Zen Japanese Restaurant by Claudia

Zen Japanese Restaurant has been opened for years, but sadly only four bloggers have blogged about it and they all say great things about the place.

It is small and when I came it was busy with all the staff from Swinburne uni. Most of the customers were Caucasian.

There are no bathrooms (or maybe if there were they are hidden). But there are bathrooms at Swinburne Uni and Glenferrie station across the road.

My iced tea

Some of the alcohol that they have

Love the artwork

My bento close up

My bento (top) and Agedashi tofu

Agedashi tofu close up

Look how small my inari was

The waitress's English was so poor she had a hard time understanding what I was asking her. Oh and service was really slow. When I got there two other tables were still waiting for their food. One other table wanted more water and they found it hard to flag someone down.

The place is clean and I love all the Japanese artworks on the wall. It is run by Japanese, I think.

There are $10-$15 lunch specials which are just bentos. One of them is a sushi bento and seeing as I am a huge fan of sushi I went for that. It came with no rice (not that it really mattered since I was still full from breakfast, but to some others who are tight with money it might).

Well I didn't have that many great things to say about my bento today. But I loved my Agedashi tofu ($9) which had the moving bonito flakes which I love love love.

The sushi in my bento was rather small. The inari was half filled and the salmon was not fresh. Rather it was irky. I loved the generous amounts of ginger.

Oh and be warned they put a very small blob of wasabi in your sushi. Some places don't do that, so if you don't want just tell them.

Verdict: I still Me N Roll for my sushi but, as for my Agedashi tofu, this one is much better.  And next time if I do come I'd like to try their tempura udon. Oh they should do a Groupon to get more bloggers in the door.

Note (updated on the 15/4/2014): Zen is offering Entertainment book members 25% off the total bill. To sign up for membership click here.