3.5 stars. I really wanted to absolutely fall in love with Toast. I really did, but something just didn't click with me; more on that later.
We ended up going with a party of 6 on a Wednesday night; we scoured yelp to find a place to eat and ended up calling in various restaurants to see if they could squeeze us in (Toast had a time slot open at 8 PM). They have a regular menu, but on Tuesdays and Wednesdays they have a chef's tasting menu for $30 w/ an optional $20 wine pairing, so most of us decided upon that option.
Now the chef's tasting menu at Toast is a four course ordeal where it's a grab bag of what you're going to get as opposed to a standard set menu. You'll be asked if you have any food allergies or restrictions, and then the chef cooks whatever he likes and it's luck of the draw for what you end up getting served since no two dishes were the same (I told my waiter I was allergic to everything but lobster). I have a feeling the waiters were the final deciders of who would get what dish. Because of this, there's no real flow to the meal as the flavors of each course might not work well together. The progression of courses starts with an appetizer followed by a seafood dish, then a salad of sorts and it ends with a meat dish.
The food was cooked well, but I had issues with the use of "side dishes" by the chef. Also, none of the food was really memorable; nor did any of the dishes really strike me as particularly inspired. My seafood dish consisted of a small fish fillet complemented with a few strips of roasted potatoes. The fish was tender with a perfectly crisped skin; however, I'm not sure roasted potatoes were the best choice to be paired with this fish as it seemed more of an arbitrary "side dish" as opposed to being an actual part of the entree. My meat dish was roast duck (medium rare) served with black eyed peas. Like with the fish, the black eyed peas seemed to not really fit in with the dish either.
I guess my main gripe is that the dishes would've been better completely decomposed; the sum was less than that of all its parts.
For the purposes of yelp, my review is rounded up to 4 stars b/c the atmosphere and decor were appropriate and they were extremely accommodating even though we lacked formal reservations. Also, even though I complained a lot about their dishes, $30 for a four course tasting menu is extremely wallet friendly and definitely a good "deal" for the price.