Western Lake Chinese Seafood Restaurant
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First, I want to compliment the outstanding costumer service the manager Edward had provided us. Impressive! I've always tried to be as objective as possible on reviews. We found this restaurant on a local news paper while we were in SF. I've no idea if it's good or not. We tried MANY Vancouver restaurants. Just in the last 6 months, we traveled to Vancouver 3 times for foods. 1. When we arrived, we were shocked. I'm not sure what neighborhood it is but I'm like, should we leave? I'm not even comfortable parking in the area let alone walking to the restaurant and I've been to East Oakland and East Palo Alto and tenderloin district in SF. But once we stepped in the restaurant it's like you went to a different dimension. Very nice decoration, fancy looking Chinese restaurant with tasteful decor! 😮 2. I've always appreciate great service. If your family start arguing how much more tips you should give them then you can imagine. I didn't think we give enough tips even with 20%. - They were very attentive to replace dishes. 4 times they replaced my plate. Thoughtful! - Food came very smooth and prompt and 90% freshly hot. That's not easy to do when you ordered so many dishes with party of 12. - They even packed leftover for us the way we want. I mean they were just very attentive and patience and with great attitude. - We are traveling and we bought a Durian. We were embarrassed to ask if they can cut for us because we have no knife to cut it at the hotel. They gladly said they will even pack it for us but apologized that they can't serve it better because they want to be considerate with other customers. That's amazingly kind and considerate for their customers. At the end they even tried to serve them at our table because most customers were gone. I was amazed on how customer focused they were... Especially when you saw the lady'd face who tried to cut the Durian... And the manager and the captain had to hide. Talk about self sacrifice. They are just extraordinarily impressive with customer service. Finally the most important thing: Food. One will usually appreciate the food more if you are hungry. This is the last night we are here in Vancouver and we all overeaten and I was planning to just eat a little. I told my wife don't force me to eat more cause I don't want to eat at all. I ended up ate so much... I thought I was gonna barf. We ordered a 12 lbs king crab and it served 4 dishes: the legs, garlic steamed, noodle with the crab juice, special sauce with crab body and mochi cake, Portuguese baked crab fried rice. Just ridiculously amazing and delicious. But it may be just because of the crab so let's talk about other dishes. 貴妃雞 (steamed chicken?) - it's stunning! The meat was perfectly done, tender and not overcooked but most place that make them not overcooked you will see little bit of blood but this one was perfectly cooked. Juicy and flavorful. Not to salty, flavor still cycle around your tongue not overwhelmingly. Best I've had. And I'm a foodie!! Combination starter - the garlic fried prawns were out of this world. Fried crispy garlic was crunchy and flavorful. The ribs, I don't even know what ribs it called... Kind of like orange chicken ribs, just delicious, sweetness and the crispiness are perfectly done. I had the last piece while it soaked in the sauce for 30 minutes and still crispy, how did they do that?? Scallop and prawns - were fresh and sweet and perfectly cook. Not easy to not overcooked the scallop. 👍🏼 - sea cucumber was very crisp. Again perfect timing and the pea sprout was done perfectly as well. Squab - This is one superbly done squab. Meat was juicy. The chef really knows how to cook things with perfect timing. I've been to many Vancouver's restaurants for many years. This is gotta be the best HK style banquet restaurants I've been. Many restaurants change over the year with chef and management, I hope they will be around for a long time. Michelin stars has no clue otherwise, I can say for service and quality of food, it's at least 2 stars.
Mark Liu
20
This is probably the best Dim Sum restaurant we’ve been to. No we don’t go eat Dim Sum every weekend, but we’ve been to Dim Sum restaurants in other larger cities in North America & this has been the best so far. We did make a reservation a few days prior. Since it was just 2 of us it was easier to get a reservation just a few days out. If you are a group of 4+ then I would recommend calling more than a week in advance probably. The website & Google indicates that they open at 10am, however when I called they said 9:30am so we made reservation for then. When we arrived, 3-4 tables were already occupied & by 10am it was FULL. Also note that they steam to order which means they are not pre-steamed and in the cart. It takes a little bit to come out, but they are fresh when they do come out! We got 6 items and we were stuffed. (Photos of each & all together attached with the review) We don’t eat pork, so also want to note for those that don’t eat pork they have a lot of non-pork options! 32. Pan Fried Shrimp with Chive Dumplings - 4 in the order. Came out first since it doesn’t need to be steamed. 6. Steamed Beef Meatballs with Bean Sheets - 3 in the order - these were BIG 2. Steamed Prawn Dumplings (Har Kau) - 4 in the order & just filled with shrimp. Simple but great! 12. Steamed Scallops with Prawn Dumplings - 3 in the order with HUGE Scallops (just see photos….) 17. Pan Fried Eggplant & Shrimp Paste with Black Bean Sauce - Even though this was not steamed item, but it came out 2nd to last. 4 in the order 45. Steamed Creamy Custard Buns - 3 in the order. Great end to the dim sum with hot tea!
Tina YK Choi
30
We came here for family dinner and lunch recently and this review is for both occasions. Dinner - 5 of us came here for dinner a couple of weeks ago. We ordered shredded chicken with jelly fish, fish maw soup with shredded duck, Buddha’s feast with assorted vegetables, sautéed fish filets with greens, and beef with curry sauce. Dishes were all pretty good. The only annoyance was when we placed the order, the waiter/manager tried up sell 3 of the 5 dishes. We had looked at the menu before we ordered. If we had wanted what he suggested, we would have ordered them! Do not tell me another vegetarian dish would be more flavourful than the one we picked. My mother has kidney issues and we picked a blander dish intentionally. Do not tell us to substitute prawns for fish. A few of us in the party do not like shellfish. Lunch - My parents and I came here for lunch today. The dim sum dishes were HUGE. They easily double the portions for the same prices at comparable restaurants. There are pros and cons with their portions. If you are going with a bigger party , this is perfect because you don’t have to 2 or 3 of each dish like you may need to do in other restaurants. However, if your party is small like 2 or 3, you will either have to contend with carrying takeaway or you won’t be able to order a multiple of dishes. - The 3 of us shared stir-fried bean vermicelli, siu mai, steamed beef omasum, pan-fried shims and chive dumplings, steamed beef tripes and tendons. The vermicelli dish was my favourite. The noodles were al dente and flavoured just right without being saucy. The siu mai and chive dumplings were so huge that I felt like I was eating steamed buns with starchy fillings. If I wanted buns, I would have ordered buns. I would stay away from these 2 dishes next time. If I do come back, I would ordered the cold dessert dish of gelatin cubes with goji berries and lychee. They looked quite good on the table next to us. The overall service of the waitstaff was very good and courteous. The restaurant is quite compact and many tables are packed in there. It was very loud both times we were there.
Joseph Leung
00
Everyone says that Vancouver's Chinese food scene is amazing so I knew I had to try it out myself during this trip. Western Lake looked pretty good so we headed over for dinner on a Sunday at around 8 (they close at 9). It was pretty packed at that time but we were still able to get a table. We ordered the seafood chow fun with gravy, garlic Chinese broccoli (because our first choice of garlic pea shoots were sold out), and chili fried squid tentacles. Maybe we just ordered the wrong thing but the food was kind of mid. Usually when we go out to Chinese restaurants, my parents (or someone who's older and Chinese) would order. I would only know to order the basics (i.e. beef chow fun, fried rice, sweet and sour pork, walnut shrimp, etc.) but I don't really know where to begin with seafood. So that's why I ordered the seafood chow fun. I figured you can't go wrong with noodles. But it was bland and very oily (like old reused oil). I prefer the traditional non-gravy one and wish I just stuck with the beef chow fun. At least the seafood was good. They give you shrimp, scallops, and fish. The Chinese broccoli, though flavorful was also very oily. The best thing we had were the fried squid tentacles, which surprisingly tasted the least oily out of all three dishes. But, I'm used to having actual squid pieces, and not just the tentacles, which I assume are the cheap parts of the squid. Looking back, I remember seeing a few tables order this crab fried rice, which looked amazing so I regret not asking about that. If I visit Vancouver again, I'm not opposed to trying this restaurant again - but I'll just make sure to know what to order next time.
Melanie Tam
00
Oh how I miss dim sum in Vancouver already. It’s been awhile since I’ve been to Western Lake and it’s still spot on. We forgot to make reservation but went a little after open and they were able to give us a table without having to wait. They took down our name and number just in case for tracking purposes and after finding out we were from Calgary the server was still super nice and friendly. The dim sum here was super fresh and super tasty, we ordered a bunch of stuff and won’t be able to comment on all with the character cap but will highlight a few of my fav. Shiu-Mai – these were humongous but not just that they were really tasty with loads of shrimp, usually you get just a little bit of shrimp on top but this you get shrimp in every bite. Shanghai Pork Dumpling (XLB) – the skin is a little thicker but prefect for these ones. The skin is soft and held the soup in nicely, there was also a nice amount of soup in the dumpling. Just make sure don’t let this sit to long cause the dumplings will stick to each other once cool and you may lose some soup. Specialty Honey Pastry – this was the first time trying this and it was yummy. It is made with brown sugar so not crazy sweet, really light and spongy so it was the perfect way to end out meal. Fried Radish Cake in XO Sauce Spareribs w/ Black Bean Sauce Chicken Feet Mini Sticky Rice Prawn Spring Rolls Prawn Dumplings If you are in Vancouver definitely make a trip here.
Lily H
50
We live really close to Western Lake Chinese Seafood Restaurant and I've always heard from others that they had really good dim sum. We finally ordered dim sum for dinner as takeout. We order the Steamed Prawn Dumplings, Steamed BBQ Pork Buns, Pan Fried Chive Dumplings, Pan Fried Eggplant, Shrimp Spring Rolls, and Beef in Soy Sauce Fried Flat Rice Noodles. We also got a free order of Shiu-Mai Dumplings. This was a heaping amount of food and we were not expecting the portion sizes and the actual dumplings to be SO large. The steamed prawn and shiu-mai dumplings were easily twice or more as large as regular dim sum dumplings. Each piece was almost the size of the palm of my hand. I wasn't a fan of the eggplant or beef noodles. The beef noodles flavour was pretty bland - though I ended up cooking the leftovers for lunch the next day and added more sauce and seasoning and it was much better with more of a wok char. The eggplant texture was generally pretty mushy, I wouldn't order that again either. Overall, the dumplings were pretty tasty and the portions were SO generous. I would recommend this place for dim sum and would return. Edit: Came back a second time and ordered much of the same with a few different items. For the new items, we ordered the sweet and sour pork and deep fried prawn dumplings. Super recommend the deep fried prawn dumplings.
W Lyons
30
Nearby Attractions Of Western Lake Chinese Seafood Restaurant
Kensington Community Centre
Jones Park
Marstin Billiards & Snooker Club
J&M Coin & Jewellery Ltd
May Li Hair Salon
Brewers Park
Muslim Association of Canada- MAC
T.House
Montales Day Spa

Kensington Community Centre
4.1
(223)
Click for details

Jones Park
4.2
(187)
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Marstin Billiards & Snooker Club
4.2
(166)
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J&M Coin & Jewellery Ltd
3.9
(184)
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Nearby Restaurants Of Western Lake Chinese Seafood Restaurant
Bun Cha Ca Hoang Yen
New Mandarin Seafood Restaurant
Zamzam Grill
Kozak Ukrainian Eatery & Mill
Green Lettuce
Chau Cafe
Golden Swan Restaurant
Banh Mi Saigon
Mui Ngo Gai Vietnam _ Singapore Cuisine
Sandy La Chinese Restaurant

Bun Cha Ca Hoang Yen
4.4
(1.2K)
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New Mandarin Seafood Restaurant
4.1
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Zamzam Grill
4.8
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Kozak Ukrainian Eatery & Mill
4.6
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Basic Info
Address
4989 Victoria Dr, Vancouver, BC V5P 1A5, Canada
Map
Phone
+1 604-321-6862
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Website
westernlake.ca
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Reviews
Overview
4.3
(1.6K reviews)
Ratings & Description
Description
Bustling fixture with traditional decor for dim sum & inspired Cantonese specialties.
attractions: Kensington Community Centre, Jones Park, Marstin Billiards & Snooker Club, J&M Coin & Jewellery Ltd, May Li Hair Salon, Brewers Park, Muslim Association of Canada- MAC, T.House, Montales Day Spa, restaurants: Bun Cha Ca Hoang Yen, New Mandarin Seafood Restaurant, Zamzam Grill, Kozak Ukrainian Eatery & Mill, Green Lettuce, Chau Cafe, Golden Swan Restaurant, Banh Mi Saigon, Mui Ngo Gai Vietnam _ Singapore Cuisine, Sandy La Chinese Restaurant

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