To check if Zookeeper is accessible. One method is to simply telnet to the proper port and execute the stats command.
root@host:~# telnet localhost 2181
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to myhost.
Escape character is '^]'.
stats
Zookeeper version: 3.4.3-cdh4.0.1--1, built on 06/28/2012 23:59 GMT
Clients:
Latency min/avg/max: 0/0/677
Received: 4684478
Sent: 4687034
Outstanding: 0
Zxid: 0xb00187dd0
Mode: leader
Node count: 127182
Connection closed by foreign host.