East West Bistro Uptown

Students will rate this establishment higher than visiting parents. Plan in advance for your UGA visit dining.

East West was my absolute FAVORITE restaurant when I went to UGA less than a decade ago. So when my husband and I came back for a football game, it was our first choice for Sunday brunch. Unfortunately for us, we should have picked another place. We sat outside, which is where we used to always love to sit and people-​watch, and our waitress was almost non-​existent. She took several minutes to even walk outside and get our drink order, so we went ahead and ordered when she finally arrived. My husband and I (along with a family member) all ordered the Belgian Waffles. While we were waiting, the couple next to us got up and left before their food even came out because it had taken so long. We probably should’ve taken that as a sign. No one ever came out to clear their coffee cups the whole hour and a half we sat there, and we waited a long time before our waitress ever came out to refill our water glasses, After waiting almost an hour, we finally got our waffles. The menu said nothing about them being cinnamon-​flavored and the side of fruit was two small apple slices. The bacon that also came with the waffles was delivered a few minutes later on a separate plate for us to share, and the chicken my husband added for $ 3 were the two smallest pieces of frozen chicken I’ve ever seen. Our waitress did come back to check on us once, but we finally had to go inside to get our check after we ate because she never brought it out. When we went inside, I expect the place to be slammed because it took so long, but where were many four or five tables of people. I have see. It way busier and had way better service in the past. I want to love this place for old times sake, but sadly, I don’t think we’ll be back. There are too many other good places to eat to waste your time on a place with bad service.

Our waitress was amazing. The owner was a jerk… Waited 2 hours for our salads and he «explain» that they were just busy. We never even got our full order. Will definitely not go back.

Absolutely terrible, worst experience I’ve ever had here. I will never come here again. Terrible service, terrible food, terrible quality. We waited 2 HOURS for food I kid you not, this place is trash. Talked to the manager and he got aggressive with us at the table. Would not recommend to anyone. Food came out and was terrible, Wendy’s would do a better job than this.

Generic low-​end bar food at high prices. Everything is just cheap stuff from a restaurant supply, which they try to jazz up with fancy-​sounding aiolis and such. But those are also generic and not in any way interesting. Wouldn’t go again.
The beer selection is decent with some good ones on tap. Probably ok for a beer and light snack, but not for lunch/​dinner.

My first time here was after a football game for dinner. Considering how busy and packed the restaurant was that night, the food came out quickly and tasted great. Not to mention the service was exceptional. Their salmon BLT was perfectly seasoned and there was a lot of it, which is always a plus. It was accompanied with sweet potato chips and an amazing house blue cheese dipping sauce. I had become a fan. On my future visits, I never had a bad experience. Their lunch and dinners offer a piece of the Chef’s creative mind with a new Chef’s Special plate always different for every lunch and dinner. My favorite thus far was a white wine cream sauce drizzled on stewed clams over linguini. I haven’t found a place with better clams. They’re offered lunch and dinner every day as one of their tapas. Not to mention their Fried Chèvre. Their wine and beer selection is great, as well as their specialty cocktails menu. Be sure to ask your server for their available desserts. Always a good list of sweets if you still have room for more. I would recommend East/​West to anyone and will continue to be one of my favorite spots in the Classic City.

I took my girlfriend out for brunch. Regret very much going to East West. I had a very bad Eggs Benedict, it was almost as if all the ingredients were still separated on the plate, eggs were over poached and cold. My girlfriend got the Mahi fish tacos, bland and gross were the two descriptors we settled upon. The salsa verde was even off flavor. She had a side salad as well, 50% wilted greens.
We had an app, szechuan chicken egg roll. These could have been good, but their fryer temp is low and the oil had completely soaked in to the filling rendering this a grease bomb.
Unbeleivably, even the coffee tasted like bad convenience store roast. Chemical. Cheap beans, not fresh ground. How hard is it to make decent coffee at a restaurant?
While we were pissed off about spending 40 $ to be dissatisfied and grossed out, we realized at least our dog would like the fish.

My mother and I came for Sunday brunch after choosing the many good places to eat in downtown Athens. The last time I had been was about two years ago and remembered the food being very good, so we figured it was a consistent choice. Initially, sitting down inside a completely empty restaurant during noon on a Sunday was not a good sign, next to the musty smell circulating throughout the dining room. We ordered the fried calamari served with marinara sauce as an appetizer. A little heavy breaded for my preference, but was still tasty.
A while later, our entrees came out. I ordered the mahi mahi fish tacos served with French fries and salsa verde. From the first glance of our waiter bringing it out, I could tell it did not look appetizing. The menu describes it as «fresh catch served on flour tortillas with shredded romaine lettuce, sriracha aioli, a sour orange onion criollo & fries.» Instead of a nice, whole filet of mahi mahi, I was served some wet, chopped up fish mushed together in some sort of tasteless sauce, topped with some soggy red cabbage and slopped on top of two soft taco shells. I have never had to eat tacos with a fork and a knife until today when the filling was so wet and mushy that the tortilla could not hold the capacity of the sloppy mess. The overall flavor was very bland and mostly fishy, I certainly was not getting any tang of the sirracha aioli or orange onion, if that was even put on there, along with the forgotten romaine lettuce in place of wilting red cabbage. The French fries were edible, could have been much crispier.
My mother had the cashew chicken salad which was advertised as having grapes and chunky cashews. It was served in a pita pockets, made with sad, slimy canned chicken and consisted of no grapes or cashews or any texture whatsoever besides mushed chicken and mayonnaise. I tried to fill up on the fries and choke down the filling of my tacos while my mother picked at her side salad of brown greens.
The place used to be delicious but since it changed management everything really went downhill. The new owner seems to be cutting corners by using low quality ingredients and store bought shortcuts in place of freshness and flavorful dishes. We will not be coming back.

East West was a legitimately happening spot when I was an undergrad a decade ago, so when the wife and I walked into last weekend’s lunch experience I was peering out from behind a lens of nostalgia and somewhat heightened expectations. Unfortunately, everything about this place fell flat except for the ridiculously high prices.
It wasn’t a good first sign when we walked in at noon on a graduation weekend to an almost empty dining room. It seemed sad in there, so we elected to sit outside on the admittedly charming patio. Or at least it would have been were it not for a wretched odor of fetid meat and vomit wafting from the adjacent street garbage can. It was as if somebody’s Friday night of copious meat, shellfish, and booze consumption got churned up with rank indignity and rotten vegetables before being puked into said rubbish bin. Top it off with some hobo turds and that was the scentscape swirling around our frequently wrinkled noses. Being as the patio scenery is about the only redeeming virtue this restaurant has, you think they would be more attuned to it’s conditions. Maybe it’s technically the county’s job to empty it (idk??), but at least get somebody out there on weekend mornings to change the fucking bag before you try to cram 30 people right next to it. There is no way in hell the server’s didn’t smell it every time they walked by.
Anyway, the appetizer of calamari came out and it was actually passable, despite the batter being overly thick and overbearingly spiced. Things continued downhill when we both got mint juleps to enjoy with the sunshine. Unfortunately, they lacked in flavor, and lacked even more in buzz factor – with a $ 9 cocktail you want to at least feel like you’re consuming more than mint flavored sugar water.
Our entrees came out and that’s when things really dove into the shit. My $ 16 salmon BLT was an abomination. This is one of my absolute favorite sandwich styles, and being as this is the most I’ve ever paid for said style in my entire life – even taking price out of the equation – this ended up being the worst example to ever pass my lips. The bread was dead cold, stale, and not toasted at all. The salmon fillet, while of decent size, had been blasted with an obscene amount of some pedestrian multi-​spice bullshit. The bacon was also fatty, too thick, and entirely limp. And to top it all off, at a time when slicing tomatoes should be vibrant, fresh, and plentiful, the mealy slop disc in this (I say again) abomination was a cold slap in the face of «we can’t do a goddamned thing right here, but you’re going to pay an arm and a leg for it.»
The wife’s smoked salmon salad was similarly, if not quite as egregiously, a cruel joke of incompetence. The same cold, mealy tomatoes were the entry point. Then the salmon, which had the opposite problem as mine: absolutely no flavor, and also a disconcerting slimy texture. There was no brightness at all – just a tasteless and miserly $ 12 letdown.
We walked out $ 70 poorer for one appetizer, two pitifully weak cocktails, a sandwich, and a salad. While we both agreed this probably wasn’t the worst restaurant experience of our entire lives, it was certainly the most expensive disappointment in a long long time. Go anywhere else.

I had a really nice lunch here recently. The food is really well executed, and the service is fine. It’s not super-​creative, but what they do, they do well. I had fish tacos, which were very good, though a bit on the spicy side. I would give it a better rating — more stars — but I wasn’t particularly impressed with the menu as being anything out-​of-​the-​rodinary. There is definite room for a little more thought in what to make and how to pull off the whole east-​west thing…

We stumbled upon East West Grill. It’s located on the main strip and looked like a decent place to eat.
The inside was nice, the restaurant score was decent and there was a five minute wait. There were many people inside.
When we got our menu the first thing I thought was too many choices of different types of food that were pretty different, in my opinion.
I ordered the Moroccan Stew, my two friends ordered the tofu stir-​fry. My meal was very skimpy, tasting like it was from a can, the potatoes in the stew were so tiny it reminded me of corn beef hash sized potatoes from the can. The other two complained the stir-​fry was all sauce and rice, it needed way more veggies.
On top of all of this there was a table who we had to complain about because their noise level was off the chart. It was loud in there but these people were obnoxious. Our server said he would have the manger go over and talk to them but I never saw the manager do that, and there were no other seats for us to move to.
All in all for the price we paid for everything it was not worth it. I should have just done my research. Way to pricey for not good quality.

The worst restaurant experience I’ve ever had. Waited more than an hour for food — which we had to send back 2 of the 3 meals. One was horribly overcooked, and the sandwich lettuce was wilted. The other wasn’t even hot. Worse, the manager wouldn’t even personally come to our table and apologize. Thanks for ruining our last dinner in Georgia with our daughter. Horrible.

It took me a while to finally get over to East West Bistro, and when I did, it was pretty disappointing. It might’ve been a little telling how empty it was when a group of us came in for dinner. I didn’t see many things I wanted to order on the menu, so I just got a burger. It was fine. I ate it. But it just wasn’t that great. Meh is the best word for it.

By far my favorite resturant in downtown Athens. A constantly changing menu which marries Asian/​Pacific and Southern cuisines. You can have a full entrée or several selections as tapas. I’ve eaten here about 10 times and have never had a bad experience. I cannot tell you what is my favorite meal, because with the changing menu I’ve not had the same meal twice. A very nice wine list complements the menu.

One star was for service. One star for appetizers. Came here for a pre-​interview dinner on a Sunday night with a large group. Upon arrival, I found out appetizers were already ordered to be shared. We got calamari, bruschetta and grilled chicken on flatbread. The calamari was definitely made from frozen but the breading had a good seasoning and the marinara sauce was quite good. Bruschetta was delicious. Would definitely recommend. I also really enjoyed the grilled chicken on flatbread. They had yellow peppers on it that gave it a sweetness. For my entrée, I got the smoked salmon salad that came with a lemon-​thyme vinagerette. I only took a few bites then couldn’t finish it. I should have requested to get the dressing on the side. The vinagerette was too oily and lemon flavor was just too strong. The salmon had no flavor asides from tasting like lemons. There was a Norweigian grilled salmon dish at our table that looked much better, but only a few bites was taken from it as well. The grilled chicken penne dish my companions ordered didn’t look very appetizing.
The menu was heavily simplified to only a few choices per course but for the price, I was not impressed. The quality of food just wasn’t there.

I wish I could give this place NO stars. The managerial staff is horrendous not to mention the owner.

East-​West has long been a favorite of my wife and I. After dinner last night (Sunday evening) I must wonder what is going on there. I ordered the battered cod. It arrived with 5 round black burned completely through «hush puppies»?
The cod was almost equally burned. Captain D’s would have been a better choice. Their Lunches seem to be keeping up to par… but Dinner? Never Again.

Mercy, mother of pearl, what happened here?!? This was THE PLACE when I was at UGA and has been a happening spot in the years I’ve returned.
But this night? Heck no. I had a front row seat to mega staff mutiny behind the bar. They were all nice enough to the customers, but there’s something unnerving about being somewhere when the staff hate their boss…
I’m hoping when I return that whatever managerial issues existed are sorted because I don’t want to lose another great Athens establishment!

3.5 stars rounded up.
Went here for brunch… it was great! We split the cashew chicken salad as our appetizer. My only complaint was that there wasn’t nearly enough pita chips to accommodate all that chicken salad.
For our entrees, I ordered the salmon blt and my boyfriend ordered the burger. He barely made a dent into his burger (finished about ¹⁄₃?) and I ate about ¼ of my salmon blt. Food was freshly made and delicious. I really like the presentation. Their house hot sauce (habanero something?) was awesome.
So why the deduction of stars? Service was on the VERY slow side of things and even when we ran out of pita chips, we ordered more bread and out came 4 very thinly, small slices of bread. They need to work on their carb portions!!! GIVE ME MORE!!!
All in all, I enjoyed Sunday brunch out on the patio and will most likely be returning.

It’s still the best.
My visit last month included a lovely glass of the house red and a mouth-​wateringly tender lamb shank accompanied by a roasted sweet potato and roasted asparagus.
The best part was the waiter that provided for our every need during our meal, and let us linger for an hour past that time while we laughed and caught up over the dregs of our glasses of wine.