CITY GUIDE >Food Reviews
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CITY GUIDE >Food Reviews
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Zen fun
By Sam White (bestfoodinchina.net)
Updated: 2008-11-12 14:27
 I had been to ZEN a couple of times before, but in different locations around Shanghai. This was my first visit to the Nanjing Dong Lu location and the thing I was looking for was consistency, having had good experiences in the past. If you’re not familiar with the ZEN chain, It is a story that begins with the first branch in Shanghai being started by a Hong Kong restaurateur and continues today with 7 locations in Shanghai and others all over the world. They serve contemporary style Cantonese dishes often some innovative twists I was running late, so I asked my dining partner to order for us and with the help of some suggestions from the manager I arrived to a wide selection of Dian Xin (Dim Sum/Yam Cha) dishes and a Long Island Ice Tea… An interesting combo, but one that appealed to me on a Friday evening. I started off with the Pomelo Salad, big juicy pieces of Pomelo garnished and seasoned with chilli and sugar. This had a really good balance of sweet and sour, probably could have been a bit spicier for my own tastes, but nonetheless a good way to start. With this we had the classic Cantonese Xia Jiao (Shrimp Dumplings) which were a good example, plump juicy prawns in a thin but intact wrapper and also a single chicken wing stuffed with seasoned rice, this was very well done… the skin was beautifully crispy and chicken inside tender with a tasty savoury rice stuffing. This was just the beginning, next came a house specialty called Jian Mo Xia Qiao (Mustard Dressed Shrimp Balls), basically another type of shrimp dumpling with the same good points as the Xia Jiao but with the addition of mustard/mayonnaise dressing. This was my favourite of the evening… the mustard added another dimension to the dish without overpowering it. Then an Abalone cake which I was told was a customer favourite, but unfortunately didn’t really appeal to my tastes… flaky pastry enclosing a sweet, fishy filling. And finally another dish I really did enjoy Niu Liu Ding Chao Lu (Pieces of fillet beef fried with asparagus, yellow capsicum and cashews), the beef in this was so tender, and in the good way… not that gelatinous cornflour induced way. A nice touch was the exclusive use of yellow capsicum in this, I find yellow caps always sweeter than the red or the green and this dish they worked well (the manager pointed out that they always the yellow, even though they cost more). So in leaving ZEN I found myself more than satisfied and suitably buzzed from the nicely alcoholic Long Island. Cocktails and Dim Sum… a winner! ZEN
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