ZEN Bistro & Wine Bar

Ordered a bottle of white wine, several different sushi rolls and Pad Thai. Everything was fine until they cooked our Pad Thai too salty. I told the server that I’ll take the Pad Thai home so I can add noodle and eat since its way too salty to eat. The server told us that the Pad Thai would be packed to go for us but when we asked for it before we left, it was trashed and wasn’t removed from our bill. So why did we just pay for something that they trashed? They didn’t even have manner to either give a new one or take the amount out of our bill. I’ll never go back there since their manner just ruined my whole appetite of the restaurant.

I’m not sure how I ever gave Zen Bistro any less than 5 stars. My fiancé and I have visited on numerous occasions over the past 2 years and LOVE it! The food is consistently amazing, service is great, atmosphere is cozy and chic simultaneously, and it’s just a warm and welcoming place located very conveniently in Pentagon Row Square (near a ton of other restaurants, shops, the Pentagon City mall, grocery stores, and an ice rink in the winter time).
It’s the sister restaurant to Asia Bistro, located right next door (and connected at te back), and has virtually the same exact menu.
My favorite items to order are:
–Tokyo Sun Roll. I typically order this and absolutely love it!
–Galbi Bibimbop Bowl. This is really delicious as well!
–Tropical fruity drinks. Their fruity drinks (like their Sangria and tropical mojito) are delicious!
Pretty much everything they serve is delicious. They’re always friendly and always serve miso soup complimentary.
My fiancé and I are regulars and will definitely be for some time to come!

Good sushi, decent happy hour, great location.

I was in the mood for sushi but changed my mind when I saw the bento boxes. I should have stuck with sushi. I had the ginger salmon box and if you like lots of red pepper then you will enjoy but I don’t so it wasn’t a great experience for me. The hot saki was barely passable but I’ve had worse. Service was slow and at times I felt ignored. Nice atmosphere but would not recommend as a place for kids.

Nice place. Service was great —
The service was fast and the food was excellent
The sushi roll was tasty
My drinks was perfect.
The chicken steam pot stickers were taste too
I would recommend this place. Yummy

Love the food! Love the drinks! For me Zen is neighborhood favorite and I love how the staff always greets people with great smiles and service! I also love that they add some new great choices from time to time. I’ve never had a meal here that I didn’t enjoy.

My boyfriend came to live in DC for the summer for an internship and he brought me here one day. I had the pleasure of coming many times when I visited and shared some awesome food, drinks, laughs, and some great experiences.
They have outdoor seating and indoor but during the summer nights it was great to be outside and enjoy the nice breeze with some great sushi. The staff was attentive to our wants and very accommodating as friends added on to our table. The food is fantastic and I really enjoyed many of their special rolls.
This place is really great and when I come back to DC I will make sure to make a stop here for another great night!

I went here for HH one time, after doing some research on Unilocal.I was very impressed by the presentation of this place. There was a full size bar, and a lounge area with comfortable couches parallel from the bar area.
I was in the market for a good local sushi place. I can’t say that I’m that impressed with the sushi selection. However, the happy hour menu had a lot of great choices. I really liked the dumplings and thai wings. With that being said, I would recommend going here for HH, but that’s it. I probably won’t be coming back here though.

Great sushi and awesome service. My husband and I used an expired groupon and we ordered so much more than we expected. The sushi was too fishy for his taste so we had to order a chicken Lo Mein which he devoured! We got the calamari, which was a delicious meal on its own that came on a bed of greens. I think I’ll order the Calamari as an entre for myself next time. We tried the spider roll and shrimp tempura rolls which were good if it weren’t for the fishy smell due to the avocado in both rolls (in my opinion)…

Originally came here for a friend’s birthday celebration. It was a cute place with a bar along the left side and on the right side are tables and a little area with couch/​table seating. The waiters were nice as there was a lot of us that came in during different times and ordering. They have a large selection of Asian fusion dishes, but my friends and I ordered sushi and steamed shu mai dumplings. The dumplings were okay. The sushi was alright. It was typical. Nothing that really stood out.
The area looks a lot like Fairfax Corner or Reston Towne Center. Right outside of the place is a ice skating rink and a bunch of other stores along the area so you have plenty of choices.

I will have to admit I was pleasantly pleased with the menu that my wife and I had this evening. We had a total of three sushi rolls; salmon roll, spicy tuna, and salmon/​asparagus. The sushi roles were very fresh and flavorful. Additionally my wife got the mojito and I had a Chardonnay wine, she was happy with her Mojito. However, I think my wine came from a box… yuck! For reference check-​in here and you receive a 15% off coupon from Unilocal

Came here this past Saturday for a girlfriend’s birthday dinner and small celebration. Not much has changed from when I used to frequent Zen a few some years ago as it was the spot for sushi and having a low-​key evening with a few friends.
The place is dimly lit and furnished with booths, couches, and a few counter-​top tables. They also have seating available at the bar area. (For more of a sit-​down dinner, they have Asia Bistro right next door, I believe it is all owned under the same management.)
Our group was huge so we had what seemed like every worker tending to us. They brought our orders out a in a timely manner and were quite accommodating given that more people kept coming in and ordering.
They offer a wide variety of Asian-​fusion dishes such as pad thai, sushi, teriayki, and so forth. Quality-​wise the food here was OK, not my first choice for a sushi restaurant, but it was still good and reasonably priced. Though I must say, they were more than generous with the drinks, every drink ordered was always topped off!
The parking lot and garage are located within Pentagon Row surrounded by other restaurants, shops, and an ice-​skating rink. The environment has an upscale, yet comfortable feel– I always love walking around this area!

I love coming to zen at times. I used to come here almost once a week when I lived around.
I really like their Pad Thai or Rice in a pot. Today I tried the Grilled Chicken Teriyaki. It was typical chicken teriyaki and what’s interesting was that they put side of kimchi which is never the case in any other restaurant. Thankfully I like kimchi; so no problem there.
We got into the happy hour and I got the Zen-​ojito. It was good nothing to complain there. Also, spring roll (2pieces) for happy hour as well.
I would say the waiter/​waitress was not really attentive. I’ve had my water glass empty for a while. Oh well!
Overall, good place to hang out and meet people.

This place is a bit small, but it makes up for it. Our waitress was very friendly, funny, professional and present. We ordered appetizers, sushi and sake and left feeling pretty satisfied. I realized only a little too late that towards the back of the establishment there is an area with plush, leather seats and I would have preferred sitting there (next time perhaps).
The waitressed helped with giving us information on the meals and the sake and we enjoyed every minute of it. The ONLY disconcerting thing was that the person waiting to remove a plate from our table kept coming up to see if we were done and then retreating — over and over again. I almost felt a bit pressured, but minor stuff, really. Overall a great experience and I will go again. My Maryland sushi spot!

I would not recommend this place unless you’re eating here with a groupon or just plan on taking advantage of their happy hour drink special.
The food is not impressive. Bulgolgi Bibimbap was $ 15 as well as the Spicy Chicken Bibimbap. The Bibimbap lacked flavor, the rice was not cooked very well (hard to mess up), Bulgolgi Bibimbap didn’t have much Bulgolgi and lacked sesame oil. Both dishes had green beans which I found interesting.
Recap: only come here with a groupon or for their fresh ice cold beers on tap which are reasonably priced.

This place is worth a try, especially with a Groupon and at happy hour. The HH specials offer some cheap and tasty sushi, you can’t really expect gourmet for the price but this was good for the price. The beer selection for HH isn’t amazing but does the trick if you want a beer with your sushi or dinner. As for the entrees, the bulgogi bibimbap was enjoyable but a little on the bland side. The beef was lean but a little tough, the green beans could have used a little more seasoning/​cooking, and the rice and carrots were as expected. I enjoyed my meal and would try it again (with a Groupon), but would add a little hot sauce next time to perk this up a little.
I’d go back here for happy hour or for dinner (if I had a Groupon) since it was pretty good but there are so many restaurants in the area I can’t say I’d be back here full fare.

I expected so little due to the Unilocal rating and maybe because I was braced for the worst, I was left mostly satisfied. We redeemed our 15% checkin offer to start and ordered some snow beauty saki, shumai and wings to start.
As for the food, the shumai was fine — good serving size and flavor (again I was probably expecting what my frozen ones from H mart taste like and these were definitely better). The wings were generally meaty and spicy — finance loved the spicy kimchi that came with.
We ordered the beef bulgogi to share — the flavor was great but not enough meat in the serving IMO.
The service however, at 2pm with hardly anyone there, was un-​excusably slow. I had to ask 3 times for the snow beauty and follow up after the bulgogi.

My husband and I came here with a groupon: $ 17 for $ 30 worth of food. It’s pretty easy to hit that $ 30 mark, especially if you order a lot of sushi. My husband and I started with the curry puffs, which were soooo good. His entrée was the chicken panang and while I ordered an array of sushi.
He enjoyed that his panang had baby corn in it, since we’ve never had that as an ingredient before. My sushi was very good, and I was pleasantly surprised due to my usual skepticism for asian fusion. I had their spicy tuna roll that was sprinkled in tempura and flash fried. It was incredibly unique, which was mostly a good thing. It tasted great, but I would’ve preferred if the pieces were smaller. I would’ve been content with more pieces in a smaller, easier to eat size.
All in all, it wasn’t a bad experience. I’m not sure if I’d return again without a groupon. It’s in very trendy Pentagon Row, which is great but also means either hunt forever for parking, or pay for parking. Also, I think Asia Bistro next door is owned by the same group, so I’m not sure what makes Zen Bistro different from next door…

Zen is a pretty cool restaurant. We sat inside and it was pretty nice, and there is also an outdoor seating area. Good location/​décor and the service was decent on our visit, but the food was just average.
The Thai Chili Wings were fairly good. They weren’t as crispy as I would have liked, but they had plenty of flavor, and a pretty good kick. Just a quick note here (and this definitely is not the restaurant’s fault) — you probably don’t want to order the wings if you are eating sushi, or at least order the sushi first, because after all of that chili you won’t be able to taste much else for a little while.
After I was able to drink a whole lot of water and clear my palette, the sushi was so-​so. I thought the Rainbow Roll was great — the fish was fresh, and everything in the roll tasted good. The salmon avocado and tuna avocado rolls were both pretty unbalanced — they had tons of avocado, which is great if you like avocado, but I only tasted that, instead of the fish.

4 Stars for the basic offerings.
If you like maki rolls, Zen will work for you. I was sort of feeling like I just wanted the basic this night when I came here. I was not dying for the extra bam and boom like some sushi bar offerings can conjure up with specialty rolls. Sometimes basic is good especially with the right price.
I ordered my typical bagel, crunchy crab, and spicy tuna along with a ginger salad. Keep in mind the salad is a good appetizer size, but will run you the same cost for a typical maki roll. Next time I will pass on the salad. I used to work for a sushi restaurant back in the day… believe me it is not worth $ 6 for a ginger salad at any place even at the fanciest of sushi places. This is not fancy and shouldn’t be allowed to up-​charge for a dern salad like that. Maybe $ 3, but not $ 6.
My sushi rolls were fine. Your typical run of the mill. They have a lot of specialty rolls for reasonable prices. Like I said, since I wanted to stick to the basics, I got the basics. They were good and fresh. I had left overs for lunch the next day and still fresh. I can’t elaborate on their specialty rolls since this was my first time here. Rule of thumb I’ve learned is if they have the basics covered, then I am sure they have the rest covered.
I wasn’t quite sure who my server was since it seemed like everyone was paying me attention with my sushi, water refills, and the bill. I tipped accordingly.
Zen has a cool ambiance inside in out. I enjoyed the music they played over their radio and listening to that while on the patio made for a perfect evening for dining. For those of you who enjoy people watching, this is a prime location.