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Joris Minne: Zen
Zen Master
Monday, 24 August 2009
enlargeThe food isn’t perfect, but this Oriental restaurant is still a great dining experience
The most envied of journalists used to be travel writers and broadcasters. Every morning of their perfect lives they woke up to the sound of their personal assistants sifting through a small mound of invitations from tourism authorities, resort hotels and airlines to fly first class to Los Angeles, Sydney, Paris, Beijing or Buenos Aires, to spend a week eating out in the most exclusive restaurants, to play golf on PGA championship fairways, dive the crystal blue waters off a Caribbean reef, attend symphony orchestra concerts, visit the best art exhibitions and so on.
These journalists led lives, often for many years, which were of such gilded luxury and that provided them with such unimaginable levels of security and comfort, they would sometimes forget that they couldn’t afford to live like this if they had to pay for it themselves. This is where they became vulnerable. They became addicted to a fantasy lifestyle and then told us in their columns what a marvellous time they had had in whatever foreign destination.
During the Troubles I worked as a public relations man in the tourist industry. My job was to convince these same reporters to rethink their five-star invitations to a fortnight in Santa Barbara surfing with the cast of OC and, instead, to come to Belfast.
It was a tough sell but sometimes it worked. Once the travel journalists finally agreed to come over, the first thing many of them did was transform themselves into war correspondents. They assumed they were entering a war zone. One even brought water-purification tablets and a helmet. Before the start of the official three- or four-day tour of the north — including the mandatory Giant’s Causeway, Lakes of Fermanagh and Mourne Mountains — they would ask if it would be ok to drive up the Falls Road and down the Shankill, get a trip to Free Derry Corner or maybe even catch a glimpse of Long Kesh. This was fair enough. These were A-list locations, as famous as Nicaragua, Vietnam and Afghanistan back then. Was it any wonder a journalist would want to see these conflict areas?
Guiding these reporters around the country during the '90s revealed how tough times were for the hospitality sector. Hotels and bars throughout the country got on with opening for business with many of them still focusing on quality and value for money even as bombs blew up their new kitchens.
One way of staying in business was to keep your head down. Visiting journalists were struck by how quiet and depressed Belfast seemed until, that is, you pushed a pub, hotel or restaurant door open and walked straight into a Friday night no matter what day of the week it was. Bar owners and restaurateurs knew the best policy was not to draw attention to themselves. Therefore, from the outside, these places looked lifeless. Once you got through those doors, however, you were sucked into the bosom of smokey, jokey, friendly and robust Ulster folk. Many journalists were seduced by Belfast and Derry’s ‘parallel realities’ and could not resist the mix of high-profile military presence, security barriers and general tension on the one hand, and the irrepressible laughter, live music and banter on the other.
The restaurant Zen in Adelaide Street is not old enough to be a child of the Troubles. Nonetheless its utterly innocuous exterior, just like the old bars and restaurants of Belfast and Derry, Armagh and Newry, says
nothing about the dark, seductive decadence within. As soon as you step through the front door, a hostess will greet you, take you through the luxuriously louche restaurant to a booth table upstairs or on the ground floor — it doesn’t matter, it’s all good — and you’ll suddenly feel like you’re James Bond parachuted into a late '70s far eastern nightclub with a desperate urge for a martini. You can’t come in here and ask for an ignorant big pint. Well, you can, actually, but you’d be so insensitive not to get into the spirit of the place and come over a bit secret agenty with the sophisticated tastes of a multi-lingual, jet-setting sex god.
The early Saturday evening visit was remarkable for revealing the clientele. At tea-time there were small posses of beautiful young things all ready for a night out but tucking into squid, soft shell crabs, sushi and noodles before hitting the town. It’s always a relief to see young ones exploring exciting and exotic foods.
The food might not be as exciting as it is plentiful in Zen, but it is good. The adviser speaks highly of the place, however, and rates the sushi. She also points out that nobody we know has a bad word to say about it.
The basic staples, rice and noodles, are excellent whatever form you choose. The chilli squid is perfect and almost melts in the mouth. But kimchi chicken skewers and salt chilli soft-shell crabs are not as cracklingly zingy or light as they might. The Japanese chicken curry was as disappointing as plastic fruit. It was tasteless and had the texture of Flubber.
Notwithstanding this, Zen is exciting, a little edgy and runs very smoothly thanks to a seamless but friendly battalion of servers. They are knowledgeable, accommodating and if they were your children, you’d be proud of how well they turned out. I haven’t taken any journalists around town for more than a decade but if I had to, I think Zen might feature on the itinerary.
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The Bill
Kimchi chicken skewer: £4.80
Pork seaweed dumpling: £5.80
Salt chilli crab: £5.80
Nikko chilli squid: £12.80
Honey peppered chicken: £11.80
Japanese chicken curry: £10.80
Fried rice X 2: £5.60
Ramen noodles: £3.80
Glass wine: £3.80
Bottle Tiger beer: £3.30
Diet cokes X 2: £3.30
Total: £71.60
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