Western Lake Chinese Seafood Restaurant — Restaurant in Vancouver

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.

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! 😮

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...

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...

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...