New Zen Japanese Restaurant

Solid sushi.
I love the spider roll and the dragon roll. The only reason I took two stars off because the place closes for lunch (why??) and the prices are ehhhh.
I’m always happy with the service so that’s a plus. The place is a little small so probably not great for bigger groups.

4 or 4.5 stars for the sushi, 6 stars for the service!
The sushi was pretty good. Not «out of this world,» but solid. Nice and fresh, and well prepared.
The service on the other hand, knocked it out of the park. Super friendly and nice, accompanied by expediency! I would definitely come back if I’m ever in the area again.

HORRIBLE service! The cook/​owner YELLED at me for returning a dish that was not properly cooked. Instead of talking to me to explain her position, she literally YELLED at me. Do NOT eat here. EVER! They probably will spit in your food, THAT is how nasty that lady is. The server was kind and wonderful; too bad she works for such a disposable woman!

Love this place! I have always been a fan of a small family run restaurant. It’s nicely decorated and the food is yummy.
My fiancé had the salmon teriyaki. The fillets were sliced thin and there was a bit too much sauce, but he enjoyed it.
I had the chicken katsu that was perfect. The breast was the perfect size — not pounded within an inch of it’s life. Nicely browned, but not greasy. The tonkatsu sauce was light and not overly sweet or salty.
Looking forward to coming back and sampling more of the menu. Japanese home cooked meal at it’s best.

Best authentic Japanese food around! The owner is so sweet! My family and I have been going to her restaurant for years! High quality ingredients and the food is always delicious! Reminds me of grandma’s cooking.

I got the beef yakisoba, and it was pretty good. The noodles were nice and firm; it wasn’t too greasy; and the beef was cooked and seasoned well. There was a hint of some sort of spice that I didn’t really like, though — ginger, maybe?

I really like this place. It’s super homey, never very crowded so we can always find a seat, and the staff recognizes us after only our second visit (it’s probably my son’s cuteness). The service is so friendly, and the food comes out quickly, which is extremely important because we walk here to grab dinner during our limited one-​hour window between taekwondo classes. I’ve only had a handful of menu items so far (again, only been here twice). The first time, we just shared an order of the teriyaki chicken. The chicken was prepared well and the amount of sauce was perfect. It came with rice, miso soup, and a side salad. My son loved the salad.
During our second visit, we ordered the kid’s meal, which has three «sections» each with 3 options. Section A is the main entrée (he chose the teriyaki chicken again), Section B is the appetizer (he opted for the gyoza, which was slightly different from normal gyoza because the skin was breaded), and Section C is the «sushi» accoutrements (he chose the cucumber roll). This comes also with miso soup and rice. I was pleasantly surprised by how much came with the kid’s meal. I believe the total kid’s meal was slightly south of $ 8.00, which is a pretty good deal for how much variety you get!
I ordered a simply spicy tuna crunchy roll. The plate it came on was full, though the roll itself wasn’t too broad. It was a nice portion.
I think it’s safe to say that we’re going to be regulars now. See you there!

The food was fantastic! The staff is friendly and fast. I have been looking for a great Japanese place for a long time that has good food and a family business feel. This is it. I will be back for sure.

This place is one of the best japanese places to eat. I been to restaurant at least 4+ times, bring friends to try it out. Their sushi is great, their food feels very homey. I love their curry and Katsu Don dish. Oh yeah, the owner and staff there are very friendly!!! Sometimes you go to a Japanese restaurant and find out the owner is either Korean or Chinese which is kinda odd but the owner is genuinely Japanese. Take your friends to try this place!

My family has been to this restaraunt a handful of times, and while the food is decent the staff is terrible. The service is incredibly slow and every time we ask for something they have very rude attitudes and are very reluctant to help us out at all. It took them forever to bring us drinks and even longer to get our food. The most recent visit we were going to have dinner tonight and checked their hours (open until 9:00 pm) and when we got there (8:00 pm) the door was locked and the staff was sitting at the back eating dinner. When they saw us looking in one lady came to the door and said they were closed so we said we thought they closed at 9 and they told us «we usually do but we have had no customers for three hours, now go away.» They were very rude to us, and we will not be taking our business there again.

Came in for lunch as I needed a place to eat before a work meeting. Yummy, great quality! The sushi tasted very fresh! The presentation of the food was great! Décor is nice! Quiet atmosphere! Happy I stopped in and will do so again! Hoping to try the ramen next time!

Let me start out by saying this is my favorite restaurant. I eat here very often, and I often bring along my friends.
The restaurant has a good, quiet atmosphere, I never have trouble with parking, and the food is amazing. The sushi, ramen, udon, katsu, and sukiyaki are delicious, I haven’t ordered anything here that didn’t like.
I have taken many of my friends here to try the sushi, and they all say it is the best they’ve had. It’s slightly more expensive than one of the conveyor belt places, but you can see your sushi made on the spot and the quality is much better.
The staff is friendly and started recognizing me after only a few visits. The length of time for the food to be cooked varies, substantially longer when it’s busy, but nothing unreasonable.
This is by far my favorite restaurant, and I would recommend it to everybody!

I’ve only been here for lunch. They have a great bento box selection that pleases anyone. My friend loves their rolls which I haven’t tried much of. Good, local place with good customer service.

Still yummy and good service even after many years. We still come here even thought we don’t live in Renton anymore!

I love New Zen. I’m a regular customer and I can definitely say it’s one of my favorite Japanese restaurants. It’s conveniently located in downtown Renton, near the transit station and it also has a dedicated parking lot. The staff are very friendly and quick! My cup of green tea was never empty! The food is very authentic — it reminds me of my mother’s cooking, and the owner is always happy to chat once you become a regular (which really only takes 2 – 3 visits). The food is also very affordable, which is a very nice surprise. I have nothing bad to say about New Zen. I hope they stay open for a long time. I know downtown Renton’s business has been impacted with the Landing.

Pretty good food. Split the Katsudon and beef curry with my brother. Both dishes could use more meat but the taste was pretty good. Only had one server when we were there on a Monday and it got pretty busy so the service was a little slower than I’m accustomed to from other Japanese restaurants. I looked at the other parts of the menu and looked pretty pricey. I saw other people order the items and it looked like the quantity wasn’t that big. It better make up for it with the taste. I may try it next time.

I was hunting and pecking around Unilocal to find a restaurant that I haven’t patronized yet in my own community. Based on the reviews, I was encouraged to try this place.
Service: Very attentive, friendly, helpful
Décor: Clean, artful
Ambience: quiet, serene
Food: Very well presented, tasty, not as authentic as I would’ve liked with the veggies.
Ordered their Bento box lunch for $ 9.95. You get to choose from about six elections for your main entrée. I chose chicken teriyaki. Very delicious. Then you get to choose two smaller items. Chose the steamed vegetables which turned out to be a small fistful of cooked cabbage with slices of carrot and onions. Very inexpensive for the business to serve cabbage. I was expecting some authentic Japanese veggies such as sliced roots, etc. I also chose their seaweed salad which was a tiny fistful, but delicious. Included with the Bento was a tiny salad, full bowl of white rice (weren’t offered other options like brown rice), and the best soup I’ve had ever in a Japanese restaurant.

When my husband and I wanted to try something new in the area we looked on Unilocal,of course. We aren’t picky, we just have preferences and we decides to try this place out. It is located near the transit center, so I was a little worries about parking, but there is a huge lot with plenty of parking right next to the building.
It has a very small store front and it more rectangular shaped, so I almost walked into the restaurant next door. That could have also been from food deprivation, but whichever.
My husband and I walked in. The atmosphere is not «ghetto» as a fellow Unilocaler stated. It was pleasant, but not gaudy. It was quiet and there were about three other people eating there and one of them was an employee off duty at the sushi bar. The other was a couple on the other side of the restaurant than us. A mother and well manured child came in nearing the end of our visit.
I digress. There were two people in the front of house and a cook (or two, I couldn’t see them) in the back of house. One of the ladies in front was at the sushi bat making sushi the entire time we were there. Or cleaning. Whichever. The waitress was pleasant and brought out menus and water right after we sat down. She was nice. She helped the other people in the same manor.
She came back to get our orders. He got tonkatsu ramen and I got tofu sukiyaki. We sat for about 10 – 15 minutes waiting for our food having pleasant conversation. It was quiet, but not eery.
When our food arrived, it was hot, as expected. He said his food was very food and quickly slurped it up, as is Japanese style. The broth in my food was very food, but I felt that there was not enough noodles in the sukiyaki. I had had better sukiyaki elsewhere, but I am a bit picky on this food in particular.
All in all, we will be back, but I will order udon or something else next time. Perhaps we will try the sushi. Place was clean, waitress nice, although a tad awkward in her downtime. Food was alright in different areas. Place appeared well maintained.

I had a pleasurable experience from beginning to end. I ate lunch here on Black Friday so it was nearly empty except for one guest at the bar and one guest at another table. We were greeted with the cheery Japanese greeting was we walked in. We had real wooden chopsticks instead of the cheap disposable ones, and they were in these cute little origami chopstick pockets. The menus are really cool because they’re laminated and they give you something to write on them with to check off the boxes you want.
We started with hot tea. It was delicious. We ordered a lunch bento with chicken shioyaki, shumai, and sake-​Maki. And we also ordered chirashi. The lunch bento came with SUPER DELICIOUS somen noodle soup and the chirashi came with pretty good miso soup. The food inside the bento was delicious, but I wish it would’ve come with a bit more of the sides (only 2 pieces of shumai and 4 pieces of the salmon roll), but for $ 9 it’s fairly priced. The chicken/​rice were delicious and it came with enough meat to warrant buying it. The chirashi was suuuuuper good and the rice was delicious. It came in this cute little square container and the portion was fair.
For dessert we had their maccha cheesecake which was also super delicious. If I had more money and stomach I would’ve gotten like 4 slices of that.
After the meal they said thank you to us in Japanese as we were leaving. Throughout our meal the sushi chef at the bar was chatting with the guest who was sitting at the sushi bar.
In summary: delicious food, nice service, pretty good/​okay prices and portions, enjoyable experience.

First things first, the food is very good.
I started coming here because the local Japanese Restaurant closer to my home closed down about a month ago. I was pretty bummed out about it because it had come to be my favorite place to eat.
Found New Zen here on Unilocal and decided to give it a try, despite the fact it takes over 40 minutes to get there!
The food is very good as I mentioned. The server is super nice as well. However, there seems to be a slight inconsistency with the pricing. I got the same thing today in my to go order today as I did last time, with the slight addition of a Maki roll ($ 5) and a Rainbow Roll (had no idea it was over $ 14 and yet the roll was kind of small)…but my order this time came out to be twice as much as I paid last time, and yet they didn’t give me as much stuff this time, either. Last time my Ramen had more toppings (sprouts for example) and there was a cold noodle dish that came alongside the rice and tempura I really liked… but it was missing this time around.
The price was so high I only had a few dollars in my account and had to only leave a very small tip, which normally I don’t like doing.
So yes, the food is GREAT, but the portions and pricing seem somewhat inconsistent.
I’ll ask them about it next time I go there. Wish it was closer.
If you’re a fan of Tonkotsu ramen, this is a great place to go FYI.
9÷11÷14 UPDATE
I spoke with the owner here and she explained things pretty clearly for me as to what might have happened with my order. Haven’t had any problems since, and currently am calling this place my favorite Ramen/​sashimi restaurant in our area. Love their salad dressing as well!