Way back Zen

There is so much modern, innovative Asian cuisine to explore these days, says Lucinda O’Sullivan, but a visit to Zen Restaurant, which had all the feeling of a bad 1990s time warp, left her longing to get back to the future

For many of us, our first experience of exotic food was Chinese, mostly of the bland Cantonese variety, until the more fiery Sichuan cuisine hit our shores in the paddedshoulder Dallas and Dynasty era of the 1980s. I have memories of great Chinese food back then, when we all fell in love with aromatic duck and Sichuan prawns, but with good Chinese food as rare as hen’s teeth nowadays, I’m wondering was it all a dream, like Bobby Ewing emerging from the shower?

When the Thai-food fad took over, many Chinese restaurants, instead of upping their game with more authentic or contemporary Chinese food, for what is a now widely travelled diner, jumped instead on the mundane ‘Thai food/Japanese teppanyaki table’ bandwagon.

Indian restaurants, however, ignored the Thai phenomenon, in favour of developing a lighter, innovative Indian cuisine, which has seen them thrive both here and in London. I think of people such as Atul Kochhar, the first Indian chef to gain a Michelin star; of Asheesh Dewan’s Jaipur Group; and of Nisheeth Tak’s Rasam in Glasthule.

Anyway, I headed optimistically to Zen, which has been in Rathmines in Dublin for more than 20 years, and is set in a red-brick church building. We were greeted very warmly and seated at the end of a central banquette, but with only a couple of other people there all evening, it was church-mouse quiet — apart from some awful, nothing-ish pop music trying to imbue atmosphere.

Eleven starters, plus soups, were reasonably priced between €4.50 and €6.50. There was also a half aromatic duck Sichuan at €18, but as restaurant reviewers and their guests need to try different dishes, we were slightly bemoaning the lack of quarter portions — as can be found in many other places. Also, seven of the 11 starters involved pork by way of wraps, ribs or dumplings, which was a bit heavy on the ‘oink-oink’.

Anyway, Pang Pang Chicken (€5.50) consisted of shreds of chicken tossed in a soya bean chilli mix; while Pan-Fried Dumplings Gua Tie (€6) featured three unappetising armourclad dumplings, seared on one side, which reminded me of the commercial variety you can buy in Asian stores. We scoured the mains (€15-€19) hoping to find something exciting, settling finally on a “classic Sichuan cooking” dish of shredded lamb (€18.50) with celery, fresh chilli, Sichuan pepper and ginger; and king prawns (€18.50) with wild Sichuan pepper and fresh chilli.

The lamb was an unappetising brown-on-brown dreary slosh, and very expensive for what was involved. We left most of it. The deep-fried battered prawns, which were sprinkled with diced chilli peppers and spring onion, and served alongside two bowls of dipping sauces, were ‘fine’, but also expensive for what we received — and more expensive than we realised at the time. We’d also ordered a side of Dan Dan Noodles (€4.50) — a flat noodle mixed with sesame oil and Chinese vinegar topped with crushed cashew nuts. However, looking at my bill now, I see that they charged me €21.50 for prawns with “options — fried noodles”, despite the fact I didn’t order any “options”; they also charged me €5 for the Dan Dan Noodles, which were priced €4.50 on the menu; while we had to ask for the rice that was included with the main courses.

With a bottle of crisp aromatic Esperanza Rueda Verdejo Viura 2015 (€27.50), and bottled water (€3.75), our bill came to €87.75, which made me wince somewhat when I thought of what we could have had in our local Chinese takeaway for the price.

Looking at the mid-90s Egon Ronay plaques affixed to the walls, it certainly felt like a time warp. The hunt for that great Chinese restaurant goes on!