Zen — Restaurant in Florida

Atmosphere: The restaurant is set up with a classic Chinese restaurant vibe merged with a Japanese décor. They have areas where you can have private dining (privacy screens) and you can be as intimate or as social as you want. It took more than 20 minutes for a wait staff to acknowledge us or offer a beverage so that was unfortunate. Need to know: The days and hours of operation vary so you can’t assume you can walk in for dinner on any given evening. Call ahead. The location is set in the Omni Hotel at Champions Gate. As you enter the lobby head to the left and it is in the corner. Although it serves Chinese food it also offers sushi maki rolls, sashimi and nigiri. I recommend making reservations as the hotel has a lot of conventions. The menu: Chinese and Japanese. They offer a good selection of sushi, sashimi, and nigiri for those who crave the wasabi rush! They offer a “Zen Experience” which is a fixed price menu. For $69 you can have salad, soup, appetizers, entrees and sides. They also have an a la carte menu and a child menu. You can build your own Wok dish by selecting your protein, flavors, vegetables, rice or noodles. We wanted to try as much as we could so we selected Edamame to start, it was not the best and not the worse. Next we had the Veggie Lover Roll (burdock, kanpyō, cucumber and avocado) it was excellent, Hunan Dumplings With Peanut Sauce, amazing, Chinese Style Spare Ribs—the meat fell off the bone and had a crispy outside. For our main course, we ordered Szechuan Style Beef Tenderloin (the meat was so tender it just melted in the mouth) and General Tao’s Chicken, fresh, flavorful, not overly cooked. What I loved: The flavors of each dish (aside from the edamame) burst in the mouth, there were multiple spices that came alive and made the food absolutely amazing. The spareribs were crispy on the outside and tender on the inside. The sushi was fresh and the dumpling was transparent and not overly doughy. What needs improvement: The service was lacking for some reason, it should never take 20 minutes to be welcomed. The biggest frustration for me is that they do not serve filtered water, and Floridian tap water should never be served in an upscale restaurant. This should be remedied ASAP. Lastly, work on consistency of quality. We referred friends here and their experience was the opposite. To have friends go to the same restaurant and say they would never return...

This will be quick.... this place is overpriced and mediocre at best. The service is lacking. I had to ask several times for refills that kept being forgotten. I wasn't told refills were not free on sodas. At almost $6 a soda, give me a bigger glass and not a 5oz. wine glass of mostly ice! Sushi is comparable to grocery store bought sushi. Panda express taste so much better and I question if some of the food was brought in by Panda Express. Dessert is pretty, but don't be deceived. Zen please improve the quality of your food or lower your prices to the level of mediocrity it is and train your employees to be more informative and attentive. Maybe the servers don't work as much as they should for tips because 20 percent gratuity is already included on your check. Another strike against...

What an amazing experience. I went there with my husband and our son. The place is nice, very intimate, cozy. The decoration is on point. For appetizers we ordered the calamari and dumplings. The calamari were excellent. I got the ginger salad which was delicious and for main course we got chicken lo mein and general tsao-s chicken with lo mein. The food is great, the atmosphere is perfect and the best part of all was the service. Matt and José were our servers. They were amazing! Very professional, knowledgeable, attentive. They went above and beyond just to make sure we were having a great evening. They truly made our experience a wonderful one. I would definitely recommend this restaurant to everyone and we will...