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Zen China Restaurant

3.3 (36 reviews)
PriceyChinese
Closed 12:00 pm - 11:00 PM

Zen China Restaurant Photos

ZEN CHINA RESTAURANT ATMOSPHERE

What's the vibe?
Good for groups
Good for kids

Recommended Reviews - Zen China Restaurant

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Great location! Great food!

Visiting London for the first time. Great location! At the south bank of the Thames, near the London Eye, beautiful window view of the Big Ben, the Westminister bridge, and the Abby. Tried take out yesterday, the presentation of food was understandably not too good, but the taste of the food is pretty authentic. Totally wiped off the rumor of bad Chinese food in London before my visit. When facing the question of where to eat, we came again. A simple bowel of beef noodle (which we consider 验金石 how food is in Chinese restaurant) was made really appealing in a cute bowel and really delicious! My son finished it all including the last drop of soup. The only issue now is that it is late night and what time he is going to bed.

Rachel Z.

Summary: + Great location to take out of town guests, amazing view of Big Ben and the Thames + Really good food, authentic pecking duck + Reasonable price for central London (esp for half of a duck) + Off menu specialties are very tasty : spicy stir fry pot(麻辣香锅), spicy crayfish pot(麻辣小龙虾) - Don't expect great service I discovered this place on Chinese Twitter. They happen to make two of my fav dishes: pecking duck/北京烤鸭,and spicy pot stir fry (麻辣香锅). Despite the underwhelming reviews, the food is actually really good! The pecking duck is authentic. The slice it in front of you, separated the skin and the meat, and it's served with shredded green onion, cucumber, wraps (in a steamer) and two different dipping sauces. The sauce was a bit sweet to my taste, but it's an insignificant problem comparing to the joy of eating REAL pecking duck outside of China. They also ask you to choose a way to prepare the leftover duck meat (and bones), I'd always opt for soup. The stir fry clay pot was really good as well! Spicy, numbing, full of flavour, and it has lotus root in it (my fav stir fry veggie). They are not on the menu but you can ask for them. There are a few different types: beef, pork, chicken, seafood and mixed, all accompanied by assorted vegetables. But I do understand why it has such a bad rating on Yelp: the service! Our server didn't seem too patient and had no smile at all, but he did take the order right and delivered pretty fast. I don't usually care too much about services for a regular eating out so wasn't really disappointed. However, it all went down hill when a large group of people walked in. They didn't make a reservation and was hoping to get two adjacent big tables. The restaurant was quite empty but there were only 2 big tables at the back, and one was currently occupied. The servers were obviously annoyed and they didn't hide it, outraged by the guests who forgot to make reservation, and refuse to seat them. After a lengthy discussion between the organizer or the group and a waiter, he finally agreed to let them wait, very unwillingly. What makes the situation worse was that he refuse to let them sit at smaller tables while waiting, but also didn't tell them to wait outside, so about 20 people were just standing in the middle of the restaurant chatting with each other, while other guests were trying to enjoy a private dinner conversation with the view of Big Ben... While they are waiting several people sat down at the small tables, and one of the waiters looked furious because he had to cleanup after. When the big tables were finally ready and the guests moved over, the waiter intentionally threw menus around loudly to show his anger, again ignoring the fact that there were other innocent guests around trying to enjoy their dinner. I was amused, but I don't think others were feeling quite the same. The whole attitude was unnecessary and completely unprofessional. The restaurant is at a great location with a perfect view of London landmarks at night, the venue is spacious and decently decorated, and the food is good. I can see that it's trying to create a fine dining ambiance, but the service is seriously below par, which ruined all the other effort. My advice for the restaurant would be to train the servers how to act professionally, or pay them better so they can stop being grumpy all the time. That being said, if you are not going with a giant party without reservation ahead of time, you are probably fine =P.

Keyang L.

I came here for the crayfish. But not as good as I expected and not the same as the one in China. Noisy and the service is just so so.

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expensive but delicious chinese food! I really had a good time with my partner, he loved it.

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Zen China Restaurant Reviews in Other Languages

Review Highlights - Zen China Restaurant

At the south bank of the Thames, near the London Eye, beautiful window view of the Big Ben, the Westminister bridge, and the Abby.

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Duddell's - Main level dining area.

Duddell's

3.6(9 reviews)
1.4 miLondon Bridge
£££

Duddell's is conveniently located by London Bridge station. The traditional green and gold interior…read morewith vaulted ceilings is quite striking. I had the half duck and it was one of the best I've ever experienced. They carve the duck at your table. The first course is the traditional crispy duck skin with pancakes and a variety of sauces and accompaniments. Once the crispy skin is carved, they take the remainder of the duck meat back to the kitchen to prep a second course. You have a choice of sauces to stir fry the duck meat, which is served with egg fried rice. Outstanding!

Located in the historic St. Thomas Church near London bridge, this is definitely not where I…read moreexpected to find cantonese food, but what a pleasant surprise it was. Chef Daren Liew who was previously an executive sous chef with the Hakkasan Group has definitely brought an elevated version of authentic cantonese food to the London restaurant scene. I came here for dinner a few days ago. At dinner they serve a trio of dim sum (dim sum symphony) with other classic cantonese dishes while at lunch it's a full dim sum menu. We ordered: - Peking duck: Traditionally not a dish in the cantonese cuisine, I hesitated to order Peking duck at a Cantonese restaurant as it's usually cooked in cantonese roast duck style rather than real Beijing style. To my surprise, this the best Peking duck I've had outside of China. The duck is carved right in front of you (only took a few minutes) in two ways: crispy skin only and meat with skin, just like how it's served in Beijing. On the side, there are traditional dipping sauce and toppings (shards of green onion, cucumber) and a few more creative toppings (pomelo pulp, peanut sauce, etc). I ate the skin with sugar first, it was perfectly crispy and extremely satisfying. We devoured the rest of the duck by making little duck wraps and the only regret was that we only ordered the half duck rather than the whole! - Dim sum symphony: beautifully presented trio of dumplings with prawn, lobster and crab fillings. They looked delicate but was full of flavours. - Baby bok choy: to balance the meal with a bit of green, we ordered sautéed baby bok choy with garlic. It was fresh and tasty. - Seafood vermicelli: this is the only disappointment of the meal (hence minus 1 star). I love vermicelli, but the noodle we had was simply too dry that we couldn't even finish the plate. Overall I am a big fan of this place and the peking duck in particular. The service was friendly and efficient, and the environment is very elegant. I'd definitely come back to have a whole duck next time!

Photos
Duddell's
Duddell's - Interesting place

Interesting place

Duddell's - Entrance on right to restaurant.

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Entrance on right to restaurant.

Hutong - King prawns

Hutong

3.5(144 reviews)
1.4 miLondon Bridge
££££

I had a wonderful work lunch in the mid afternoon with 6 colleagues (I love working in insurance --…read moremy trips to London for a week, several times per year, include 4-8 truly excellent meals, limited only by my diet.) This is a northern Chinese restaurant on an upper floor of the Shard, a tall skyscraper on the south side of the Thames overlooking the City. While they could easily just coast on the location, it also has beautiful Chinese design throughout the restaurant, and quite good food (comparing it to some of the best restaurants in Shanghai). Service, especially in the less busy times like our late afternoon private dining, is quite good as well (we had a dedicated server in our room for 2 hours). Unfortunately you do pay quite a bit for all of this (fortunately for me it was covered by work, and actually the supplier/partner was hosting us); you could easily pay $200-300/person without alcohol, and up from there, but there are some set menu lunch options which could be $100-200/person total. I'd love to go back for drinks in the evening sometime, but for food, I really enjoyed mid-afternoon when the place was fairly empty, quiet, and very attentive service. We did the least expensive set menu per person (GBP 35 for 3 small plate versions of popular items), a whole duck, and maybe 7 other dishes (multiple orders of a few types of dim sum, some vegetables); somehow managed to be the perfect amount of food with less than half a plate left over, across 7 people.

Came here expecting something fabulous the location and the prices. The views are great, even from…read morethe toilets. However the food on the other hand is not worth the price. Chinese food can be made very inexpensive but this experience wad the total opposite. 3/5 1/2 duck - very cool to see them slice the duck table side but left so much on the bones that I was deeply shocked. What do they do with the rest? Served with wraps and sides. Tastes ok but I've had better. 4/5 King prawns - this is the best fish we had, but for the price there should be more than just 3! 1/5 Kai lan - the worst dish. Served with an additional side but the veggies were very bland I surprised the portions were so small for the price. I wish the waiter would have told me this. I also told him this was our first time. My suggestion, go to the shard for views and cocktails. Not for dinner. However the lunch menu seemed much more affordable.

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Hutong - View of the river

View of the river

Hutong - Kai lan

Kai lan

Hutong - Soy sauce and fresh cut chillies dip

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Soy sauce and fresh cut chillies dip

Bao Borough - 3 baos, one order of chicken nuggets and a soda was $50 (~£35)

Bao Borough

4.0(41 reviews)
1.2 miLondon Bridge

BAO Borough This is…read morea sister restaurant of the Michelin Bib Gourmand BAO, but it's not the original that earned the distinction, and that showed unfortunately. The dishes were all good, but none were particularly excellent. I had: Aged Beef Rice (£14.75) - Incredibly salty, but I like it like that. Classic Bao (£5.50) - Good, but not distinctive. Meat was a bit dryer than it should, and bun wasn't soft and hot. Beef Short Rib Bao (£6.50) - I preferred this to the Classic pork bao and it was quite good, but again, not distinctive. Grilled Cucumber Salad (£5.50) - A nice side dish, but was swimming in oil, so not as healthy as we hopped. House Salad (£5.50) - Mostly kale with some dressing, a nice addition to get some greens. Service was a bit chaotic, it was sometimes unclear how we should order or from whom. At last call, we asked if we needed to order dessert now, and one server said we could order that later, but when the time came, we were unable. The setting was a bit compact, and most of the chairs are stools with no backs. I feel like this place was designed to be half the price, but the Michelin designation spoiled that. It'd be hard to leave full for under £35-£40 without drinks, and for that pricing, I'd at least like a proper chair and elbow room.

So yummy! The wait staffs are very friendly and helpful…read more The interior reminds me so much of the little restaurants in Taiwan! Very casual setting and we all sit on stalls. Beef rice: great potion of beef but it's pretty spicy - not just from the black pepper but i think they also added chilly oil. If you can't take spices, perhaps ask if they can take it easy on the chilly? Baos: I've tried all of them and I love them all. The bun is very soft and spongy with a bit of sweetness to it. I could have it all day everyday. Roasted aubergine: wow! Please order this. It's like an Asian version of babaganoush! The fried dough is a fried version of their bun - so yummy.

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Bao Borough
Bao Borough - FriedChicken, 4 nuggets to an order

FriedChicken, 4 nuggets to an order

Bao Borough - BAO Borough

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BAO Borough

Crystal China - Free Appetizers - Pickled Nappa Cabbage with Chili Flakes, Pickled Daikon and Carrots, Seasoned Roasted Peanuts

Crystal China

3.7(15 reviews)
1.6 miBorough
££

This place seems to do a lot of take-away business, mostly delivered by guys on motorcycles…read more There were two tables in use when we walked in for late lunch. When we left, there were diners sitting at four other tables. The restaurant was clean and well lit. Service was efficient, friendly and personable. We were hungry and ordered too much food. They started us off with a three section sampling of Pickled Cabbage, Pickled Daikon and Carrot and Roasted Peanuts. We ordered: Grilled Pork Potstickers - 4 - good flavor, thin skin. I prefer more veg. Won Ton Soup - 4 - four Won Ton, cabbage, green onions in a nice broth. Had I not been hungry, I would have ordered Hot & Sour Soup with Won Ton added in. Hot & Sour Soup - 5 - Lot of stuff in the soup and it was both Hot and Sour. Alas, the soup portions are individual sized and I didn't order it. Egg Fried Rice - 2 - absolutely nothing special but we needed some rice to absorb the Duck juice and aubergine sauce. Roast Duck - 3 - it was okay but not nearly as fatty as it should have been. They made up for that by adding a gravy. The gravy flavor mixed in well with the Nappa Cabbage underneath the duck. That made the rice more palatable. Aubergine, Potato and Bell Pepper in Garlic Sauce - 4 - lose the potato and they have a winner. I'd rather have a slightly smaller portion than an unnecessary filler.

Racist lady. I am visiting London from the USA. I visited this place. First, no welcome. I waited…read morefor 30 seconds. The host completely ignored me. I asked for the veg menu. She had zero interest in explaining. She just threw menu at me and walked away. She didn't give damn to me also. I figure and felt that this place doesn't like color people in their restaurant. I walked away.

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Crystal China - Egg Fried Rice

Egg Fried Rice

Crystal China - Hot and Sour Soup

Hot and Sour Soup

Crystal China - Potato, Aubergine & Bell Peppers in Garlic Sauce

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Potato, Aubergine & Bell Peppers in Garlic Sauce

Tai Tip Mein

Tai Tip Mein

2.3(9 reviews)
1.0 miElephant & Castle, Newington
£

The Tai Tip Mein is a super cheap noodle place and buffet really close to Elephant & Castle tube /…read moretrain station. It looks pretty horrid and cheap from the outside and the food kind of reflects that. There's a really cool Chinese buffet up in Camden and it's a million times better - a good example of a buffet not having to be cheap and nasty like this one. The food was a bit oily and not really fresh, I didn't enjoy the noodles or the buffet at all. If you are really starving, just avoid this place, it's not the greatest, even though it's pretty cheap.

This is a family-owned establishment right in front of Elephant and Castle shopping centre. It…read morehoused in basically an ugly bright blue box on the sidewalk, but it's surprisingly spacious on the inside. I've been living in this area for half a year and finally got around to trying this place. Some days, you're just craving greasy, Westernized Chinese food, and this is the local greasy spoon Chinese takeaway. The service here is cafeteria-style: You walk in and place your order at the counter, then you grab a seat and they bring your food out to you. I ordered a stir fry seafood noodle dish, but as soon as it arrived and I looked around to see what my fellow diners were having, I immediately regretted not getting a soup dish instead. The squid was wayyy overcooked to the consistency of an eraser, but the shrimp was actually okay. It came with three big prawns right on top of the noodles, which is more than some upscale places will give you, especially for £6.50. The portions are MASSIVE. I finished about half of my noodles before giving up and just picking through it for the meat. Although I suspect that if I'd eaten any more, I'd start feeling heart palpitations.. Elephant and Castle is kind of a food desert at the moment. There aren't any authentic Chinese restaurants in the area, because there isn't much of a market for finer dining, at least not until the Heygate property is rebuilt and gentrification starts happening. I'm giving this place 3 starts because the food is reasonable given the price and quantity, and I've gotta admit, I'll be sad when this place is inevitably shut down in a few years due to roundabout reconstruction or rising rents.

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Tai Tip Mein - Cafeteria style seating

Cafeteria style seating

Tai Tip Mein - The menu

The menu

Tai Tip Mein - Greasy stirfry rice noodles

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Greasy stirfry rice noodles

Kym's - Yuzu Negroni & Lychee Martini

Kym's

4.7(7 reviews)
1.4 miThe City

Refined Chinese with a twist. Andrew Wong new restaurant is a hit!…read more Good atmosphere, really like the pink darkish lighting of the place. It gives it a groovy vibe. Food wise, I wouldn't it is the best Chinese I have ever been to but it's very good food and worth going if you want upscale Chinese without the crazyness of central London/Chinatown. We shared for starters the spicy sechuan aurbergine (a must order), mushroom buns (as nice as the ones from aWong) deep fried green beans (also a must) and the crispy duck ( Im never a fan but aWong and Kym's probably have the best ones and amazing plum sauce) For mains we tried the three treasure (soya chicken, iberico pork char sui and crispy pork). I think my favourite was the crispy pork. Its a good way of tasting all the rotisserie but if you are super hungry I would recommend ordering 2 of the rotisserie separetely. As for desserts, we tried the Pineapple bun and the cherry ice cream both lovely. Awong is definitly the king of custard. although I think the custard bun from aWong just beat everything lolol.

I have traveled London many times and was fortunate to stumble upon Kym's. This was my fortune as…read moreI have a minor addiction to Dim Sum and Kym's savory spin was unexpectedly brilliant. Victoria set the stage and steered me to a sampling that did not disappoint. Egg roll - not your typical egg roll, enshrined in a crispy rice shell, lightly fried to perfection, accompanied by a tangy sweet dipping delight. Followed by the mushroom steamed buns, and capped off by the most spectacular pork and shrimp boa boa, perfectly spicy, fully satisfying, a work of art. The service was spectacular and matched the experience. Make this a stop on your foodie tour of London.

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Kym's - Kym's Sign Through Cherry Blossom Tree

Kym's Sign Through Cherry Blossom Tree

Kym's - Range of Dishes at Kym's

Range of Dishes at Kym's

Kym's - Cherry Blossom Tree & Kym's Sign

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Cherry Blossom Tree & Kym's Sign

Zen China Restaurant - chinese - Updated May 2026

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