Zen Peninsula - Chinese, Millbrae

1180 El Camino Real, Millbrae CA 94030
(650) 616-9338
Parking: in parking lot
Hours: Lunch: M-F 11am-2:30pm, Sat 10am-3pm, Sun 9:30am-3pm
Dinner: Sun-Thu 5pm-9:30pm, Fri & Sat 5pm-10pm
http://www.zenpeninsula.com/

Last Visited: June 25, 2006

Food: 3 stars
Atmosphere: 3 to 4 stars
Service: 2 to 3 stars
Price: N/A

Enter Zen Peninsula and the seafood tanks will catch your eye. The rich blue background of the tanks really brings out the color of the live seafood. The rear wall of the restaurant has a bright red background and a large golden double happiness symbol. In front of the red background is a wood dance floor. Green upholstered chairs dot the room and the burgundy carpet with a diamond pattern add color to the space. Recessed lighting makes the room spacious, and two large flat screen televisions in the rear of the restaurant are perfect for viewing slide shows and the like. On a regular day, wood faced dividers filled with green plants separate the dining area.

Tonight, we had a banquet menu.

- House Special Combination Platter – Standard items like beef, pork, and jelly fish were part of this dish. It also had seaweed salad, which was a nice change of pace and added color. Okay.

- Honey Walnut Prawns – The dish was typical honey and walnut prawns – prawns cooked in a lightly creamy mayonnaise based sauce and walnuts fried crispy and coated with honey. Good.

- Deep Fried Tofu – This was a weird dish since the tofu had been combined with some unrecognizable mix of vegetables to create a tofu brick that was deep fried until golden. It wasn’t a very clean flavor. The tofu bricks were drizzled with a light brown sauce. The individual tofu bricks came with overcooked broccoli which added color, but the vegetables lacked crunch. This was my least favorite dish of the evening.

- Bamboo Pith and Seafood Soup – I didn’t find any bamboo pith in my soup, but considering the amount of soup, it could be that all of the bamboo pith went to other tables. It was fairly bland to me, but the texture was okay.

- Crab with Ginger and Scallion – By the time this dish came around, I was pretty stuffed. The flavor was good and the crab was fresh. It’s just as the name says – cooked with ginger and scallion. Good.

- Sliced Abalone in Oyster Sauce – The slices of abalone are placed on top of a bed of lettuce that has been boiled and topped with oyster sauce. The abalone was tender. This was probably one of the best dishes of the evening.

- Sweet and Sour Whole Fish – I thought that this fish would come in sweet and sour sauce, but it was deep fried and I really didn’t detect much of the sweet or sour. It may have been that the dish was substituted, but it didn’t live up to the first part of the name, though it was a gigantic whole fish. It was slightly overcooked, so not as tender as it could be.

- Seafood Fried Rice – This was another one that came around when I was pretty stuffed. Fairly standard item with the usual frozen vegetables. Nothing stood out about it.

- Green Tea Chicken – I was curious to know if green tea chicken would have an extra smoky flavor, but it didn’t. It was like regular Chinese style roasted chicken. Moist and flavorful, but not quite living up to its name. I would rate it as good.

- Braised E-fu Noodles – Noodles are braised and served with yellow chives. These weren’t particularly al dente, nor particularly broken. Okay in flavor and presentation.

- Red Bean Soup – More standard dessert. It tasted fine in texture and consistency, but again, nothing to rave about.

The overall experience at Zen Peninsula was just okay. Food was not spectacular, but passable. Service was quite chaotic (although, that’s the way it typically is for banquets). I would be interested in giving Zen Peninsula a try for dim sum, but otherwise, it’s fairly standard for dinner, and I would probably try out other local spots for dinner.