Bunja Thai Restaurant — Restaurant in Victoria

My wife reserved a table via phone for our family earlier in the week to celebrate her birthday. Upon arrival we were shown to a table (table 7) with a reserved sign on it where we then ordered food and drinks.

Immediately after ordering, we were told by another staff member that 'the table is reserved for another booking and that we'll have to be finished by 6:15pm (30 minutes away)' whilst rudely removing the reserved sign from our table . At this point we hadn't even received our food and as a result, I had no intention of rushing our meals considering the (expensive) price of the meals.

Upon looking around the restaurant at that point in time, there were plenty of empty tables so I thought it was unusual that there was such a rush to move us on so quickly. I was particularly annoyed that a) this was not communicated at the time of booking, b) it was not mentioned upon arrival at the restaurant and c) it was only mentioned AFTER we sat down and ordered food.

If the staff at the restaurant had basic communication skills and informed us this earlier, we wouldn't have bothered turning up and our family could have booked in at one of the many other restaurants around Bendigo.

Upon paying the bill, I noticed that the receipt (refer to red box in the attached pic) had a message in bold stating 'Must be gone by 6pm'. This meant that somehow they expected our family (with two young children) to be finished eating within 15 minutes of the staff member telling us the table was 'reserved' even though they hadn't even served our meals.

As a result of this very poor customer service, we will not be eating at this restaurant again and we will be telling our family and friends who live in/visit Bendigo not to waste their money at...

Terrible Service, Overpriced, and Very Disappointing – Would Not Recommend

We had a truly unpleasant experience at this restaurant tonight. We arrived at 7:30 PM, placed our order at 7:40 PM, and shockingly, didn’t receive our food until 8:20 PM — even though the restaurant closes at 8:30 PM. That left us with just 10 minutes to eat.

We hurried through our meal, struggling to chew through extremely tough beef, and finally finished most of the food by 8:35 PM. Throughout the meal, the staff were cleaning all around us, clearly eager for us to leave. Wanting to be considerate, we suggested packing our desserts to make things easier for them. One staff member told us it was ice cream and that it might melt if packed, so we thanked her and said we’d wait for it.

However, by 8:45 PM, there was still no sign of the dessert. When we asked again, we saw the staff only just starting to prepare it at the bar. We told them it was too late and we no longer wanted it — only to be met with multiple eye-rolls and attitude, as if we were the ones being unreasonable.

On top of that, we paid a 15% public holiday surcharge, and yet the service was poor, the food was mediocre, and the overall experience was frustrating.

To make matters worse, my daughter commented that the bubble tea tasted decent at first, but the flavour quickly faded — by the end, it was like drinking plain water. Absolutely not worth the price.

We understand that staff may want to finish work early, but rushing customers out, delaying service, and showing such blatant disrespect is not acceptable. This experience completely ruined our evening.

We will not be returning, and do not recommend this...

Dined at Bunja Thai for dinner. It has an uplifting feel from the moment I saw it outside to walking inside of this old Colonial Bank. Really cool to see the old bank vault on display too.

The staff were warm and inviting and recommended a few dishes. We had a selection including the Hung Lay pork belly curry, chicken Pad Thai, prawn Tom yum and Hor Mok seafood stir-fry in young coconut. The food was nice, and you can taste the ingredients which are fresh.

Overall it lacked depth of flavour and the wow factor. The Hor Mok seafood was didn't have much seafood, and was cooked within a mushy thick paste. The Tom yum soup had some seafood, small and again lacked punch of flavour. The pad Thai was good. Maybe the flavour profiles are attuned to where the chef's are from. I'm used to a mouth full of many flavours and punch at my favourite Thai restaurant. But, having said that it was a good meal. The ambience and atmosphere were worth it.

The beef curry was average, not tender. Felt like a braised beef stew rather than curry.

Was inconvenient that some people were unable to go to the rest rooms located up the stairs due to...