By far the best Vegan food we’ve ever had! Everything we ordered was delicious. It was so delicious we ordered more to go to make sure we had some for the next day! Definitely recommend.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Kayleigh Wilson
Dietary restrictions: Great vegan options.
Food: 5
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Spicy Eggplant, Vegetable Fried Rice, Kung PO Soy Chicken, Soy Nuggets, Wonton Soup
Ramya Chander
Amazing option for vegetarians to explore yummy Chinese food. Their options are all meat free and delicious and we keep going back to try more of their taste tickling dishes. A must try for all when in the area!
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Vegetable Fried Rice
Doina Vuia
I cannot understand how can anybody rate this place with five stars or four stars or three. This is a zero star. It's way too salty. I ordered jambo shrimps and I honestly believe it was chicken painted orange on one side. I could not eat it, the rest of the dishes were just as bad. Everything was in plastic. I can go on and on and on but I'm going to stop. The worst experience ever! I never complain but this time you was just impossible not to say something.
Atmosphere: 1
Food: 1
Service: 1
Laura Herchel
Order takeout last night, and we will definitely be back again! We were visiting Guelph from Ottawa and were so happy to find out that Guelph has a veggie Chinese restaurant! Seems to be all vegan with the exception of cheesecake. The vegan chicken balls were really good, I've never seen them at any other vegan restaurant before! We also tried the wonton soup, chow mein, beef and brocolli, and a curry, everything was great! Portions were large as well.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Chicken Balls
Veganchick11
Ordered takeout last night, and we will definitely be back again! We were visiting Guelph from Ottawa and were so happy to find out that Guelph has a veggie Chinese restaurant! Seems to be all vegan with the exception of cheesecake. The vegan chicken balls were really good, I've never seen them at any other vegan restaurant before! We also tried the wonton soup, chow mein, beef and brocolli, and a curry, everything was great! Portions were large as well.
Updated from previous review on 2023-11-04
Rohit Thakur
Went there with family and friends. It's a cozy place and has a very warm feeling to it. The owners are very welcoming and sweet.The food was good. We trued couple of dishes and all of them were good.
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 4
Service: 4
Le W.
Halloween Day. So appropriate that my wife and I decided to check out Zen Garden in Guelph for lunch, which was the first time in about 5 or 6 years that we ate there. Ahhhhhh, how delicious it was at that time... and how far it has fallen since. This review is as much a horror story as it is a cautionary tale.We first entered the restaurant, passing by dead bugs and real spiderwebs on their porch attached to the patio table there which is set for dining. We decided to eat inside, which was cluttered and lacked all the quaint Asian charm from years past. Gone too was the friendly greetings from the staff upon entering... and once inside, we found ourselves... utterly alone!We ordered some nice bbq dim sum as an appetizer , and were very disappointed to find that the bbq filling was about a teaspoon, or better to say about a third to a quarter the amount of filling in each bun we had enjoyed on previous visits years back. Basically, they are now just steamed dinner rolls with a smear of bbq sauce inside. (Insert eyeroll here) This was bad enough, but the worst was about to come. My wife ordered the lemon chicken... cubed 'chicken' with a lemon sauce and a side salad. This turned out to be two fried chicken cutlets and cheap greens with a small little snap-tight container with some lemony brine Inside. This doubled as the chicken sauce and the salad dressing. Now, gone too, we found, were the beautiful presentation efforts from the past, where the staff wore beautiful culturally appropriate dress and served their delicious offerings on china plates with silverware. Now the main fare appears in thin disposal plastic containers reminiscent of shoe boxes without a top! And the flavor of that fare... cafeteria bland at best.On to my entree. I ordered the spicy eggplant and mushrooms, a dish that was supposedly served in a hot spicy sauce. It came in the same cheap takeout container that my wife's did, and yes, we did tell them we were dining in. There was added to this entree some fried tofu that was not mentioned, and it was of the Uber soft variety which didn't work very well for the dish. This was the most slimy mess I could ever have imagined , far out-sliming Slimer, and even slimaly surpassing the Creature from the Black Lagoon! Seriously, this dish was NOT spicy, nor would I even say it was smothered in a sauce... but what I can affirm is that this dish was covered and saturated with the most bland and tasteless cooking oil imaginable. No chili oil or sesame oil, nor anything else tasty or spicy... just cheap cooking oil. And when it was brought out, the eggplant barely rose above the level of this grease filled urn. It's as though the entree was fried in a wok filled with oil, and the whole mess dumped in a plastic shoebox. The eggplant was saturated with oil and just as tasteless as it was as well. The mushrooms tasted like the rehydrated dry ones found at the ethnic grocery store on Victoria. I tried pouring out as much of the oil as I could, but in the end it didn't matter. After trying to eat it, I left about 80% of it in the shoebox on the table.Yes, we did tell the server and/or proprietor about our totally disgusted opinion of their food ... and they sadly said 'So sorry, and that will be $55.00'.Never again... and I give this zero star joke of an eatery my LOWEST RECOMMENDATION and MOST HIGHEST of HIGH PAN!!!Thank-You...
ineaikamor ikamo
The waiter is really nice, they even gave us free food and the food is so delicious and a very very good price, a must
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Dustin Cowan
Absolutely amazing food! Everything from here is so delicious, and the staff are the best!
I've come to Zen Gardens a few time and I've always left with a happy and full stomach for the price. The food here is mostly Vegan and anything that is not they make sure to label as such.There specials that they rotate are of a great value.One thing to note that this place is two levels, one on a old cobble stone patio and then on a narrow wooden deck. This place has seen better days on its outside and could use a fixing up for its stone work to make it easier for wheel chairs and also its steps as well as they are quite jagged.The decorations are quite dated, using old Christmas lights and aging knickknacks that are falling apart. The chairs here are also hard to sit in and some what uncomfortable.I hope that one day the environment can be altered. Overall a great valued experience.Vegetarian options: This place is 85% vegan.Wheelchair accessibility: There are tables on ground level but the ground is made of uneven, large stones.Dietary restrictions: This place is 85% vegan.
Atmosphere: 2
Food: 5
Service: 4
Recommended dishes: Seitan Platter
K B
Terrible experience!My spicy eggplant literally only had 3 pieces of tofu in it... This was our first meal after 2 days so we were starving, yet my partner couldn't finish his dish because it was way too salty! I tried a bite and it was overwhelming. My partner ate maybe 3 bites of his food and we told the server MUTIPLE times we didn't want to take the leftovers home, it was way too salty, something was wrong with it, and that's why he barely ate any of it. Yet she still packaged it and tried to make us take it! So uncomfortable, she kept acting like she didn't know what I was saying. She kept saying she would give a small discount, but gave me the debit terminal with the original price. After confronting her she quickly updated the cost and walked away. Still paid $50 for the worst dining experience we ever had.All dishes (aside from the wonton soup) were lacking flavor and presentation. There's something off-putting about dining in and being served slop in plastic containers and eating burning hot soup with a plastic spoon... Very wasteful too.To make it worse, my partner called before we came in and asked if there are gluten free options, they said "tell us what you want, we'll make it gluten free" and told us the soy nuggets were gluten free, which I had a bad feeling about. BUT as mentioned, we were starving and they told us they could accommodate gluten free. Yet when we got there, we ordered soy nuggets and they didn't bring them out because I'm assuming they contained gluten. If they wouldn't have lied to us, or at least knew what they were talking about, we wouldn't have came in and we could have avoided this whole mess.London location is one of our favorite restaurants, this was extremely shocking.
Atmosphere: 1
Food: 1
Service: 1
A M
The food was extremely salty and otherwise flavourless to the point that I couldn't eat more than a couple bites. Everything was served in takeout containers with plastic utensils, including the soup. One of the dishes ordered wasn't served. Communication regarding gluten-free dishes was unclear and inconsistent. The restaurant was in a beautiful old house though it was unkempt. When we complained about the food a very slight discount was offered, though the discount did not appear on the bill until we pointed it out. We dined at the London location many times and never had such an experience.
Atmosphere: 1
Food: 1
Service: 1
Joshua Hale
This is the only restaurant that I will go out of my way to eat at every time I'm back in Ontario. It's that good.
Tahwa Tahwa
awesome !! such a wide variety , was spoilt for choice and the service was wonderful.Vegetarian options: wide selection
By far the best Vegan food we’ve ever had! Everything we ordered was delicious. It was so delicious we ordered more to go to make sure we had some for the next day! Definitely recommend.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Dietary restrictions: Great vegan options.
Food: 5
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Spicy Eggplant, Vegetable Fried Rice, Kung PO Soy Chicken, Soy Nuggets, Wonton Soup
Amazing option for vegetarians to explore yummy Chinese food. Their options are all meat free and delicious and we keep going back to try more of their taste tickling dishes. A must try for all when in the area!
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Vegetable Fried Rice
I cannot understand how can anybody rate this place with five stars or four stars or three. This is a zero star. It's way too salty. I ordered jambo shrimps and I honestly believe it was chicken painted orange on one side. I could not eat it, the rest of the dishes were just as bad. Everything was in plastic. I can go on and on and on but I'm going to stop. The worst experience ever! I never complain but this time you was just impossible not to say something.
Atmosphere: 1
Food: 1
Service: 1
Order takeout last night, and we will definitely be back again! We were visiting Guelph from Ottawa and were so happy to find out that Guelph has a veggie Chinese restaurant! Seems to be all vegan with the exception of cheesecake. The vegan chicken balls were really good, I've never seen them at any other vegan restaurant before! We also tried the wonton soup, chow mein, beef and brocolli, and a curry, everything was great! Portions were large as well.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Chicken Balls
Ordered takeout last night, and we will definitely be back again! We were visiting Guelph from Ottawa and were so happy to find out that Guelph has a veggie Chinese restaurant! Seems to be all vegan with the exception of cheesecake. The vegan chicken balls were really good, I've never seen them at any other vegan restaurant before! We also tried the wonton soup, chow mein, beef and brocolli, and a curry, everything was great! Portions were large as well. Updated from previous review on 2023-11-04
Went there with family and friends. It's a cozy place and has a very warm feeling to it. The owners are very welcoming and sweet.The food was good. We trued couple of dishes and all of them were good.
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 4
Service: 4
Halloween Day. So appropriate that my wife and I decided to check out Zen Garden in Guelph for lunch, which was the first time in about 5 or 6 years that we ate there. Ahhhhhh, how delicious it was at that time... and how far it has fallen since. This review is as much a horror story as it is a cautionary tale.We first entered the restaurant, passing by dead bugs and real spiderwebs on their porch attached to the patio table there which is set for dining. We decided to eat inside, which was cluttered and lacked all the quaint Asian charm from years past. Gone too was the friendly greetings from the staff upon entering... and once inside, we found ourselves... utterly alone!We ordered some nice bbq dim sum as an appetizer , and were very disappointed to find that the bbq filling was about a teaspoon, or better to say about a third to a quarter the amount of filling in each bun we had enjoyed on previous visits years back. Basically, they are now just steamed dinner rolls with a smear of bbq sauce inside. (Insert eyeroll here) This was bad enough, but the worst was about to come. My wife ordered the lemon chicken... cubed 'chicken' with a lemon sauce and a side salad. This turned out to be two fried chicken cutlets and cheap greens with a small little snap-tight container with some lemony brine Inside. This doubled as the chicken sauce and the salad dressing. Now, gone too, we found, were the beautiful presentation efforts from the past, where the staff wore beautiful culturally appropriate dress and served their delicious offerings on china plates with silverware. Now the main fare appears in thin disposal plastic containers reminiscent of shoe boxes without a top! And the flavor of that fare... cafeteria bland at best.On to my entree. I ordered the spicy eggplant and mushrooms, a dish that was supposedly served in a hot spicy sauce. It came in the same cheap takeout container that my wife's did, and yes, we did tell them we were dining in. There was added to this entree some fried tofu that was not mentioned, and it was of the Uber soft variety which didn't work very well for the dish. This was the most slimy mess I could ever have imagined , far out-sliming Slimer, and even slimaly surpassing the Creature from the Black Lagoon! Seriously, this dish was NOT spicy, nor would I even say it was smothered in a sauce... but what I can affirm is that this dish was covered and saturated with the most bland and tasteless cooking oil imaginable. No chili oil or sesame oil, nor anything else tasty or spicy... just cheap cooking oil. And when it was brought out, the eggplant barely rose above the level of this grease filled urn. It's as though the entree was fried in a wok filled with oil, and the whole mess dumped in a plastic shoebox. The eggplant was saturated with oil and just as tasteless as it was as well. The mushrooms tasted like the rehydrated dry ones found at the ethnic grocery store on Victoria. I tried pouring out as much of the oil as I could, but in the end it didn't matter. After trying to eat it, I left about 80% of it in the shoebox on the table.Yes, we did tell the server and/or proprietor about our totally disgusted opinion of their food ... and they sadly said 'So sorry, and that will be $55.00'.Never again... and I give this zero star joke of an eatery my LOWEST RECOMMENDATION and MOST HIGHEST of HIGH PAN!!!Thank-You...
The waiter is really nice, they even gave us free food and the food is so delicious and a very very good price, a must
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Absolutely amazing food! Everything from here is so delicious, and the staff are the best!
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Kung PO Soy Chicken
Restaurantji Recommends
I've come to Zen Gardens a few time and I've always left with a happy and full stomach for the price. The food here is mostly Vegan and anything that is not they make sure to label as such.There specials that they rotate are of a great value.One thing to note that this place is two levels, one on a old cobble stone patio and then on a narrow wooden deck. This place has seen better days on its outside and could use a fixing up for its stone work to make it easier for wheel chairs and also its steps as well as they are quite jagged.The decorations are quite dated, using old Christmas lights and aging knickknacks that are falling apart. The chairs here are also hard to sit in and some what uncomfortable.I hope that one day the environment can be altered. Overall a great valued experience.Vegetarian options: This place is 85% vegan.Wheelchair accessibility: There are tables on ground level but the ground is made of uneven, large stones.Dietary restrictions: This place is 85% vegan.
Atmosphere: 2
Food: 5
Service: 4
Recommended dishes: Seitan Platter
Terrible experience!My spicy eggplant literally only had 3 pieces of tofu in it... This was our first meal after 2 days so we were starving, yet my partner couldn't finish his dish because it was way too salty! I tried a bite and it was overwhelming. My partner ate maybe 3 bites of his food and we told the server MUTIPLE times we didn't want to take the leftovers home, it was way too salty, something was wrong with it, and that's why he barely ate any of it. Yet she still packaged it and tried to make us take it! So uncomfortable, she kept acting like she didn't know what I was saying. She kept saying she would give a small discount, but gave me the debit terminal with the original price. After confronting her she quickly updated the cost and walked away. Still paid $50 for the worst dining experience we ever had.All dishes (aside from the wonton soup) were lacking flavor and presentation. There's something off-putting about dining in and being served slop in plastic containers and eating burning hot soup with a plastic spoon... Very wasteful too.To make it worse, my partner called before we came in and asked if there are gluten free options, they said "tell us what you want, we'll make it gluten free" and told us the soy nuggets were gluten free, which I had a bad feeling about. BUT as mentioned, we were starving and they told us they could accommodate gluten free. Yet when we got there, we ordered soy nuggets and they didn't bring them out because I'm assuming they contained gluten. If they wouldn't have lied to us, or at least knew what they were talking about, we wouldn't have came in and we could have avoided this whole mess.London location is one of our favorite restaurants, this was extremely shocking.
Atmosphere: 1
Food: 1
Service: 1
The food was extremely salty and otherwise flavourless to the point that I couldn't eat more than a couple bites. Everything was served in takeout containers with plastic utensils, including the soup. One of the dishes ordered wasn't served. Communication regarding gluten-free dishes was unclear and inconsistent. The restaurant was in a beautiful old house though it was unkempt. When we complained about the food a very slight discount was offered, though the discount did not appear on the bill until we pointed it out. We dined at the London location many times and never had such an experience.
Atmosphere: 1
Food: 1
Service: 1
This is the only restaurant that I will go out of my way to eat at every time I'm back in Ontario. It's that good.
awesome !! such a wide variety , was spoilt for choice and the service was wonderful.Vegetarian options: wide selection