Each time I go to a "modern Chinese" or "Chinese-inspired" restaurant, I've been a bit disappointed. Zoe Tong is no different. The flavorful execution of their vision is not there. I'd call it disappointingly flavor-muted food with nice textures and visuals. 5pm dinner on a Sunday night. They have complimentary valet--though I opted to park myself in the nearby neighborhood and take a stroll over. A nifty mural adorns the eastern wall of their building along the trail--it's a neat photo op. Entering, we were greeted and seated. The restaurant was fairly empty for the entire duration of our time there (up until 6:30pm). The team member taking our order stated she had worked in the kitchen for a while and understood most of the dishes on the menu. After placing an order for (a) Flaky Scallion Swirls, (b) Soup Dumplings in Dumpling Soup, (c) Brisket Dan Dan Noodles, and (d) Chef Simone's Half Rohan Duck, I checked out the restrooms. The biological female bathroom is inside the restaurant through a curtained doorway, and the biological male restroom is located "outside" the restaurant--this makes keeping your hands clean difficult as you have to open an additional door to re-enter the restaurant. We decided to also get (e) Fried Brussels and attempted to order Veggie Springrolls, but they were still out. Flaky Scallion Rolls arrived first in a cast iron skillet. Definitely flaky and soft. Slightly sweet, but not savory. Seems as though bean paste mixed with scallions were folded into the dough. However, the aromatics were absent. Any scallion or fermented bean flavor was super faint. I may as well as have been eating a plain, fluffy roll. The butter had truffle? If it did, it was quite faint. The Soup Dumplings came second. The chili flakes sprinkled on top added no detectable flavor. The interior was what you'd expect out of a pork soup dumpling. The skin was a bit thick. The exterior soup was a bit sweet, definitely different from the soup dumpling. Fried Bussels came in shortly after, quite dark and oily. Had some fresh apples. This dish has issues. It tastes more intentional as a left over dish, where the brussels have time to soak up the fish sauce. Otherwise, the hints of Szechuan peppercorn were not appreciated. Brisket Dan Dan--I loved the noodle texture. Quite comforting. Unfortunately, the sauce failed to impress. Even after mixing and coating the noodles, there was a lack of flavor. Without the noodles, it was quite salty. Tea egg was nice, but I wish it had a more intense flavor. Rohan Duck--a mixed bag. The two duck parts did have a reasonably nice smokey flavor. The accompanying broth was sweet for some reason. We figured out after taking it home that dipping the duck in the broth makes it taste better. The apricot / peach sauce was very light. The wraps--there were scallions embedded, but they didn't really add anything to the flavor, so why bother? Conclusion: Extremely diluted flavors, lack of aromatics, but pleasant, nice textures. If you like food on the blander side, this is a decent spot. But if you have expectations for your food to be tasty, definitely go elsewhere to avoid disappointment. If they can improve their flavor, I'm sure they could draw in more business.

This place exceeded my expectations! The prices on the menu gave me some hesitation but the food was good enough that I would come again. We ordered a bunch of things between 3 people but the standouts were the scallion buns and the black cod. Service was friendly but we waited a long time for our food after they lost our ticket. The food was up there but they lost 1.5 stars on the long wait and the value.

Pretty good actually! I fully expected this to just be overpriced Americanized Chinese food but came away pleasantly surprised. Yes it's pricey but the portions are decent and it's made with high quality ingredients. Really loved the ribs, I thought those were fantastic. Also highly recommend the mala lamb noodles. Free valet parking is nice

A friend and I came here for restaurant week and it was the perfect introduction to this restaurant! It was a preset 4 course menu and we got to try a little of all their highlighted/popular dishes. The star of the show was definitely the pork belly bun. You get a huge slab of pork belly paired with buttery soft bun that was just delectable. I also regally enjoyed the scallion roll and the sauce that came with it and the black sesame ice cream which I thought was not too sweet and super creamy. Now that I got a taster of Zoé Tong I will definitely be back to try their actual menu!

We came for Austin Restaurant week and had a great time! Service was great end to end. Overall, this was a very solid dining experience. It's definitely a modern fusion take on Chinese food, very interesting but it worked well. The scallion swirl was flaky and light. We thought the okra and pickled daikon in the fried rice was very unique and an unexpected pairing but surprisingly went well with the dish. The black cod was the star of the meal - really loved this. The presentation was beautiful and the hoisin glaze was filled with umami. I also enjoyed the Si Baby Verdad cocktail. The yuzu foam was a little thick (not the light airy salt foam I was expecting) but gave it a smooth creamy texture and was well-balanced - not too sweet. We also really loved the black sesame soft serve, it was the perfect way to end the meal. It wasn't the most aesthetically pleasing, but taste-wise it was spot on. The only miss of the meal was the Boba Tea-ramisu. The tea flavor along with the thick layer of cream overpowered the dish; the layer of ladyfinger(?) underneath was soggy and drowned in everything else. I wouldn't order this again. Aside from this, we enjoyed our meal and would come again!

My friend recommended we visit Zoe Tang while we were in Austin. I was not disappointed. We made a reservation, but there were plenty of tables on a Saturday night probably because it was pouring. The bathrooms are clean and the overall decor is a bit minimal. We ordered the following: Scallion buns - a fun version of man tao (fried bread (with scallions in a cast iron skillet. I did feel like the price as kind of steep for these, even though it was tasty. I couldn't distinguish the truffles from the truffle butter. It's supposed to be their signature dish, but it felt a little plain to me 3/5 Duck egg rolls - these were piping hot and fresh when they came out. I really enjoyed them and they did taste different from pork egg rolls. My favorite appetizer. 5/5 Soup dumplings - 4/5. Not the best I've had but the meat was really juicy and I liked the ginger broth which was strong and different. Dan Dan Noodles with wild boar - 5/5 this was the star of the night. The wild boar did not taste gamey and I loved the ma la (spicy numbness) of the sauce and the noodles mixed together. Service was attentive although I would have liked an explanation of what things were, when they were brought to the table. Overall a satisfying take on Asian fusion and Texan style farm to table food. I would go back to try more things.

My friend and I came to Zoe Tong for a week night dinner and were very happy with our meal. Our server was polite, attentive, and helpful with food and drink suggestions. We each had two cocktails. My friend had two espresso martinis and enjoyed them both. I got the Singapore Sling and some kind of drink with a yuzu foam (not pictured). Both were really tasty, especially the yuzu foam drink. Since they recommend ordering family style, we split a couple of small dishes and a big dish. For our small dishes, we got the Shrimp Toast (not pictured) and Soup Dumplings. I think the Shrimp Toast was actually my favorite item from the entire meal. The size and amount of shrimp in the toast was generous and the sauce that came with them was really delicious. They had a nice crunch as well. The soup dumplings were really fun because they also came IN a soup. They were light in flavor and the dumpling dough was cooked perfect. We finished with the Wild Boar and Brisket Dan Dan Noodles. I would highly recommend that dish as well. It had all the elements of a classic Dan Dan Noodle dish but with an Austin/Texas flair. The boar/brisket meat sauce was really tasty. I also liked that it wasn't too heavy on the Szechuan peppercorns which can overwhelm Dan Dan Noodles. It was a tad pricey, but overall, I was very happy with everything at Zoe Tong and look forward to coming back to try more dishes and drinks.