Comments on: Zen Chinese Cuisine in Richmond

By: Chow Times » 3rd Spanish Meal: Having The Best Sandwich in the World on Montjuic

Chow Times » 3rd Spanish Meal: Having The Best Sandwich in the World on Montjuic — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 01:51:46 +0000

[...] is also the ”best Chinese restaurant outside of China”. We went to that restaurant (blog here) before it closed a few months later! So, there you [...]

By: Chow Times » Zen Fine Chinese Cuisine - Best Chinese Food Outside China

Chow Times » Zen Fine Chinese Cuisine - Best Chinese Food Outside China — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 15:13:05 +0000

[...] Suanne and Ben Here is the full review of our visit to Zen: http://chowtimes.com/2008/03/23/zen-chinese-cuisine-in-richmond/ [...]

By: Quite possibly the best Chinese food in Metro Vancouver | Vancouver Metblogs

Sun, 11 May 2008 07:32:42 +0000

[...] reviews have been fast and furious since then, and so has the business. Along with some friends, we went there to try things [...]

By: Chow Times » Michigan Noodle Shop in Richmond

Chow Times » Michigan Noodle Shop in Richmond — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 05:03:01 +0000

[...] Shop is located at the eastern end of Alexandra Road. It is actually on the same strip mall as Zen Chinese Cuisine and across the road from Coco Chili. You won’t miss, not with that bright yellow signboard [...]

By: JuJu

JuJu — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 04:38:39 +0000

I have eaten there before the mad rush. His cooking is very tasty. I agreed with Ben that it is one of the better Chinese meals. Just remember that it is like eating at a French restaurant and not a traditional Chinese restaurant with large portions. If you are going to measure value with the igrediants, you’re not going to get it here or many other places either.

By: weew

weew — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 23:01:28 +0000

Ben>>Thanks for the review with the pictures!

LotusRapper>>LOL, I was reading that during my lunch. Interesting read and a little bit surprised that Bluewater guy won.

Lola>>You are spot on. I’m not impressed. My thought while reading Ben’s review was “gee, it looks like stuff I eat at home, but on a small plate” However, before we bash Zen we do have remember that the “chef” was not classicly trained. He just worked in restaurants before and decided to open a restaurant. It shows in the fod.

By: Erick

Erick — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 17:05:21 +0000

Lola, couldn’t agree with you more! To name a place that’s almost going out of business as the Top Chinese Restaurant outside of China is ludicrous! In Vancouver, where there are many great choices to eat Chinese, the people vote with their wallets and patronage. If the Zen people really want to stand out, they should be trying to reconstruct the Chinese basic food like one chap is doing in Hong Kong. I saw him on the Anthony Bourdain’s show, “No Reservations”. This one chef (self-trained) has a take on beef sukiyaki, using rare Kobe beef in small, one-serving sukiyaki dishes and letting the warm sauce cook this meat. He also had an interpretation on the traditional Har Gow, emphasizing more of the shrimp than the wrapper that was nothing short of impressive. That kind of refinement is what separates one from another small plate restaurant.

While I’ll agree that the Vancouver area is the best outside of China/HK for Chinese food, I’m a bit leery of this critic.

By: LotusRapper

LotusRapper — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 16:18:42 +0000

I think I would tend to agree with Lola. I don’t think I’ll be spending my $36 at Zen.

Lola, if you haven’t already, I recommend the latest issue of Georgia Straight (Golden Plates Award ‘08). One of the main feature articles talks about how in Vancouver, the whole concept of fine-dining restaurant presentation and marketing packaging is still lacking, and we are definitely behind other major cities:

http://www.straight.com/article-137314/ingredients-success

By: Lee Ping

Lee Ping — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 05:15:21 +0000

Thanks for the detailed review. I find your reader’s comment helpful as well.

By: lola

lola — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 23:12:40 +0000

No wonder Zen is almost out of business. The owner markets his restaurant as a fine dining restaurant but it’s not that fine about it’s food, location and presentation. There is no wow factor. Just because he serves everything in small sample size doesn’t make it fine dining.

Besides you don’t eat shark fin everyday, other dishes are very common (you can have it everyday and find it everywhere), nothing is unique.

How easy it is for you to find Hainanese Chicken, it’s in every Asian food court. Fried rice is cheap. Can he at least put some visible ingredients in rice? Roast pork? We all have favorite roast pork vendor, you just don’t go to Zen for roast pork. Mustard Green Hearts? Does it even require a good chef to make that? garlic crab? I mean there’s a lot of chinese restaurants serving great crabs, if you really want excellent crabs, would you go to a real Chinese restaurant serving you big dish of crabs or Zen for a few small bites of crabs? He seems to use dry scallops a lot(go for inexpensive ingredients), not fresh ingredients, that’s lame for a fine dining place. Pudding is inexpensive to make, can’t he give customers a bigger pudding for dessert? It will cost him nothing and make customers happy. The chef is too cheap to do so. Apple Cider in chilled cups? Not very exciting. You either give them bigger cups or small cups with some other ingredients (such as fruits) nicely arranged together.

It’s not being impolite or anything, if no one tells the owner honestly what is wrong with his restaurant, he will never see why the restaurant isn’t making it and he won’t be able to improve anything to save his business.

Here in Vancouver, there’s a lot of restaurants trying to make it as fine dining because it’s too much hard work for them to sell honest solid food. They will only go out of business soon. In US, if you want to market your restaurant as a find dining place, the decor has to be really fancy, it should have valet parking and the ingredients have to be not cheap, some signature dishes you can’t find somewhere else.