go-zen Japanese Restaurant

7.5 Recommended

Food  8      Ambience  7      Service  7      Value  8     

Go-zen is a delightful small restaurant down a lane on Spit road. We go to many japanese places and this is charming. Enjoyed the fried octopus and salad, crumbed chicken with salad and agedashi. Lovely dressing and fresh!

Apr 24, 2012 

8.8 Highly Recommended

Food  9      Ambience  9      Service  9      Value  8     

A group of us came here and we all had a good time. Very small intimate place that gets pretty noisy. Service and food was good.

May 31, 2011 

5.3 Average

Food  7      Ambience  4      Service  5      Value  5     

$20 per head in other comments they must have had tea and rice! 4 of us came to $190.00 can only suggest stay away from sashimi and beef dishes. Yeah its ok been to better with more flavour less price.

Mar 07, 2010 

8.8 Highly Recommended

Food  9      Ambience  8      Service  8      Value  10     

I went to Go-Zen for a booking for 8 with no expectations as I’ve read everyone else’s reviews. From the other comments I decided I was expecting not too flash décor, entrees not separate to mains and acceptable food. The décor is not that bad, remembering it is a hole-in-wall style restaurant on a strip of mainly takeaway places. They really have done the best anyone could do to give it a Japanese theme.

No they didn’t get the synchronization happening but when we asked about the dish we were waiting on (sashimi) they apologized and said it wouldn’t take much longer, the chef was in the middle of slicing it. So I guess you have to ask, what do you prefer at a place where the average meal costs you less than $20? Perfectly synchronized food as everything’s been prepped hours before or sashimi sliced upon order?

I think you have to be realistic, there’s not a cast of chefs so everything comes out as the one or maybe 2 chefs makes your meal as fresh as possible. The food was great in my opinion. 2 people had the noodles, one had a sashimi selection, one had a variety of sushi and 4 had a mixed bento box (this is terrific value as it’s around $18ish – my bento had fish + 2 sushi + generous sashimi + spring roll + rice + salad + miso. We all love Japanese food so have lots of other places to compare it to and we were unanimous that, for the price, it really is as good as you’re going to get.

Also, there is so much variety on the menu, we had some pretty fussy eaters amongst us, and there were many options for everyone. We would whip next door to Liquorland to grab wine as needed so when the bill came, a neat $20 each covered the $150 bill for 8 people including tip and we were all satisfied with the amount served. I think they would struggle if more than 8 were on the one table purely due to the resources. To me it seems like bookings for 2, and takeaway is their game. But, if you want a cheap and cheery meal with a few friends where the bill won’t be an issue, this is ideal.

Jan 05, 2010 

6.8 Recommended

Food  6      Ambience  6      Service  7      Value  8     

I tried Go-Zen on the basis of the very positive reviews here and left thinking it's good, definitely worth a visit, but, perhaps, not worth an all-round 8+ score. It is a small, neighbourhood eatery and makes no pretentions on the decor. Simple. Not overly crowded like some Japanese restaurants in the Mosman/NBay area. And the standout aspect is undoubtedly the service. It don't know if Go-Zen is a family affair, but it certainly feels like everyone there is pretty keen to make sure you have a really pleasant evening.

The food is good. And there are dishes on the menu that are, in my experience at least, unique to their menu which makes a nice change. You can certainly eat better in the area, but if you do, you are unlikely to walk away with a bill as reasonable as that from Go-Zen. Nor having had such a pleasant group of wait-staff around you.

Apr 08, 2009 

7.3 Recommended

Food  8      Ambience  6      Service  7      Value  8     

One of the only decent Japanese places open on a Monday. Food is substantial and the cost not expensive. The menu is typical of a lot of north shore Japanese restaurants with the tempura, teriyaki dishes. The only problem with this place, is that it's not somewhere to enjoy a "quiet" meal. But going with some friends or family for a meal is great.

Sep 05, 2008 

8.3 Highly Recommended

Food  9      Ambience  7      Service  8      Value  9     

We just went here for my birthday, and it was great!

The food was wonderful. Very fresh and flavour-some. The eggplant entree was interesting but really good. The Japanese paella was also great, we weren't really too sure what to expect, but it was worth it! The teriyaki salmon was beautiful. Servings look kinda small, but don't let them deceive you! We were pleasantly full (there were 3 of us) after 2 entrees and 3 mains.

Ambience: Not a particularly "private" restaurant. Although it was a very pleasant meal, I was a bit worried at the start that everyone around us would be able to hear every word we said, but as more people came in, it wasn't too bad. I think this might have just been because it's really quite small.

Service was really friendly! My sister told them it was my birthday early in the evening, and they remembered as we walked out. It was sweet. ^_^ They were very polite and served our meal with no problems at all.

Value was great. I expected the whole meal to come to around $80-90 for three people. We ended up paying around $65, which was fantastic! I would totally recommend this place. I think we'll definitely be back!

Aug 28, 2008 

8.8 Highly Recommended

Food  9      Ambience  7      Service  10      Value  9     

As mentioned above hard to find the place, but once you do !!! The place is perfect, the food is nice, staff very friendly and very helpful, don`t have to wait for them even when it's busy. The prices are reasonable, definitely will go back.

Aug 17, 2008 

7.3 Recommended

Food  8      Ambience  5      Service  8      Value  8     

Hard to find on little Stanton lane but this cafe has a very simple decor, the service is more upbeat, very friendly, a little amateur but the kitchen is very well run. Food is served out at a nice pace especially if you are sharing, it is almost izakaya stlye but with byo.

Avocado crab pot with wasabi is an interesting spin on the taste buds, tofu with teriyaki, I thought was the standout dish, vegetarians won't be dissapointed. Fisherman's sashimi is basically standard sashimi present in a nice pond of soy/ponzu with mayonaise criss croos, good marks for presentation.

Worth the vist, try eating after 8pm for a smoother service.

May 03, 2008 

4.8 Average

Food  5      Ambience  5      Service  4      Value  5     

We were looking forward to our visit as the reviews here are so positive but our experience fell very short of expectation. At 7.45 pm on a Saturday they had run out of sushi rice so they were unable to make any sushi at all for the rest of the night (very odd, how does this happen that you could run out of the raw rice too?).

We tried the potato salad after reading a recommendation here and it was rather bizarre. It was a small brick sized portion of finely shredded fried potato with Japanese brown sauce (for Okonomiyaki) on top. Whilst interesting enough, it felt more like a garnish and I kept thinking there might be something else inside it like Chinese restaurants use a fried potato basket for bird's nest dishes.

The seaweed and tofu salad was spectacular though and the sesame dressing was divine. We then tried the crab meat baked in half an avocado which was interesting enough but there was just too much avocado for the amount of crab meat and cream sauce topping.

For our mains I had the dish which is supposed to be like Japanese paella with bacon and scallops and my husband had udon. My paella was really disappointing, I left 3/4 of it behind. The bacon bits were mostly the white fat which I don't eat and the scallop pieces were miniscule, I actually thought that they forgot to put them in. It was just tasteless and of an in between texture, it should have been wetter or dryer. My husband's udon was nicer although you could get fairly nice udon elsewhere.

Unfortunately our waitress was in a really grumpy, nasty mood tonight and she came across as really rude. The other lady (perhaps the owner) was much nicer but we only saw her once. Its a pity as its such a local place for us but nothing was as spectacular as I had read it to be, perhaps, we ordered wrongly but 1 successful dish out of 5 is not good enough.

Mar 04, 2007