Fish Barrel Eastwood — Restaurant in Sydney

The glass front of ZhangJi Eastwood is dominated by large white light-up sign saying “Fish Barrel”. And so it has come to be that the restaurant has lost its franchise moniker—ZhangJi—in favour of their specialty dish—wooden fish barrels—and become “Fish Barrel Eastwood” on Google maps. This now global Chinese chain is famous for serving fish-based hot pots poured into specially crafted wooden buckets full of hot rocks. It’s a steamy and potentially dangerous process, requiring everyone at the table to stand up when the broth and then fish slices are poured in. The buckets sit over induction heaters on the table to regulate the temperature across a 1.5 hour hot pot meal.

Not arriving with the requisite amount of people to make hot pot economical we watched on as Chinese families plugged in their hygienically packaged wooden chopstick extenders and pulled market fish from their choice of seven broths. The restaurant is arranged in three columns: two seater booths, four seater tables, six seater tables. Light up menu boards decorate both sides of the long, narrow restaurant, with the kitchen hidden by a wall of live fish tanks in the rear.

With longnecks of Tsing Tao ($9.80/640ml) from a keenly-priced booze list that should even please establishment wine drinkers we road-test the wider menu starting with signature sautéed shrimp balls with garlic butter ($18.80). The crisp battered prawns sit in a creamy garlic sauce that’s also excellent on the standout special fried rice ($13.80) that arrives with well-separated grains and so much proteins you won’t need to hunt for morsels of meat or prawn. Dried red chillies add a little zing rather than fierceness to the tasty signature typhoon shelter-style spare ribs ($16.80). Sautéed chicken slices with crispy rice and XO sauce ($14.80) were tasty with nicely crisp red and green capsicum, juicy onion and the textural rice crisps, but could have done with more chilli. Language difficulties saw us struggle to order a plate of the signature corn cakes ($13.80) flying out with every hot pot, so based on the success of this meal, I’ve earmarked this one for a return visit...

We really wanted to give this new restaurant a try after having seen it many times whilst driving past, but were utterly disappointed.

They display a massive and attractive menu on their front window display, but apparently that's just a waste of time as it is only available for lunch, according to their staff.

As we were only a table of 2 adults, we weren't exactly convinced in ordering a hot pot/fish barrel set (did not want to eat or spend that much on a Wednesday night), but they said we had to order that during dinner service.

What is the point of making such an amazing main menu of dishes that's only available at lunch time? Nowhere did you state as a condition of entry that we have to order the fish, nor did you bother to slap a "lunch only" label on your huge menu outside. No wonder your restaurant was bordering on empty during dinner time, compared to your competitors next door.

Don't bother wasting your time with this place; they are not flexible and if you don't speak Mandarin, tough luck as the staff don't understand English and most bafflingly their "lunch" menu has English whilst their fish-dinner one is written in Chinese only.

I sincerely doubt their main menu was lunch only; no other restaurant in their right mind would make such an extensive menu for lunch only. I feel the staff were just bitter we did not want the fish hot pot, and didn't want to serve us the other menu.

Fish Barrel needs a serious rethink on how they operate their menu if they want their business to survive. Was honestly looking forward to trying their food, but with how they operate right now I would recommend people...

The restraunt is excellent compared to other restraunts. I have been to many other restraunts including hotpot restraunts but they are not as good. The ingredients to the hotpot in this restraunt are delivered to you directly unlike many other restraunts where you have to collect the ingredients yourself. There are condiments, prawn crackers and jelly on the Self Serve table.

The food is fresh (seafood, vegetables and deserts) and is mouth watering. There is a variety of hot pot foods but plates of different foods, so it does contain different types of enjoyment. Drinks are also included in the food course, you can tick them off the menu or free serve collect them.

The atmosphere is lively and welcoming, the people around seem to be friendly to work. There, of course, is no violence and the facility is well-maintained and orderly. The waitresses are quick and ethical in their work practices.

Overall, this restraunt's food starts out among the crowd as the food is delicious, quality is great and the atmosphere of the shop...