Aussie critic’s epic restaurant takedown

Imagine being considered one of the best eateries in town, only to be slapped with a zero-star review.

Well that’s exactly what happened to Hollywood’s Tao, a high-class Los Angeles restaurant loved by celebrities, including the Kardashians.

Aussie restaurant critic Besha Rodell’s review for the LA Weekly was scathing to say the least, as she labelled Tao’s “moderately inedible” and a “shocking rip-off”.

The restaurant chain has been incredibly successful in both Las Vegas and New York – the Las Vegas outlet was America’s fourth highest grossing venue in 2015 raking, according to the US Nightclub & Bar top 100 list.

But Besha thought otherwise.

“I expected Tao to be expensive and silly. I did not expect it to be quite this terrible,” she tweeted along with her article.

Cindy Crawford and singer Nicole Scherzinger were among the stars who came out for the opening of the LA restaurant in March this year, and that hype was exactly why Besha decided to drop by.

“On weekends the valet line is a parade of brightly coloured luxury cars disgorging brightly coloured luxury people,” she wrote.

“Paparazzi swarm. Kardashians pout.”

Although impressed by the interior, including the enormous blue Buddhist statue, the food did not live up to her expectations.

“Given how much thought and money have gone into the design, I expected the food to be expensive, decent, Americanised versions of Chinese and Japanese classics,” she continued.

RELATED: What it's like to eat at Malcolm Turnbull's favourite restaurant
RELATED: These coffee foam works of art are incredible

Instead she says the dumpling skins were “so thick and glutinous that eating them was a little like biting into semi-coagulated library paste.”

Besha also tried the orange chicken (a snap at $46) expecting it to be a “yummy crowd pleaser” but the meal was instead “sticky, glossy, cry, chewy and jerky”.

She goes on – explaining that the hot and sour soup was no better than the food from a Chinese takeaway; the sashimi was “tasteless”; the pad Thai “bland and pale and gummy”.

According to Besha, the only dish that somewhat passed the test was the restaurant’s signature dish of a giant fortune cookie with white and dark chocolate mousse calling it “gimmicky, ridiculous, kinda fun to eat”.

“This place is a shocking rip-off even by tourist-trap standards,” she says.

Given its success across the country, Besha says she went to try and understand why the chain was so ridiculously popular.

But she left without gaining any insight.

“I have stepped out of my bubble long enough to appraise Tao and to declare it bad in almost every way," she writes.

“To the tourist visiting Hollywood and looking for an outrageous experience, you deserve better. To the guy looking to impress a date, you deserve better. To Americans rich and poor and in between: We deserve better."

And to hammer the nail in the coffin, she gave the restaurant ZERO out of five possible stars.

Ouch!

Want more celebrity, entertainment and lifestyle news? Follow Be on Facebook,Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram.