Goji Kitchen — Restaurant in Santa Rosa

To my Asian food lovers I present you a Vietnamese and Chinese combined restaurant called Goji which is located in Santa Rosa on Mendocino Avenue. It is in an outlet area which includes other restaurants such as a ramen place and cafe. There is also CVS so it’s in a place filled with lots of people. There are parking spaces right in front of the restaurant as well as a huge parking lot. This is a place with wheelchair accessibility and parking for wheelchair/disabled folks. I will admit I enjoyed the ambiance of this place. They had a nice outdoor seating area with beautiful lights hanging for the evening. Even when you first walk in you see a little water fountain and green decorative lights around it. There are also portraits all around the room that speak to the culture they’re representing. I didn’t mind the set up of the menu as they had a letter with a number next to each meal. For example C20 is one meal while S5 is another. It can be easier to say that rather than a mouthful of what the meal may be. I ordered the combination beef noodle soup, P4 and it included medium rare steak, well done brisket, flank steak, tendon, and tripe which was very tasty as well as the green matcha gelato which was also good. Their Thai iced tea was one of my favorites I’ve had. They don’t have a specific kids section on the menu, but all the dishes are kid friendly depending on your taste. I liked that they kept their spices and sauces at the tables so you don’t have to bother the waitress constantly for what you’d like more of. Now, I would love to compliment the young girl who works there as a hostess. She was very sweet and polite and if I had a choice I would’ve kept her as my waitress. My table had started off being waited by a nice older woman with glasses and her hair was up. She was also polite and made my guest and I feel comfortable. She had just taken our drink order. When we had gotten our drinks back it was a completely different waitress. I would like to say to whomever runs this place do not be inconsistent with your workers and customers interactions. It doesn’t look or feel professional. It wasn’t busy enough to have had shared waitresses at my table. Customer service is about building a connection. Anyway, this waitress stuck with us till the end of our meal. I did not catch her name, but she is an older woman with short hair and has worked there for a long time. Not only was she was pushy about my guest and I ordering more, but she made my guest feel very uncomfortable about only eating dessert. We should not have to explain ourselves which my guest also had to do and say he ate before, but even then as a restaurant you welcome any customer with open arms especially when they are paying customers. My guest didn’t even feel comfortable tasting my food when I offered because he felt she was watching us. I hope in the future this does improve because for this reason I will not be coming back. Good luck to you...

I used to think this place was fantastic, but I don't think I'll be going back again. I called in for take out, and showed up within a few minutes of when the order was supposed to be ready. It turned out they gave my food to someone else already. At this point, mistakes happen, and you can't judge a restaurant on simple mistakes of one employee. The employee we first dealt with was not very apologetic and forced our problem onto the lady who gave our food away. She sent the lady running out of the restaurant to try and get our food back from its new owners. After she returned empty handed, the other lady told her to call the people they believed had the food and ask them to drive it back... We waited ten minutes while Goji kitchen was trying to save a few bucks and have us eat two things of Pho and some Pot Stickers that had left their restaurant with random customers. When they finally realized they could not contact the customer, they offered to make our food and have us wait. If this establishment was halfway serious they would have put in our order again and tossed up the $5 in cogs to a write off. I don't want food that someone else took home, and I don't want to pay for a waste of my time and a restaurant where customer service is in second place to the bottom line. So we left. A few minutes later the lady who wanted nothing to do with Goji's mistake originally called and said the people were on their way back with our food and we could come pick it up....makes you wonder how clean this place is behind the scenes if they won't spend a buck to do the...

I definitely recommend Goji if you like a flavorful, authentic tasting pho. In addition to this popular Vietnamese style soup, their Chinese food dishes tend to be very tasty but not super greasy or salty. They have consistent service and are usually pretty fast at getting the food out even when it's busy. My go-to here, (and really the reason I go) is the rare beef pho. The flavor is spot on. I also love their tofu and vegetable combo. Even if you don't usually go for tofu, it's a great dish with a very broad variety of vegetables, and a delicious mellow flavored sauce. They also have a very tasty Kung Pao chicken I often opt for, which is a little spicy but not face melting. I used to enjoy their beef and broccoli, but I have recently found it to be a little off my expectation, the meat just tends to be a little thick and gristly for my liking (like a stew meat) - just not quite what I prefer for this dish. I occasionally branch out and leave my comfort zone- which you have to do when they have like 100 options to try - And usually I like what they send my way. Even if I end up selecting something l don't totally love, it would not be enough to put me off the stuff they do particularly well. In general, I always enjoy this place and appreciate their friendly service and excellent...