西湖小吃 Westlake Food Pickup @ Foodpanda

The 20% discount for certain food pickup locations by booking through Foodpanda was enough to entice us to browse through the list of restaurants. We landed on 西湖小吃 Westlake Food Pickup. This is a restaurant that has been at Farrer Road for more than 40 years.

The neighbourhood around Westlake restaurant has changed a lot since they started in the 70s. The huge HUDC Farrer Court estate next door had been “enbloc-ed” and replaced by the upmarket condo, D’Leedon. Farrer Road MRT is up and running. In the 70s, dining out in a restaurant like Westlake took place only on special occasions. Perhaps the birthday of a senior member of the family. In the days before COVID-19, people dine out all the time and Westlake is always crowded. Even getting through the telephone to order takeaway was difficult.

Which was why we were glad to see an online Westlake food pickup / delivery option on Foodpanda. Westlake seems to be still popular during these COVID times as a constant stream of takeaway customers turned up when I was there at lunchtime.

Here are pictures of the Westlake takeaway menu. You can call and order in advance if the Foodpanda service is not available.

Our Westlake Food Pickup Lunch

This is a picture of our takeaway lunch from Westlake restaurant : Spring onion pancake ($9.63), fried dumplings ($9.63), black pepper pork ribs ($14.98) and claypot Hokkien noodles ($8.56). After the 20% discount, the total cost of our quite heavy lunch was $34.80.

For this meal we did not get any of Westlake’s most popular dish – their braised pork bun, 西湖扣肉包. There was once a Westlake outlet in OG People’s Park and we would go there for these buns.

This was the first time trying the spring onion pancakes at Westlake. We had just seen a Youtube video where a Taiwanese lady was making these wonderful snacks. The ones at Westlake were quite average, with the spring onions being barely detectable.

The fried dumplings were better but somehow not as juicy and tasty as we remembered them to be. They are still a nice snack or appetiser and would go well with a beer or two.

The two main dishes turned out to be the best dishes of the day. The black pepper pork ribs tasted great. They were cut into thin slices and thus were soft and easy to eat. The gravy was very good as well.

Our favourite item was the Hokkien noodles. As you can see it was crammed with lots of seafood. The portion size was also very generous. Even without any promotional discount, this $8.56 noodle would still be good value for money and can feed two persons with small appetites.