Zen Japanese Steakhouse and Sushi — Restaurant in Warner Robins

Updated: Aug 4th, 2019. I've eaten at Zen's nearly a dozen times over the years and have eaten at Japanese Hibachi (cook in front of you) restaurants well over 100 times now and this past weekend had to be one of my worst Japanese Hibachi experiences ever! Zen's is usually good, but this past Thursday night was horrible. The Filet wasn't fresh and the meat was darkening already and not bright red and had an off smell even after cooking it, and most of the shrimp smelled horrible (that chlorine bleach smell that is just nasty). Also the cook used very little butter to season anything, but used a ton of oil, and I do mean a lot. I bet he used roughly 1/5 cup of butter and probably 2 cups of oil to cook the fried rice. As I watched another table with another chef cook next to us they got a much better experience with only two people sitting at their table then we did with 8 people. Our cook did only one trick which was spinning one egg and catching it in his pocket, but that was it, no knife and fork action, no volcano, and nothing else except cook in the least Japanese way I have ever seen. We were severely overcharged due to this and with the food quality issues and then on top of it me getting sick afterwards just put the final nail in coffin so to speak. I'm just glad the others with me didn't get sick, but they ate the regular steak which was bright red or the chicken. So not sure if it was the filet or the shrimp, but others had the shrimp too, and I was the only one that ate the filet so I'm pretty sure my "premium" steak selection got me premiumly sick! The below review was from another visit quite a few years ago. This is my second time eating at Zen Japanese restaurant in Warner Robins, Georgia. The first time was several years ago and I ate at lunch time and remember it being average. Tonight I ate dinner here with a couple friends from work and nearly everything tasted very good. We all ordered hibachi and had filet mignon, shrimp, chicken, and scallops. The soup was very good and one of the better soups I remember having at a Japanese restaurant in a long time. I'm not a salad eater so I can't comment on the salad but one of my friends said it was good. The fried rice was excellent and best of all they didn't up charge you for fried rice like many other Japanese restaurants do and shouldn't. The overall value at Zen is good. The filet mignon was excellent being very tender and tasted very good. The chicken and scallops were also good but a little over cooked. My only complaint, which was a relatively big one, was the flavor of the shrimp. They had a very strong chlorine bleach aftertaste. I know it's common in many restaurants but there are shrimp out there that taste normal and don't have this horrible taste. Hindsight I would have not ordered shrimp and saved a little bit of money but if you can tolerate that after taste their shrimp are large and the portion is good. I also think the shrimp sauce wasn't the best but okay. Even with these two complaints I still enjoyed my meal and would eat here again and would just order things a little differently . (This section updated) Unfortunately I can no longer recommend Zen if you're in the area and craving Japanese. There are several other restaurants in the area now and you may want to...

WARNING-Rehearsal Dinner potentials. I am the M-O-B and since the groom's family were out of state, I set up our rehearsal dinner at Zen's. I spoke with Arthur, the owner, many months ago. We discussed the number attending 35-40 (so that we could all sit together) and also, the price for the chicken/steak dinner and drink, he quoted me the total with tax. Everything was a go. I also stopped by the restaurant once to make sure we were "on the books" and was assured we were. As the wedding approached, the groom's parents went in the day before the dinner to confirm the details in person since Arthur would NEVER respond to their calls. The parents were even shown the room where would be seated. About 35 of us arrived the evening of the dinner and we're directed to a different room that seated about 27 people and also had another group of people in with us. Numerous people had to stand all cranes together for at least 15 minutes as they scrambled around trying to find chairs for all of the guests. Even this took a ridiculous amount of time so much so that we started looking for chairs ourselves. We were finally all seated and then I noticed menus had been given out and everyone was being told to order from the menu - MUCH more expensive than the steak/chicken combo that was initially offered. It was just all so embarrassing as I had to find an English speaking worker and then go to each group in our party and explain. The employer, Hunter, said he called the owner twice and he would do nothing! The meal was fine but with all of the inconsideration of the restaurant and the owner it was just hard to erase that part of the evening,...

i was served spoiled salmon nigiri. i did not eat a single piece of it. i politely told our lovely waitress once she made her way back to our table and she was very understanding when i said i did not want to replace it with anything. after some time, the manager/owner approached us and insisted i explain and insinuated i was lying because they only order "top notch" seafood. she kept pushing and insinuating that it was impossible and would not leave me alone about it. i eat sushi as often i can and i specifically order the same items everywhere i go and i made sure she understood that i was not an idiot and she was not going to fool me by thinking i was unfamiliar with raw sushi. this manager made my entire family incredibly uncomfortable and she deserves the absolute worst. i can't imagine why she wouldn't just apologize right off the bat instead of being creepily confrontational.

on another note, the hibachi was mid-at-best with hardly any sort of flavor. the miso soup was similarly bland and diluted. the sushi was at least double the price of places with higher quality food and service just down the road and not a single dish on the menu could be worth the price.

most of the staff were rude with the exception of our waitress and the hibachi chef. if you like mediocre and overpriced food, poor quality-to-spoiled fish, and the worst case of managerial delusion and rudeness i have ever encountered, you will LOVE this place. if you are normal and hate those things, please don't give this place any...