Zen E Private Kitchen — Restaurant in Waitematā

First of all, we will never go back again to this so-called "private kitchen". Service 0/5. As it is a so-called "private kitchen", it is understandable that you have to make a reservation in advance and ring the doorbell when you arrived. But after you ringed the doorbell and they buzzed you in, then you walked upstairs to the restaurant, waiting to be seated by a waiter/waitress, surprisingly, no waiter/waitress showed up. We felt it‘s odd and then started to find the counter and waiter/waitress all by ourselves. After we sat at the table and started to order, the waitress recommended a seafood dish to us but I rejected. (Because I had already read their menu online and had my preferences. What he/she recommended was not on my want-to-taste list. Personally, I don't like to order a seafood dish in a Chinese restaurant outside of China, because it is always overpriced, and you can easily cook it very well at home if the seafood is fresh. If I want to have some nice seafood courses, I will go to some Portuguese restaurants, they know how to cook seafood.) After I rejected his/her recommendation, it became odd to us: I started to order from my want-to-taste list, but I was been told by the waiter/waitress that half of them were unavailable, I had to order something else as a sub. After the waiter/waitress left, I felt something was not right. Because one of the "unavailable" dishes was the one they keeping adverting all of those days, it didn't make any sense if it was unavailable on the menu. Then I asked another waiter about this "unavailable" dish; surprisingly he said it was available, without any hesitating, and also double checked with the kitchen. We felt even odder after then. During the whole dinner, only one waiter is professional and the other four was rude or unfamiliar with their provided courses or the promotion information.

Food 0/5. On that night, I felt that what I had in that dinner were just an average taste and an average presentation with a bad experience and an excessive price. I lost my appetite. I have uploaded some photos here. You can see the difference between the dishes we got and what they present on their menu. They must pay a lot of money to the photographists rather than their chef. In the next day morning, I felt uncomfortable in my stomach. It often happens if I have too much monosodium glutamate (MSG) during the meal in the restaurant. If they indeed used MSG in their cooked food, it is a shame they call themselves "private kitchen". In my opinion, a pro chef should have savouriness skilfully and patiently built up from well-chosen ingredients using time-honored techniques, not settle for a cheat’s quick fix from a tin like an amateur. I quote one of the others' review :"大厅显眼处贴着很多明星光临的跟老板合照的照片. 我只能说可能给明星做菜的厨师跟做给我们平民百姓吃的不是同一个吧." I totally agree with this one, the chef who might cook for the superstars is not the same as the one that cooks for us.

Overall 0/5. They have an information sheet on each dining table, indicate that if you write a review on Zomoto or Dazhongdianping (大众点评网，a Chinese version of Zomoto), you can get some discount (Wechat red porket/Weixin hongbao) from the staff. I believe that is why there are still some positive reviews on the web. People write down some positive reviews for the discount. And I notice that somehow they have deleted quite a lot of negative reviews on the web...

We recently had dinner here. My father in law saw some reviews online, along with some favourable marketing talking about how lots of famous people had eaten here. However the entire experience was underwhelming and overall disappointing.

For a restaurant of this price, you would expect the entrance to at least be clean and presentable. But the first thing you see going in is overcrowded fish and crayfish tanks. The water was dirty, the fish were stressed and unable to get enough oxygen from the tanks themselves, they are basically trying to escape out of the water just to breath.

We were taken to one of the booth tables, if you can even call them tables. The table was a sheet of hardware store MDF with a table cloth, held up by 2 wicker chairs underneath. It was unstable and constantly shifted during the course of the meal. The MDF sheet weren't even fixed to the chairs... All the booth tables looked to be like this, but the larger round tables on the floor were actually tables.

We went as a party of 4. We ordered 5 dishes + rice, and we paid $236 total. We ordered:

Peking duck set Duck was very dry. The skin was ok, but there was no fat or juices in the duck at all. The pancakes were also all stuck together. We ended up having to ask for more pancakes, which we were charged extra for. The meat seemed like just the breast? not much overall.

Jasmine smoked chicken The food served looked NOTHING like the menu picture. I almost couldn't find the menu name because the pictures didn't match my memory. The chicken was a pale gray/ yellow colour vs the menu which shows it a rich brown glaze. We paid $20 for what looked like 1/4 chicken, but 70% of which was bones.

Mapu tofu with crayfish This was actually really nice. But the portion size was tiny, the bowl it came in was about the size of a large apple. But it was $32.

Sweet and sour spare ribs This was pretty nice. The coating on the pork was good. I don't have any complaints.

Fried kumara pieces in sugar This was also decent. The portion size was good.

The service was also below average. I don't really expect much normally. Chinese restaurants are more about the food. But this place had nothing good. The staff were just standing around doing nothing most of the time, we had to find people to take our order.

I also had issues with the decor, like using pine framing to make the ceiling grid patterns. This is a nitpick, but at least use dressed pine. The framing was poorly stained and you could still see all the stamps and marks from the lumberyard. All the wiring/ pipes and AC units were also exposed above this grid pattern, which leads to dust and debris falling onto food. We also had a TV in our booth for some reason, probably to show us ads as we ate. The box stickers were still on the TV. One of them said "New in 2010". It's 2024 as of writing this review, and I think this place opened 3 years ago.

I guess what I'm trying to say is. For a place charging this much, there are standards you should aim to meet for food, service and decor. This place truly...

I was here with family and friends for a birthday dinner, amazing staff service along with great food but what a let down by the owner. We had a couple dishes that were forgotten, so I went and told the owner to cancel them if they haven’t already started. Owner told one of the staff go and check on the dishes, but didn’t tell the staff to cancel it if it hasn’t started. I reiterated to the staff saying cancel it if it hasn’t already started, the owner interrupted and insist her staff to “check first” like she was saying to just get the chef to start it then just ignored me from there. They brought one out after a while and then end up forgetting the last one, so they pretty much just started the dishes when I asked about it and lied.

We went to pay at the end, the owner had sat at the cashier too busy either doing a TikTok live or scrolling social media and couldn’t care less about taking our payment. One of the poor staff(super nice waitress) was running around taking phone orders and also serving food asked if the owner could help her take our payment, instead of helping, the owner rudely says to her own staff “why are you taking phone orders, get someone else to help you.” At this point, the waitress felt terrible and was apologising to us while the owner continue to provide no help and just sat there like she was getting her nails done. Until we got annoyed and she finally asked how can she help. Honestly expected a bit more from the owner after spending over $800 meal.

Overall we had a great experience until we had to deal with owner who can’t help her own staff. I recommend going on days when the owner is not working, for greater experience unless you are ready to receive some attitude from the...