Zeng — Restaurant in Santa Fe

A fantastic addition to the offerings of downtown cuisine, added with a little local history too. This location was home to many successful restaurants, including the now relocated Santa Fe Bite, and to see a fresh take on Chinese food with reasonable prices, delicious food, and generous servings. I am so excited and hope to only see this restaurant thrive and grow. The entrance is stunning with Chinese decorations lining the outside, a fantastic view promised as the weather only continues to warm up. We were greeted and waited little more then five minuets before we were sat. The window seat offering a beautiful view of historic Old Santa Fe trail. As we were reviewing the menu, we were quickly asked for drinks and they were brought to the table, while the robotic waiters delivered food to different tables. A sheer delight that brought smiles to patrons of this establishment. We ordered varying dishes from different parts of the menu, starting with the scallion pancake served with dipping sauce, the pancake crispy and so mouth watering. The siu mai dumplings being flavorful, the sausage and shrimp providing a true treat for the tongue. The pork dumplings browned and tasty. The dipping sauces served with them only added to the flavor explosion. For entree's the shrimp fried noodle and General Tso's chicken were ordered. With food more then enough to share the vegetables cooked in the fried noodles were delicious, the shrimp tender and not over cooked. The Kung pao Chicken my personal favorite, served with an orange, our personal favorite part, we left nothing more then the peel. The staff was thorough, quick, humble and very kind. For this reason alone we are going to go back, at this point the food is an amazing...

Food Review On our first night, we decided to have dinner here. For a party of three, the wait time for a table was about 30 minutes. Considering that there aren’t many Chinese restaurants in Santa Fe, the food exceeded our expectations—it was delicious and flavorful! Once seated, the service was impressively fast, with food arriving quickly. The server was very kind and polite, which made the experience even better.

On the second night, we decided to get takeout. We arrived around 4:45 PM, placed our order, and were told the wait would be 15–20 minutes. However, the wait turned out to be much longer than expected. I kept asking about my order, but the only response I got was, “Please wait.” Meanwhile, I noticed that people who arrived after me for dine-in service were already getting their food.

After repeatedly asking, I was finally told the cook was busy preparing food, but there wasn’t anyone available to pack orders. This left me wondering—if my food was already cooked but not packed, wouldn’t it be cold by the time it got to me? After waiting for 1 hour and 15 minutes, I finally received my takeout order.

To their credit, someone (I think it was the boss) offered us three bottles of Coke as compensation for the delay, which was a nice gesture. However, based on my experience with other restaurants, takeout is usually faster than dine-in service. At Zeng, it seems to be the opposite.

So, my advice? Dine in, don’t get takeout, as they don’t seem to have enough staff to handle packing takeout orders...

Updated review everything I said from my first review still stands however, please get your kitchen in order and get your servers on the same page. Someone needs to be communicating in your dining room. People don’t want to hear excuses “that it is busy, etc. etc.” Hire and staff more servers. Get a better kitchen manager. I want you to be successful but you need a manager checking in on tables until you get things straightened out. It is not, by far, a cheap meal. People will not return and pay $60- over $100 for a meal with the chaos that so many other reviews have mentioned.

My experience recently was my partners entree came out, 20 minutes later an appetizer, another 15 minutes for the second appetizer, then finally, after my partner had finished his entrée and our shared appetizers, I got my entrée. I’m sorry, not acceptable.

First of all, what a beautiful space! Very clean, bright and well decorated. I visited early on a Saturday afternoon and they only had a few tables but plenty of folks working and ready to assist. I had the orange shrimp which was phenomenal and a Thai iced tea with boba. The boba was fresh with a great texture and flavor. The orange shrimp came with orange peel that was actually edible, many Asian restaurants it is too bitter but this was sweet and bitter and really complimented the dish. Very good! Look forward to going back. Free parking at hotel next...