Reviews of Taro

Service was really fast, I got all my food less than 5 minutes after ordering. The miso soup flavor was bland, but the tofu more than made up for it. The chicken gyoza were delicious, its sauce paired really well with it. The ebi fry was also spectacular, very very crispy and packed full of flavor. The duck bento box is definitely what you want to get. Amazing duck with its flavorful sauce on top of a bed of rice, fresh sashimi, decent sushi and cold bean sprouts and cold edamame with no salt. The last 2 things would be my only complaint but that would simply be nitpicking.

Awesome japanese restaurant with a lot of delicious and authentic choices, starters, mains and desserts. Prices are very good for the location. The staff is always helpful. It has a little bit of a fast-food-feel to it, without much flair, but the kitchen makes up for that, completely. Will visit again!

yummiest food! so filling and affordable and staff are really friendly! Got the Chicken Katsu Curry with rice and a Chicken Ramen. Bill came up to around £27 including a £2.50 service charge. Was a great dinner with only two dishes. Tap water is given upon request for free. One of the best and most reliable eats in Soho.

Amazing food! I've been living in London for so many years and never knew the existence of this place (for a sushi lover). It's a very small restaurant, so better get there early or reserve a table. We went at 6PM before the theatre and we were lucky to find a table but 15 minutes later there was already the queue. The kitchen is opened so you can see the chefs 👨‍🍳 preparing the dishes. It's not expensive at all, considering the location. It's a must

Taro Japanese restaurant in Soho is a great place to go for a casual meal with friends, family, or event done alone. The restaurant has a warm and welcoming dining space, and the menu features a wide variety of Japanese dishes, including ramen, sushi, and noodles. I recently had the opportunity to try Taro for myself where I was sat at the counter overlooking all the chefs at work (much to my delight), and I was very impressed with the quality of the food. I ordered the sushi set dish, and the sushi was also excellent, with fresh, flavourful fish and rice. In addition to the food, Taro also has a great atmosphere. The staff is friendly and welcoming, and the restaurant has a relaxed, casual feel. Overall, I highly recommend Taro Japanese restaurant to anyone looking for a delicious and affordable meal in Soho.

We walked around to have dinner somewhere, affordable, tasty and fast as it was raining that day a lot. Looked at their menu on the window and saw a lot of people inside. Went in. The senior gentleman who sees everyone can quickly communicate and foresee who will leave their table soon and he can accommodate new walk ins. The place was full and this man managed to find us a table, just asked to wait for 5 min. The team works fast and efficient. The food was delicious. Toilet is downstairs. We were really happy that we came across this restaurant. Very recommend to visit it when you are near Piccadilly area.

I kept it simple with a chicken katsu curry, but that’s OK because Taro are masters of keeping it simple. Always busy, always reliably delicious. The service was quick, our waiter was smiley, friendly and knowledgable. Reasonably priced with big bowls of tasty Japanese food. Throw in a bottle of sake and you’ve got yourself a party!

Terrible service. My word. I flagged three different staff down, none of them came. To the point where I got up and left, the owner (I think) looked at me and I said -no one is serving me and he flicks his hand to tell me to piss off basically. What a rude, rude man. This place is awful. Don't go if you want to eat quickly. The food is over priced too and they charge service for HORRIBLE service. I don't think so.

Can't say it's the best Japanese place I've ever visited, nor the best in soho. But it's a really decent place to eat. The kind of place I might go back to if I was quite hungry and in the area, but not the kind of place I'd go out of my way to get to. <br/>The food is mixed, some things were really good and a lot of it was very average. Nothing I had was bad. Service is fine, a touch slow but staff were as friendly as I could have hoped for. All in all a fine place to eat, nothing special though.<br/>

Best bento box I have ever had. Not because it was probably my first one, but mainly since it was extremely good! Though a little unassuming, Taro should make it to your must-eat Soho list. Due to the fact the whole stuff is Japanese Taro seems very trustworthy. I'd say the cramped conditions inside where you get to eat elbow-to-elbow with your neighbors also contribute to their credibility ;)<br/><br/>  Out of a wide variety of boxes to choose from I went for the teriyaki salmon. I loved what I got. Firstly, a bowl of hot miso soup (great deep flavour). The box consisted of salmon and tuna sashimi, some sushi, a piece of baked salmon with fantastic teriyaki sauce, some sprouts and edamame (all for 13.90). It was more than enough for a hearty and absolutely delicious meal.<br/><br/>However, the fact at Taro they know their job can backfire - the place might be very crowded. I went there a little before the Saturday lunch hours and barely managed to find a place to seat!

Friday night and the last weekend before Christmas, so sure everything is packed around this area in London. After photographing the Christmas lights I had the sudden wish for ramen and after searching zomato found Taro. We were lucky to find a table quite quickly. The space isn't big and you feel quite squeezed in between tables. I've ordered gyosa for starters and they were ok, but they were a bit burned at the bottom. The star of the night was the ramen, quite delicious and cosy as a ramen should be. Won't say it's the best I've ever had, but it was pretty good and would be back again for the ramen if I was in t he area. No photos this time as my phone battery had died.

Pretty decent food. Quick and reasonably priced as others have commented. Good selection of bento boxes, curries, hot noodles, Ramen and sushi. <br/><br/>I ended up with the spicy seafood noodles. Plenty of seafood but a little bit to much oil as well. Could have done with a bit more spice though I think and perhaps larger bits of seafood. <br/><br/>My buddy had the chicken Ramen. Looked like a winner of the two. So will give that a go next time. Or perhaps the curry<br/><br/>£26 for two inc service. Two soft drinks , two mains and some sushi

Horrible service, as mentioned by others, waiters were unfriendly, desperately trying to cramp everyone at the back despite being 4pm and most tables at the front empty. Ordered some sushis (nigiri). After a long wait one plate came, we had to wait another 10-15 minutes before the second one arrived. Rice of the nigiris was hot making the fish warm and ginger was old. Sticky tables. Just can't recommend this place.

A Japanese noodle and sushi bar in Soho London, on a particular rainy and windy Sunday... As I (Sammii) had previously eaten here before, I was dying to get my chopsticks around The Spider Roll again! We opted to order a range of sushi from the menu to share between us rather than the noodle and rice dishes the restaurant also had to offer. 

Great little place! Loved the food. So much variety even for a vegetarian like me. Ended up getting a vegetable bento box. Was delicious mostly (esp the tofu steak). Wasn't a bit fan of the roll sushi. Miso soup was really good. Service was quick. There was a miscommunication and the waitress ended up clearing up my bento box even though i wasn't finished yet. I won't lower the rating because of it. Will definitely be going there again.

One of the best options for reasonably priced grub in Soho - especially good to soak up a few post-work pints. In fact, it's where me and my boyf ended up on our first ever date after a few too many vinos, so maybe I'm biased :)<br/>It has a very informal, cafe style decor and you're crammed in a little tight, so it's better for a quick in-and-out rather than a lengthy catch up. The don rice bowls are particularly great - a proper carb-fest with a huge portion of rice and steaming teriyaki meat or salmon. For around £8 they're excellent value. The bento boxes are also fantastic and though I haven't tried the sushi there I'm reliable informed it's good.

There are few Japanese restaurants in London so competent at pairing quality with simplicity as Taro. Reasonably priced dishes and a predictably wide selection to choose from - the quality is consistent enough across the board that I can't in good conscience recommend any one dish above the others. If you are looking for a relatively light meal, take the step, head to Taro and trust your eyes. They'll know what to do.

Wrong Taro. I took a Japanese friend to Taro (Brewer Street) today as she was leaving to go back to Japan and we did not know when we would see each other again. We were both very hungry, and happy to be in a Japanese restaurant on a street synonymous with Japanese food. I regularly walk down Brewer Street and see that Taro is usually busy and thought it would be so for a good reason.<br/><br/>We went at lunch time where there weren't that many people and were kindly welcomed by the staff. We were surprised that they were playing the radio. I don't know about you but, for me, the radio isn't at all adequate for an eating environment, popular music isn't what it was and we wondered why we weren't listening to something more peaceful. The price of the food for most dishes was the average for most Japanese restaurants that I'd been to, except for the bento box's which were a little bit more.<br/><br/>I chose Salmon Bento and Agedofu. Classic.<br/>My friend wanted something that wasn't too heavy and went with the Prawn Udon. Cool.<br/><br/>My miso soup arrived with a spoon in the bowl. I just found that really suspicious for some reason. Typically, aesthetically and traditionally they're served in a miso soup bowl with a lid on top to keep the temperature. Unless the spoon was pre heated, it was only serving my soup to chill. The miso was very standard, if not a little sour towards the end.<br/><br/>Next to arrive was the Agedofu. I love this dish and have it in every Japanese restaurant I go to. I've had it home cooked and served in restaurants in Japan and also enjoy making it myself. It's my thing. I love this dish. I didn't love it here. The deep fried flour was dry man, it was dry. It was too dry. There was neither the beautiful crunch of corn flour nor was there the gooey pleasure of potato flour. It was dry. It was also a very standard firm tofu, the best agedofu I've had is with silken tofu, it doesn't need to be silken but if it's not going to be slippery you want it to be crunchy, and it was just dry. The sauce was standard, but not particularly refined or deep in any way.<br/><br/>The Salmon Bento was really hit and miss. You can't go wrong with the flavours of salmon and teriyaki and the fish was well cooked, but it was a small fish, it was Nemo. Essentially if Nemo was a salmon, I would have eaten Nemo on that day. Nemo, or any other small fish you can name. It wasn't Flounder. Flounder would have been great. Perhaps you eat Nemo because there are some of Nemo's friends served as sashimi. The sashimi was good. To my disbelief, there was no salt on my edamame beans. The edamame was not sweet at all, in fact, at times, I winced. There were these very peculiar cold bean sprouts served as a salad also, I don't know what they were adding to the meal because they didn't taste of anything, bland, little if any at all rice vinegar. I nearly choked on the carrot and cucumber side salad next to the sashimi it was so dry. There were California Rolls (of course), and salmon and shrimp sushi, both of which were fine. The edamame really made me feel sad.<br/><br/>My friend's udon was served warm. It was warm. It was oily. The udon, wasn't fresh. It was just udon. I don't know how any of these places make their money when their food just lacks so much heart. Cardboard, powdery, nothing special. No bounce, no life, dead. Dead udon. There were three (maybe!?) pieces of small prawn. The tempura was fine and the shrimp was tasty, but, it was warm. It was so warm. I asked my friend if it was a sad udon, she said it was kind of a sad udon but that she'd be going back to Japan tomorrow. This sentence really sums it up, this isn't really a Japanese restaurant but more of some kind of really well branded cheap cafe with a Japanese head chef posing in the front of the kitchen. They didn't look genki or alive with their cooking at all. <br/><br/>Never at any point were we asked if we wanted anything else to drink, perhaps some more wasabi, or if everything was okay. This I think should also be standard service, but perhaps there were not enough people there. I saw two young staff, bless them.<br/><br/>For the price, I would really expect a lot more. There are great Japanese restaurants (even on that street, Ten Ten Tei is delicious) that offer a more authentic experience. In summary, this restaurant's food is drab but has quite lovely yellow walls and I shan't be coming again.

VERDICT; As a massive sushi fan I balked at the actual sushi prices here. However, we did have a really tasty meal for a good price. So, worth it!<br/><br/>SURROUNDINGS; As I said, a bit tatty. Added to that, the door was very drafty and did not swing shut which meant that we were quite cold every time someone came in. Not great.<br/><br/>£££££

The staff, as mentioned already are always smiley, and the service is very speedy too. Mixing old school swimming pool changing room vibes and caravan chic with great, ahem, panache, the loos are however pretty grimy (at least in the Brewer Street Taro’s. The new branches aren’t so bad). So yeah, just stay away from the seafood and the loos, and tuck in to some excellent value chicken and green tea!<br/>

What I particularly disliked though was the fact that you had to sit uncomfortably close to the next diner (be it a random stranger). If you are looking for a place to have some small chit-chat with your lady or gent, this is surely a big 'no-no'. Anyhow, let's get to the food already! itadakimasu! (which translates literally to 'I humbly receive' as part of Japanese table manners) いただきます!

Soho’s Brewer Street seems to have more than its fair share of Japanese-related businesses from a manga shop to the Arigato supermarket and my perennial favourite Ten Ten Tei. Just across the road from Ten Ten Tei is the original branch of Taro, a Japanese restaurant that does a roaring trade at almost any time of day, but the Lensman and I managed to grab a table during one weekday lunchtime due to an impromptu craving for ramen.