Tapasia Asian Tapas - Albany

TapAsia has been on my Albany list for months now. FANTASTIC spot. The food is, honestly, just entire levels above Thai/Asian inspired Tapas I?ve had other places (including just up the block on Lark? . And I?m an AVID eater of Asian in inspired smallplates. Not fancy. Not large. There are a couple tables outside, but the actual dining room/bar is below street level. Cool,intimate, well lit basement vibes. Also, clearly a neighborhood spot where people know each other and talk to each other.Another thing I really like. Gotta have good food AND good vibes and a neighborhood spot, a small, independent restaurant?? THATis The Gold Standard my friends. And TapAsia is ALL that. I started out with fresh, summer rolls and added shrimp. These were,hands down, the best fresh summer rolls I?ve ever had (and I order summer rolls whenever I see them on a menu . These are chockfull of perfectly, finely chopped, fresh ingredients, rolled tightly and served in a beautiful, already cut plating withhousemade dipping sauce. Speaking of which! TapAsia makes all their sauces in house and it shows. Your sauces will make or breakyour dishes, ESPECIALLY in a cuisine that has a lot of sauces?like Thai? The dipping sauce served with the fresh summer rollswas so good I would not let my waiter take it away, because the Avocado Mango Egg Rolls were FANTASTIC when dragged through thesummer roll sauce! Also, yes, I said Avocado Mango Egg Rolls. FABULOUS. They are exactly what the name implies: egg rollwrappers filled with perfectly ripe, diced avocado and mango and then deep fried. So you get all the wonderful experience of ahot, fried egg roll and none of the meat (I don?t eat beef, pork or poultry . These are not marked Vegan on the menu, but thereare plenty of Vegan options here. I also ordered their Spicy Garlic Edamame as my third starter. My waiter asked me what heatlevel I wanted: Mild, Medium, Hot or Thai Hot. Me: ?NOT THAI HOT! NEVER THAI HOT! I?ll take regular Hot.

Tried their small plates or tapas and we were quite disappointed! Their tuna tartare was good as was the pad see ew! Looks like the reviews say good entrees as well! The edmame were tough, the harange chicken was ok, the soft shell crab was deep fried andtasted very bad to us! We took one bite and told the server politely we don't like this can they take it back and it doesn'ttaste good she argued saying this is how it is you didn't read the description! We then ordered the thai iced tea which wasovertly sweet! All in all i guess we ordered the wrong food or something as we didn't like the majority of the food, we had beenexcited about this place. I looked at the check and was surprised to see they charged us $12 for something we didn't likecouldn't eat or disliked the taste of and when i went to ask the server about it he said you ordered it you pay for it, its ourpolicy sorry cant five you refund. I tried to reason with him he's like you ordered it off the menu people like it don't care ifyou didn't like it at first bite and returned it you still pay for it! I have been to many restaurants and sometimes food isn'tto your taste or can come out not the best from the kitchen when you tell them they are always receptive to customers and don'tcharge for things you couldn't eat or disliked and couldn't eat beyond first bite!

One of the best Thai food In town, I ordered green curry vegetable, delicious ????

This small place puts out big flavours. I've had many curry dishes in my travels and this is up there with the best as far as authentic food is concerned. Wish I live in Albany, I'd be a regular.

I ordered the avocado and mango egg rolls with the tofu pumpkin curry. Both were great! Service was great too! I got the medium and it was spicy ???? in a good way :