Zen Garden - Old Ellicott City

This was our first visit to the Zen Garden Restaurant, and we loved our lunch there on Saturday afternoon. The food and service were great, and the prices were not high. We had the Sesame Chicken and Hunan Beef lunch specials. We are looking forward to our next visit.

Your experience will vary based on what you order. I liked the Peking duck and crab rangoon here. The duck was quite fresh and the skin was crispy. There were a lot of pancakes (probably not the right name) but we still had to ask for more because there were a lot of duck! The crab rangoon was sweet and crispy. It tastes pretty unique actually. I highly recommend both dishes. We also ordered fried lotus roots with some vege but they were out of most vege as we went there quite late at night. It tasted quite good but also a good amount of spice. I have a feeling that most of the other dishes will taste good too. The decor is quite okay. Imagine an up-scale Chinese restaurant with rich owners. It's too far of a drive for me to frequent this place but if I'm ever in the area, I'd eat here again.

Updated post! BEWARE This place is a hit or miss. Today was a huge disappointment and an opposite experience than my first visit. This was my second visit to pickup the takeout I ordered online. The service was good and consistent but the food was absolutely awful! Again, I had the shrimp lo mein but paid more this time because of an online convenience fee. The spring rolls were hot on the ends and ice cold in the middle. The shrimp was not fresh and the noodles were oily and old. To add insult to injury the portion was less than the last time I ordered this dish. I ultimately ended up throwing my food away and will not be going back.

Waited 30 minutes for an appetizer and then another 15min for more entrees that were all incredibly salty. The wait time and price did not reflect well upon the already mid food.

Don't ever give them your number. Long after you decide they're not worth coming back, you will still be getting text spam from them.