TAO Asian Bistro

FOOD

The food program is Pan-Asian first and brunch second, with a buffet built around sushi, seafood, dim sum, hot dishes, carving meats, ramen and desserts. The raw bar offers oysters, chilled shrimp, nigiri and sashimi, giving an opening plate a cooler, cleaner profile than the usual eggs-and-bacon start. Salmon, tuna and hamachi have all been part of the sashimi selection, while rolls expand the Japanese side without making the station feel like a separate sushi restaurant.

Dim sum provides the next layer. Har gow and shumai bring the familiar steamed side of the category, while crispy-bottom barbecue pork bao add a browned, savory contrast. TAO also folds breakfast directly into the Asian format. Bacon-and-egg breakfast bao turn a brunch staple into a handheld bun rather than placing a conventional breakfast station beside the rest of the buffet. That small move helps the meal stay recognizably TAO even when morning foods enter the mix.

The hot stations present dishes that draw more directly from the restaurant’s dinner vocabulary. Chicken satay, orange chicken and honey-glazed salmon have rotated through the spread, giving the middle of the meal a mix of sweet, savory and grilled flavors. Wagyu sliders supply a more obvious brunch indulgence, while carving service adds substantial portions of pork belly and sirloin; the carving station has also included salmon. The pleasure here is less in pursuing one single signature dish than in composing plates that move from dim sum and seafood into richer meats.

Ramen earns its own stop rather than being reduced to a pan of noodles on the buffet. Guests assemble a personal bowl from broth, noodles and toppings, with pork broth among the available foundations. The bowls are intentionally smaller than a full restaurant portion, which makes the station well suited to an AYCE meal: it is possible to work ramen into brunch without letting it consume the entire appetite.

Dessert is treated at comparable scale. Macarons, doughnuts, croissants, lemon-curd tarts, small pastries, crepes and cakes surround a chocolate fountain, with fruit and marshmallows available for dipping. The format invites another round of sampling rather than one plated finale. It is a buffet dessert table with enough visual abundance to belong in TAO’s room, and the fountain gives the station an unabashedly old-school Las Vegas pleasure.

A few of TAO’s best-known restaurant signatures sit outside the $65 buffet as optional add-ons. Spicy tuna tartare on crispy rice is offered for an extra charge, and Peking duck and Chilean sea bass skewers have also been available as brunch additions. That separation is useful: the buffet remains broad enough to stand on its own, while regular TAO dishes can be layered onto the meal without turning the base price into a tasting-menu commitment.

The spread is most coherent in contrasts: raw seafood against warm dim sum, bao against carved pork belly, a small ramen bowl before sirloin or salmon, then pastries and chocolate. TAO’s buffet is not simply a collection of brunch standards enlarged for volume. Its identity comes from keeping sushi, Chinese dim sum, Thai-leaning flavors and familiar breakfast pleasures in the same orbit, with the setting providing the theatrical frame around all of it.