Here is our awesome review from M2 Magazine. Yahoo~ 
TAIKO
If you were, for some reason, to imagine the Cheers bar as a Japanese restaurant, chances are, you’d end up with something like Auckland’s Taiko Japanese Bar and Restaurant. Granted, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of uniformed posties or depressed psychologists hanging around, but it does have a certain Cheers welcoming feel to it all. Unlike many restaurants, the staff are accessible. They’ll help suggest the perfect meal for the evening and they’re not afraid to let you know when you’ve made a bad call. It’s refreshingly honest. And with decades of experience behind them, the chefs know exactly what they are talking about.
The excitable nucleus of the place is Taiko’s Ted Danson, the energetic owner, Ian — and once he knows your name, he’ll likely remember it. After living in Japan for a number of years, be returned with a family and inspiration from Japan’s many fine restaurants/ bars and their ability to mix great food with great drink. True to that initial motivation, Taiko balances an extensive food menu with a wide variety of fine drinks—ten different sakes, six other types of Japanese liquor, five types of Japanese beer and 44 different, mainly New Zealand boutique wines. While these wines are not the type available in the supermarket, Ian keeps his margins capped, so for the top-end drops especially, prices are very reasonable. Ian sees this as a loss leader. His reckoning is that customers are more likely to tell their friends about the great sushi and fine champagne that they had the night before; no one boasts about having drunk a cheap bottle of wine. It is, after all, a part of the experience. It’s a basic recipe, really: decent food, decent drink and friendly staff but it works well. Cheers or should that be Kanpai?
nn~ WARUKUNAI NE-
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