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Zen Fine Chinese Cuisine
Category: Restaurants Chinese Chinese [Edit]
12480 No 1 RdSte 120
Richmond, BC V7E 0A2
Neighbourhood: Steveston
(604) 272-2777
- Price Range:
-
$$$$
- Attire:
- Casual
- Good for Groups:
- No
- Good for Kids:
- No
- Waiter Service:
- Yes
- Outdoor Seating:
- No
- Noise Level:
- Quiet
5 reviews for Zen Fine Chinese Cuisine
5 reviews in English
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Review from Vic W.
Richmond, BC
6/24/2011
The main waitress Candy is really attentive and helpful. The restaurant has been open for about a year as of June 2011 and the staff work hard to give great value and its pictureque location near the Steveston Waterfront and fine decor makes this a more than pleasant experience. I ordered the curry beef with rice and it was great!
Beef was tender and not at all fatty. Done just right with really great spices. Can't rate it any better. Give it a try. Its a bit out of the beaten path (ie No. 3 Road) but well worth the trip. Parking is at street level. -
Review from Kiwi W.
Vancouver, BC
6/24/2011 1 Check-in Here
This place is a joke.
We placed a reservation for dinner-time and pre-ordered the menu we wanted in the afternoon so that we could get our food faster when we arrive.
When we've arrived at the restaurant, we were seated but no menus were given to us, so we assumed that they were already preparing the food we pre-ordered.
After having sat there for quite a while now, the server comes up and says "sorry for the wait, here's the menu". That was a shock. We told them that we have already pre-ordered a menu of items. The girl was confused and went to speak to her manager. The manager came and asked us which menu we have pre-ordered, so we told them. A while later, the manager came back and told us that they couldn't find our order, but they will now start preparing the food. What the ****? We already told them which items we ordered, so even if they couldn't find our pre-order, why didn't they just start on preparing the food instead of wasting time trying to find our pre-order?
After waiting a really long time since we were seated, our food finally came. The service was awkward throughout the whole meal. For example... When one of our dishes came, the server came to our table, holding the dish, and told us that the dish was ready, and then walked away with that dish. She came back and took away plates from some of us (for some reason, she didn't take away my dad's plate) and returned with the dish again.
Also, they do not pay attention to the needs of their customers. The server was cleaning away some of the plates from our table and I was wondering out loud if the glass of water in front of me was mine. My dad said "no, the empty glass is yours". After hearing that, I assumed the server would go refill my water, but she just walked away.
Our bill came up to be around $70. When we were waiting for some change back, the server gave us a $20 bill back and only $3 in change available for tipping... We ended up having to dig in our wallets to make up the rest of the tips.
The whole restaurant was not very busy at all. There were 3 other tables in the restaurant aside from us. The empty tables had dirty plates and used tableware not cleaned up the whole time we were there. I was surprised at how slow and awkward their service was.
Oh, and the food?
It was below average... The soup was alright, but everything else was below average. This rice bowl dish was not good at all. We ended not finishing most of the dishes.
We went to McDonald's to eat afterward. -
Review from Odette C.
Vancouver, BC
$29 Promo of the month menu
Double boiled soup-chicken infused squab Soup, v light but flavorful
Stuff Welk w/ seafood -curry flavored seafood minced & stuffed into a shell,nice presentation good solid flavor
Steamed lobster w garlic sauce-special garlic sauce is slightly crunchy& does not leave a garlicky aftertaste. This is the house special must try dish
Tofu skin & veggies-ok the chinese veggies are v. soft
Curry beef brisket on rice-it's a dry currie v. flavourful but don't expect a lot of sauce
Dessert-milk custard in a cute minature glass container, very yummy
Have to mention the ladies room, it has one of those heated seats and bum cleaning jets (well for those who like this sort of thing) Also perfume available March Jacobs and Chanel #5 -
Review from Jenny G.
Richmond, BC
Updated - 9/20/2011
Been there now a total of 4 times, each one a worse experience.
My group actually walked out while waiting to be served for lunch. The poor waitress didn't have the foggiest. My guess is that she was on the first hour of her first day on the job, without any training whatsoever.
Sad to see -- this restaurant bills itself as "The Greatest Cuisines Outside of China" .
We tried to order what they advertised on the billboard outside, but many entrees were non-existent, according to the smaller menu the waitress handed us.
People on the sidewalk, who say they had dined there, also had negative comments, so they say.
Nice open-glass decor, quite the opposite of dimly-lit high-priced eating places downtown.
Lunch prices are high for the area. (Prices were lowered, but are now $8 plus $2 to $6 depending -- rather confusing. Seems like a used-car sales technique being applied to lunch special prices, imo.1 Previous Review: Show all »
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1/25/2011
This review is just for the $8 lunch special.
The chi (energy) of the chicken lunch was excellent,… Read more »
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Review from Caroline K.
2/24/2011 9 photos
Came here because of a blurb about the restaurant written in "The Fortune Cookie Chronicles" by Jennifer 8 Lee. She states that this chef's restaurant has the best Chinese food outside of China. How could we miss out on the opportunity to try such highly praised food?
The location is somewhat new and in a nondescript part of Richmond. We weren't hungry and the restaurant looked empty save for about two tables of people, so we drove elsewhere first and then returned. The place was pretty crowded, though there were still empty tables. The hostess, who has very limited English skills and required the help of the waiter/host, told us that they were booked for the night as well as the next day. Since we noticed they serve lunch until 5, we made a reservation for lunch. We were disappointed bc the dinner set menu is what we had really wanted to try, as it is discounted heavily - half off plus another 25%! Please note that you will need to bring cash as there is a 10% additional charge for credit/debit cards.
The next day, we arrived late for our lunch. I asked the waiter if it was too late, but he said it wasn't and seated us promptly. To our surprise, he handed us a dinner menu. Yay - we managed to try dinner there after all. They have three set menus to choose from; the first was ruled out bc it's for a minimum of four people. We decided on the more expensive of the latter two. We found out later that if you come early enough, sometimes they will allow you to order one of each set menu (rather than everyone having to order the same). The table next to us was able to do this, though it was too late for us.
-Black Chicken Bouillon Soup - This was a clear soup w/ bits of berkshire pork, Japanese sea cucumber, and cabbage.
-Beef Carpaccio - This came in a glass cup with citrus foam, peeled grapes, some bib lettuce, longan, and aoli - it looked like a fancy salad. Good flavor and nice presentation.
-Shrimp Salad - My friend chose this instead of the Beef. It was very similar except it came with five sweet shrimp and a mango dressing.
-Curry Abalone Shell w/ Stuffing - The dish came with a blaze of fire and once the fire was out, they took it back and brought it back out on a different plate. I noticed that when it got busy, they simply brought out the abalone minus the fire. Anyways, this was really good - the curry was a little spicy but the stuffing had abalone, prawns, scallops and crab.
-Lobster w/ Egg Whites and Truffle Oil - The lobster (1.5 pounds) was fresh and basically killed just before making this dish. The egg whites were extremely fluffy (what is the secret??) and everything was drizzled in a yummy truffle oil.
-Abalone with an Organic Cauliflower Citrus Vinaigrette - I didn't eat much of this bc I don't like abalone straight up. It was pretty tender, though.
-Zen Pizza - This was actually really good. It had pieces of proscuitto, fig jam, and gruyere cheese on house made dough. It had a nice sweet flavor that paired well with the proscuitto, which was surprisingly not salty.
-Tahitian vanilla Bean Panna Cotta with Berry Compote - This was also good, but then again, panna cotta is very easy to make at home (and cheap).
I have to say that the food was not necessarily Chinese (unless you call pizza Chinese) but most everything was delicious. I usually stay far away from abalone and lobster, but for the most part, I enjoyed the way the food was prepared.
I can see why people would complain about service bc after a few hours, the place was packed with only the male waiter and female hostess running around. We didn't find the waiter rude - he described all our dishes to us and was pleasant. Of course we did notice he spent more time w/ us at the beginning when there were only two-three tables, but as it got busier, so did he, which was understandable. We did have to wait a long time for our bill after our almost 3-hour meal, but the two were running around the place. I'd definitely recommend the food, but make reservations! They try to stagger them as not to become overwhelmed, but I guess it doesn't always work.
