ZAZ Restaurant & Catering — Restaurant in Boston

ZAZ catering is on Spectacle Island in the Snack area. I visited here with a friend. The food and service were absolutely comical. I’m laughing so hard I’m tearing up as a write this. 😂😂🤣

The lady taking my order is Chinese and doesn’t know how to use the simple credit card machine. I helped her multiple times. She charged my jerk chicken sandwich as a grilled cheese sandwich. I couldn’t stop her. She said it was ok. I’m pretty sure I didn’t pay what it costs. 🤩🥳 The cook only speaks Spanish and the Chinese lady speaks very poor English…and zero Spanish.

My food was finally ready, and the Chinese lady kept apologizing to the another customer saying that the Spanish lady cooked two of whatever she ordered. However, it was obviously my food (2 orders). I was able to speak a little bit of Spanish and confirm with the Cook that it was indeed my food. Otherwise, I would not have received my order.

I did not expect the food to be warm enough, and I was not disappointed. The middle of my Panini sandwich was quite cold. In fact, only the outer edges were warm enough to potentially be food-safe. I ate it anyway, and I wish I had not. This was THE ONLY FOOD OPTION on the island.

There are no trash cans on the island and so I had to return my trash to the Chinese lady. I decided to purchase a bag of Doritos to wash the flavor out of my mouth from the sandwich. The credit card machine appeared stuck. I realized fairly quickly that the lady simply did not know how to read English and could not tell what the credit card machine was saying. The previous customer had not completed the step to leave a tip. After she fumbled around for about a minute, I stepped in and processed the transaction for her. She was then able to process my transaction.

During the process of delivering my trash and purchasing the Doritos, the electric countertop grill stop working. This was apparently the only way to warm any food in the kitchen. One of the customers took her friend into the kitchen and helped the Spanish lady turn the grill on. When I left, it did appear that the grill was now working.

All in all, this was an adventure that I will remember for my entire life. I am grateful for the opportunity to experience this day. I also hope that my stomach ache does not continue...

I'm torn about doing this review, because I really wanted to be able to say I finally found a black owned spot I can actually count on, but I ended up having to throw $30 of food out because I just couldn't eat it and they didn't give me all I asked for. The customer service was great which gave me high hopes, but the food? TUH... Ordered a coconut shrimp w/ black rice, green plantains, and a side of black beans sauce. Not what I originally came for but they didn't have what I ordered (even though it was on the menu). Firstly it says online you can place a reservation to dine in. Ummm... WHERE? Is it behind the kitchen, Because I walked in and found no dining tables just counter space against the walls with a few chairs. The place IS NOT big enough to come dine in, but I digress... When they didn't have what I originally ordered I settled on the coconut shrimp, which was way too sweet and sitting on top of lettuce in the same container they put the HOT rice. Fair to say the lettuce was not eaten because it was soggy and hot. No dressing provided anyways. The person taking my order said they had black rice so I opted for that and when asked was told it came with sauce. I got neither. They gave me brown rice and beans and there was no sauce. Who eats rice dry??? I tried... The rice, though HOT, tasted like it was on the brink of spoiling and it was clear they scraped it from the bottom of the pot, because why is gratin in my $30 plate. I didn't ask for that. The green plantains I asked for was ignored and I was given barely done sweet plantains dripping in HOT grease. And the black beans sauce I asked for on the side was crazy salty. I get sometimes a thing or two being off. There's grace for that, but this was worse than that for me. And this day I was HUNGRY and craving. Ruined my night. As expensive as dining out is, I won't second chance this spot, because I have no confidence that I won't have to throw out my...

If I could leave 0 stars, I would. Zaz disappointed me on so many levels. I was recommended to try Zaz restaurant as catering for my wedding at my church. I contacted them and everything was alright and communication was steady up until I finished paying the invoice.. then it was radio silence. I was incredibly concerned because my event was the following week. I emailed multiple times to no avail. At that point I started to worry that I had been scammed but that confused me since Zaz was a well known restaurant in Boston/Hyde Park. When I emailed, no response, when I called the number listed, it didn’t even ring. I had to do so much detective work to finally find a number that worked (on a Facebook post), and that’s when I learned that the head of catering was working out of the country and had no internet. This was just two days before the wedding..I understand you can’t help that, but what CAN be helped is that there should be more than one person in charge of reaching out when invoices are paid and to confirm everything was all set. Weddings are already stressful so having to chase the restraint for a confirmation was not stress I needed. On the day of the wedding, they delivered the food and the food was not that good. It was surprising based on the reviews that they have. The chicken looked pink and undercooked, the macaroni and cheese was not good, and the rice was 3/10 at best and it’s supposed to be Haitian rice. I’m Haitian, so I can say that the rice was underwhelming. The vegan cauliflower was pretty good, I’ll give them that, however, overall the food was a solid 4/10. It just sucks that I had to fight and stress to get any communication from them regarding confirmation of the order and then the food...