baltimore Maryland hotels and accommodations
Home › Hotel and City Blogs › United States Blogs › Maryland Blogs › Baltimore Blog › Zen West
« Honfest 2007
Smile, hon! »


Zen West



Cafe Zen is my favorite Chinese food ever. Zen West is not my favorite Tex-Mex food. I went to Zen West, on York Road in Northern Baltimore, with Mom this Mother’s day (why am I posting this now? I’ve been busy. Buzz off.) The interior is as slick as the next door Cafe Zen and the hostess quite cute. Besides the two gay guys, everyone in the restaurant seemed to be on Mother’s Day missions.

Mom got a margarita and I ordered a Pacifico. I’m no food critic, but I can asses a beer list pretty quickly. Zen’s taps were more American than Mexican, but nicely varied and full of the “hot” brews like Blue Moon and Shiner Bock, and Zen has plenty of Mexican bottles like Pacifico.

Our server, Rob, looked a little too happy. I serve tables and hate it, which means Rob is either a very different person from me, on cocaine, or new to the business. He did well, though, and brought what we ordered, which is all that’s really required of a server.

Unfortunately, the food just wasn’t great. It was good; trust me, we’ve all eaten many a meal at worse Mexican restaurants, and since Baltimore seriously lacks for Tex-Mex, we should still be thankful for Zen West. I would happily eat there again, but I won’t be driving across town for Zen West’s carnitas like I do for the Kung Pao at Cafe Zen.

 5916 York Road

410-323-2242

Open seven days a week for lunch and dinner


« Honfest 2007
Smile, hon! »



This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 12th, 2007 at 3:07 pm and is filed under Attractions by Lee Future. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response

2 Responses to “Zen West”

tom Says: January 10th, 2008 at 6:32 pm

Zen west is horrible. Great Atmosphere terrible food. THe meat in both our fajitas were so overcooked from 3 days previous. Really disappointing. Make FRESH food for your customers !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Super Swamper Says: July 31st, 2008 at 9:14 pm

Just so y'all know, it is still awful. We used to live across the street from Holy Frijoles, and moved closer to Zen West, so it's convenient.

Then again, that depends on your definition of convenient. Every time we go there, I tell myself, "All I need is decent service OR decent food," and then find myself in a rage, every single time, when I get NEITHER.

Last time we were there, the waiter took our drink order 3 times, and finally brought us our complicated drink order (1 margarita and 1 water) a short 25 minutes after we were seated. We ordered salads.....which took an hour to get. So obviously, they must have been great salads, if they took an hour to make, right? Well, the grilled meat was cold and the lettuce and dressing were warm. They looked like they had been thrown together in a McDonalds Salad Shaker - no presentation. The steak was overcooked, cold, and had no spices on it. Oh yeah - real tex-mix. I couldn't taste the spices on the chicken because it was burnt. The waiter asked how the food was, and we told him. Then he went and got the manager (which was appreciated).

She accused us of lying about the cold food, and kept asking, "You're sure it was cold." When my wife raised up and said, "YES it was cold," the manager switched her tack to "Well, it's very busy for a tuesday night." I told her that both of us used to work in restaurants, so we "know busy," and it was not all that busy (empty tables during dinner rush).

Her response was, "Well what am I supposed to do? What would you HAVE ME do?" My wife said, "Bring us the damn check and we'll leave. We've been here 90 minutes for a salad. We are ready to leave." I was walking out the door 15 minutes later (she never brought the bill), and she chased us down with the bill. I paid it and she just laughed at me and took the money out of my hand. Yeah. Enjoy that 30 cent tip.

Now, this is the WORST experience I've had there, but we have been there at least 10 times, and we have never, ever had a "good" meal. We love Mexican and Tex-Mex and it's just hard to believe how BAD a restaurant can make it!

Leave a Reply