Goji Penrith — Restaurant in Sydney

The East Bank is a purpose-built waterfront restaurant hub that opened in Penrith in early 2019. Set on one bank of the Nepean River, it’s about eight minutes from the Penrith CBD. The open-plan complex offers a mix of indoor and outdoor dining options across a number of different venues, with plenty of off-street parking.

In search of a fast pre-theatre eat, we picked GOJI. Decorated with red lanterns inside and out, darkness and an attractive, wall-length mural help to distract from the barn-like size of this black-framed, glass-edged space. The youthful floor team, plucked from the local area, are friendly and full of personality. Cocktails are interesting, well-made, and fit-for-purpose, if slightly on the small side. The Bird’s Eye Margarita ($18) balances raspberry sweetness with the fire of chilli and Cazadores tequila. Madam Wong ($18) takes Bombay gin somewhere fresh and interesting with watermelon, white vermouth and citrus.

Both drinks work with wild mushroom dumplings ($18/4 pieces) that burst with big shiitake flavour. Char siu san choy bao ($18) are presented simply with six evenly-sized cos lettuce leaf boats. The BBQ pork is teamed with garlic stems, sweet corn, onions and shallots into a nicely savoury crisp, healthy bite that’s easy to spike with chilli oil for extra zing. Pineapple salsa and soft shell crab are rolled with jicama (a Mexican root vegetable) in roti wraps ($20/6), they’re tasty, but also benefit from a little more zing.

Umenoyado Gin junmai daiginjo ($9/glass) is again on the small side but at nine bucks a glass for a pleasant fruity sake that has a soft creamy finish, you can just order two. It’s our companion to Chongqing-style chicken wings ($16) that, even with chilli and Sichuan peppercorns, eat accessibly to all diners (they weren’t hot and numbing enough for me). Under a fluffy soft serve of coconut cream, the wagyu brisket rengang ($32) was a good rendition of this creamy, coconut-based curry. We scooped it up into a shared flaky roti ($12) as we were in too much of a hurry to bother with rice. We necked a Murrays Angry Man Pale Ale ($10) to lubricate its passage. I liked Goji much more than I was...

Had good luck to get a seating for 2 with no reservation. Arrived just before 5.30 and agreed to vacate our table by 6.30. We ordered quickly and our food arrived very promptly. We had the squid ink dumplings, spinach and pork dumplings, salt and pepper mushrooms, crispy eggplant Schezwan sauce and soft shelled crab. Within 5minutes of our meal being served a serving girl was at our table trying to remove our plates of unfinished food. We asked politely that we keep them. She returned 5mins later trying to take our dishes again we asked that they remain. 5mins later she tried to take our dumpling baskets which we hadn't even started on. 5mins later another server comes and reaches for our dishes and the baskets We explained to her our meal was yet to be finished and removing the lids from the baskets were making the dumplings cold. No apology from server she simply said" I have to check if food is still in there." ( why????,) 5 mins later serving girl returns and grabs whatever plates are not within our grasp . Every time she comes to our table she interrupts our conversation. Its very intrusive. We finish our meal and are drinking the last of our beverages the girl returns AGAIN and reaches across us and grabs our empty bottle. Then starts wiping down our table while we are still sitting there trying to have a private conversation . I glance at my watch its barely 6.20 I say to the girl we're not finished yet and please can she stop the intrusions into our meal?She acts victimised and does not apologise just finishes wiping the table then stalks off. For a costly meal that was slightly on the greasy side , we found it hard to justify the almost $100 cost especially considering the persistently intrusive table staff. Won't...

Bad experience twice, seated right next to the entry after we booked in advance, had groups of families breathing down my neck as I tried to enjoy my cold overpriced meal with my partner. Called to book again, hoping things will be different, requested seating away from entry, told lady who took my booking how I was unhappy with the amount of traffic and bumps from stranger, she apologised but on the night I arrived for dinner I was sat at a table connected to the waitresses serving table?! All night me and my partner had to listen to the underage waitresses gossip and chat as they clunk plates and bowls right next to my head. They have obviously shoved as many tables as possible in there to get a massive revenue with their overpriced meals. They seem to advertise as a fine dining Asian cuisine restaurant but you walk in and don't know what the heck is going on?! The dim lighting, fine alcohol and food is all there to build a possibly "fine dining" or "Mr Wong's" experience. But that's all blasted away with the screaming kids and ill trained staff who are all young, but the ones in the bar and kitchen, obviously to save as much money as possible. Entrees mean nothing here as they brought out dumplings last and shoved the cold mains in front of us first. Honestly one of the worst restaurants in penrith, I never complain like this but the fact they just let me down twice and their staff was only able to give me a "yeahhhh....sorry about that.... Really...." it's just infuriating. You pay for a Mr Wong/city style service, but you end out getting a cheap Chinese from a corner store and the service of a lone star or hogs breath, except lone star is actually is responsive to...