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| - I was so excited to try Tavernakaya! I'm a big fan of izakayas and from the pictures I'd seen of the place, this was an interesting take on Asian fusion. I was especially keen on trying to the albacore ponzu, as there were beautiful pictures of it on Instagram!
The restaurant itself is beautiful. The aesthetics are pretty wonderful and it has a big-city feel you won't find in a lot of restaurants in Madison. I was impressed with now nice everything looked -- and how packed the restaurant was early on a Thursday night.
We ordered the Satori to start, a yummy cocktail made of sake, pomegranate liqueur, orange juice, and cardamom syrup. Sweet and delish. We got the Albacore Ponzu -- but they were out of albacore, so we got salmon instead. My dining companion loves salmon, so this was a good development for us! We also got the Korean Chicken Wings as a starter. The salmon was beautiful and delicious, but nothing special. The Korean Chicken Wings were sweet and did not have much "Korean" flavor to it.
Then, we both ordered a spicy miso ramen for dinner. I absolutely looooved that it was actually spicy, which is a rarity in Madison. But the spice overpowered any flavor and the broth ended up just tasting spicy and had minimal flavor.
Our server was very nice and attentive. She recovered well from a snafu with some dropped water glasses and made sure our water glasses were full the whole night. One thing that was problematic about the service: the placement of the tables near the windows was quite tight. That meant there was very little space between our table for two and the large party behind us. The waitstaff kept bumping into my chair and it became problematic, as there was no place for me to hang my purse (it kept getting bumped off the chair). The table behind us didn't seem too thrilled about the arrangement and it seemed as if there was a better way to space out the seating so that the waitstaff didn't have to squeeze through small spaces and the patrons could eat without smashing into one another.
Overall, I still think the Salmon Ponzu dish was beautifully plated -- and the ambiance and decor are stellar. But the actual food itself and the issues with seating were enough to make me turn elsewhere for my Asian fusion meals.
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