Hana Zen in Pier 39




When I entered this establishment, it was totally empty. This was around dinner time, so it should have come as a warning to me. Foolishly, I advanced with a meal voucher thinking, "it can't be all that bad". And it totally proved me wrong.

Seating: The place was empty so finding seats wasn't difficult. However, as soon as we walked in to our seating area, the other server and the chefs suddenly stood up and went back to work from where they had been chilling. Miso soup, the appetizer, tasted like disgustingly brackish bean curd sauce, the kind sold at any Oriental store. If left alone, the soup settled into a cloud shape. Disturbing.

Decor: Lightly Asian. If a nonobservant person were to walk in, they wouldn't notice the single cherry tree on the wall that qualifies this restaurant as a Japanese place. The rest of the chairs and booths were standard issue, with the tables remaining sticky even after a cursory wipe down by the server as we were being seated. Lighting was soft though, and gave the place a fuzzy quality.

Actual Food: I ordered the garlic chicken noodles with rice. Even discounting the fact that I did not get rice, the chicken and noodles were simply awful. The noodles felt cheap in my mouth, and were utterly soaked with garlic oil. The chicken, despite being nice chicken, had every single bit of skin fat clinging to it, and tasted burnt despite looking perfectly normal. My friend ordered some chicken teriyaki instead of using the voucher; his meal was the same as mine, but without noodles and with teriyaki instead of garlic sauce. His chicken also tasted burnt and cost 30 dollars. My other friend ordered beef with fried rice. His beef was rare and the edges were burnt, which is a feat in itself. 

Rating: disgusting food, decent service, exorbitant price, and crappy decor give Hana Zen a 0 out of 30 pieces of burnt chicken.

Comments

  1. AnonymousJanuary 17, 2017 at 3:51 PM

    I completely agree! This place was disgusting. The sushi was good though but I do not think it is very hard to mess up nigiri. Good service for well paying customers.

    ReplyDelete

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