amount and wrote the $18.27 price. The guy looks at it and tries handing it back to me saying, "No no, there is no tip here (pointing to $18.27)." He asked me THREE more times to leave a tip. I told him he already makes enough margin at $18.27. After the third time I told him, "If you push this one more time, I'm telling all of my friends never to come here." He decided to push it a fourth time, so I said, "Enjoy the Yelp review." and left.

To the business owner: Learn the first law of business. Don't alienate paying customers. I took a video of the food to show my friends and would have come here with them and by myself for years. Instead of that regular income, you will get no second business from me and none...

The good: The food. The bad: With a pretty empty restaurant, it took a minute for us to be sat. No menus. We had a scan a code on the table, which didn't work. No one came to our table to take our order. Oh wait. You need to order from the app, which didn't work. Food came. I didn't not have the right utensils so I had to flag down a server to get me something. Since we had to order from the app, we had water but it didn't occur to us to order drinks as well, so I had to flag down someone again. By the way, there seems to be only one person working in the front. Until we see another worker sit down at the table next to us to eat his meal. Do they not have a break room? We finish our meal. No check. Oh wait, we need to pay through the app again. We needed to go containers. We had to flag down a server AGAIN. And AGAIN because we didn't have enough boxes for our food. Overall, very poor service. Virtually, no server interaction, unless they were serving our food or calling for them. I don't think I'll be returning, unless it is for...