Asian Taste: Tel: (410) 467-0100; Add: 916 W 36th St, Baltimore, MD 21211; asiantasterestaurant.com
Related articles about Asian Taste
Asian Wok: Safe Dine-in at Old Town
China King Menu: what to pick for meals
On the Avenue in Hampden beside the Royal Farms, you will find Asian Taste. It is not a place that is trying to get people’s attention with fancy lightings and all that. Rather it is hidden behind a tree which makes it an effortless task to be not noticed. You will be able to tell from their name, that they serve Asian food. To be more specific, you can have Chinese, Japanese and Thai. The Japanese one is based on sushi.
Just because it does not want to be the center of attention, it does have a lot of regulars and new customers every day. Even though the eatery does not spend its money on lightings there are a lot of seats. They have a lot of customers who prefer take out. They provide home delivery as well. I do not understand why does an Asian restaurant have to include alcohol?
Alcohol completely ruins the image of a place. People who do not drink might completely ignore the place because their might be traces of alcohol in their food. I cannot trust a place that has full bar or beer and alcohol only. Most people in Asia, do not even drink it and they also do not have open bars in the restaurants. Therefore, who is the restaurant trying to attract? Only Americans? I also believe they will also not prefer this kind of drinks when having lunch or dinner.
You can take the Crispy Pepper Salted Squid ($6.95) if you like seafood, which happens to be little strips of squid that are deep fried. I call it the Squid Fries, and my friend who had it said it tasted super. My friend chose the Thai dishes, generally stir fried dishes with lots of eggplant and tofu, and despite the pepper sign beside the name of the dishes they were not spicy at all. It is something I have noticed in other places as well. They put the pepper sign next to the name which indicates that it is spicy and after getting the food, there is no heat. I would prefer take out rather than having them delivered to my home because the customer service is not fantastic. You are going to be paying them yet there is no guarantee that they will not be rude. The food can arrive cold and reheating in the oven ruins the texture.
According to their website, delivering is free and the minimum amount should be $10. They deliver in many places such as Barclay, Charles Village, Remington, Harwood, City College, Coldstream, Montebello, Homestead etc. They can be a little late so do not be too hungry when you are ordering. Overall, their home delivery service gets a 3 out of 10.
Vegetarians have a lot of options such as Kung Pao Tofu($8.25), Vegetable Chow Ho Fun ($7.95), Steamed Mixed Vegetables($7.55). I was interested in the Special Combination Plates but then again, I could order anything from there because it comes with pork fried rice. First of all, the pork is unhealthy plus it does not even taste appetizing. Rather than this, the white rice or brown rice is preferable. All the Special Combination Plates are $7.95 but that did not help me. If it did not include the pork fried rice, I would have taken something from there like the General Tso’s Chicken. There is another dish under Special Combination Plates. Vegetarians order that by mistake but then receive the repulsive pork fried rice. Why would they put a vegetarian dish with pork?
When having sushi, you are going to expect fresh ingredients and fish. The sad part is that the sushi is not tasty because the fish they put is not fresh. The sauce is also greasy. The chicken Udon($7.95) contains lettuce instead of cabbage. The green curry with shrimp is excessively sweet. The shrimps will not be clean and they come with the tails.
It is also not a suitable place to take your children since it is full bar. The eatery remains open till 2 AM in the morning. It is a so called happy hour where there is nothing to be satisfied about and it starts from 11 PM. They limit the items on the menu. If you are going at that time, you can have the Crispy Calamari Salad ($8.25), fried oysters and seafood rolls.
The Cheese Crabmeat Wontons ($6.25) is a nice deal. You receive 10 wontons which is a fairly large bag since most of the time I got four or six from other places. The sad part is that you might not be able to taste the crabmeat. Being a spicy and hot food lover, I took the Dynamite roll ($10.99). To my surprise, it was not hot or spicy. With the excess mayo sauce, there is no way to get taste of the salmon and tuna in it. During delivery, they also do not get the orders properly. My friend was allergic to wasabi so when having home delivery, we mentioned that. Even though we repeated that there should be no wasabi, everything had that. The sushi was not fresh upon arrival and it took them almost two hours. Do not disappoint yourself ordering sushi. It is an Americanized Chinese restaurant so regular dishes can make your experience beautiful.
The problem is that they do not take complaints from the customer seriously. It is surprising how they still have so many customers because they do not take the problems critically. If you care about aesthetics and fear of spice, then do not worry because you will not get any of them. They do not care how their dishes appear to be, they just serve it on a plate. Plus, there is no food that will make you cry because of its heat. All of them are bland or sweet. There is not a single level of atomic stages of peppery heat that you might be looking for in Asian food.
