Wah Lok Cantonese Restaurant

Quality still as good as ever, but the portion sizes have shrunk so much it’s almost funny — when I saw the size of the puo luo bao after 2 years overseas, I had a double take.

Since Cathay restaurant is now closed, we have been visiting Wah Lok for their dim sum selection. Great service, and yummy classic dim sum dishes, executed well. Highly recommended.

My son claims the Mango Chicken is the best meal he has ever eaten:) I got the fish with veggies and it was also very good. Service was great. They plopped down a bowl of cashews on the table and when I told the waitress my son is allergic to nuts, she immediately removed it and told all the other staff about his allergy.

There is something about Tim Sum that after a nice meal you feel fuzzy and just wanting head right back to bed on a lazy weekend morning. 2^nd time back here for Tim Sum and it has not disappoint. Fast efficient service though price is a little more but certain we would rate this better than Tim Ho Wan. We seriously don’t get why even a one Michelin star. Not going tongi through each of the dishes but let h picture do the talking.

Invited to celebrate the signing of a $ 100M+ project with senior executives. Seafood menu was selected. 8 courses of well crafted meals added to the good company. One of the highlight meals so far in Singapore.

I stayed at the Carlton Hotel and randomly stumbled upon this restaurant based on the Lonely Planet. And it was one of the best things that ever happened!
We ordered the crab meat fried rice, sweet and sour pork, and scallops and prawns with bean sauce. The three dishes were all so amazing that we went back the second time and ordered the exact same things again!
What’s great about Wah Lok is that they don’t try to be fancy but get the basics solidly done. For example, the fried rice, which is not a fancy dish at all, was done perfectly right with just the appropriate amount of seasoning, seafood and adequately cooked rice. Possibly the best fried rice that I’ve ever had! It makes my mouth water again just thinking about it.
Ambience is classy and perfect for a meal of any purpose. Looking around, I noticed a lot of locals which is always a good sign.
Finally, service was great as well. One of the staff even recognised us the second time we went, and we felt very welcomed indeed.
I highly recommend Wah Lok if you’re looking for an Asian experience that’s not necessarily at a hawker centre!

Service was fantastic, very attentive staff and food was served up fairly promptly. Our lunch was mainly dim sum, and they were quite good. But I felt that dim sum at imperial treasure and paradise was much better at comparable prices. Har gao, siew mei, pork ribs and the usual dimsum stuff was ok. Their signature polo bao and char Siew zhu chang fen was good. their charsiew, suckling pork and seafood yi fu noodles was fantastic!

(this is a review of our chinese new year dinner — a tad late, folks!)
wah lok has always been a steady bulwark of the fine dining cantonese scene, and it well deserves its reputation — food is outstanding, service is utter old-​school goodness, and the place is modern (wnone of that outdated furnishing you see so often in these restaurants) but amenable to cosy family dinners.
we started with a soup of whelk and chicken, chewy pieces of the seafood in a deeply-​flavored, golden chicken soup (very good with lots of white pepper). comforting and cleansing, and a good start — we cantonese put great stock (oh, haha, punny) in our soups.
and of course we had yusheng, especially since they had the parang fish my parents like — a small wolf-​herring, the traditional choice before salmon became the in thing — I liked this for its heavy addition of nuts and sesame seeds and not-​too-​sweet-​or-​oily quality.
it’s been a tradition (ever since they started popping up in singapore) for us to have poon choi/​pen cai as part of this first dinner; essentially a basin full of chinese-​style dried seafood and meats cooking in a luxurious brown sauce, it’s a symbol of abundance and prosperty — and therefore very luck-​y.
I took up their suggestion of soy sauce chicken as a substitute for the more traditional roast duck (which we dislike for the gamey-​ness permeates the entire dish while braising), and this dish was pretty much close to perfect. chockful of stuff, this had 1. whole dried baby abalone 2. mud carp balls (crazy-​delicious) 3. dried oysters 4. large dried shitake 5. pan-​fried live prawns with caramelized shells 6. soy-​sauce chicken 7. braised pork shank (tender and fall-​off-​the-​bone) 8. black moss 7. tian jin cabbage (soft, and delicious from absorbing all the good stuff) 8. tender radish pieces 9. cubes of fried yam.
we finished with a round of dessert, all mildly sweet renditions of cantonese mainstays, and a good soft finish to the elevating meal. I was beyond impressed — which I’m sure shows — and looking forward very much to my next meal here.

Sorry, not impressed. I wanted to like it as I have many Cantonese friends and they said it was great and one of the best Canto places in Singapore. I went for a work dinner and we went for the evening menus. I was the only one eating vegetarian there and I really wasn’t very impressed. The first course I got was a salad with strawberries and loads of mayonnaise. Some of the dishes were ok like the thick mushroom (gloopy) soup, and the pepper filled with nuts but others really weren’t up to par. I would give it another go for dim sum but really was not so happy with the meal.

I wanted to like Wah Lok as I love me some good dim sum. However, having just returned from Hong Kong a few days before my lunch at Wah Lok, I was disappointed to discover that the dim sum at Wah Lok, despite being one of Singapore’s best dim sum restaurants, still can’t compare to the typical dim sum restaurants in Hong Kong.
The porridge was boring (perhaps its the nature of the dish?) and unmemorable but more significantly, I thought it was overpriced. The Po Lo Bao receives rave reviews online but I was let down by the thick pastry crust and overly starchy char siew filling. I prefer a light, fresh and crisp pastry crust. The chee cheong fun was also thick, and did not have a delicate, translucent texture, which I would have preferred.
Perhaps standards are dipping. I’ll probably check out other dim sum restaurants in Singapore.

Before I start my review, I would like to commend a short-​hair female staff named Siew Chin, for her excellent service and impeccable attention to the table. It was rare chance to be served by such a warm and lively lady who always carried a smile on her face and everyone was impressed with the service even though we did not feedback to the management.
We were there to have a family dinner and tried some alacarte dishes. I am not a keen fan of expensive ingredients and thus I cannot comment on the taste of some food but those who had them enjoyed the delicacies.
Mee Sua with Crab in Huatiao Stock ($ 12) was originally with Mee Sua with Lobster ($ 22) but with opted for crabs since they were cheaper and the stock base remains the same.
This was surprisingly simple but flavorful and mildly sweet. It was highly recommended by the staff and now by me because it is a nice change from the usual Yi Mian or fried noodles/​rice.
Hokkaido Scallops in Golden Sauce was better than the fish. The scallop was undeniably meaty and cooked to right doneness but the thin layer of fried flour batter wrapping the scallop was unnecessary.

Was told that dim sum here was really delicious, and on first impression, they do look scrumptious, but soon realised that it’s the skill of the photographer of those pics in the menu. Could not for the life of me understand how they managed to win so many ‘awards’ that lined the wall behind the concierge!
The prawn dumplings were bland, and not even decently presented in the basket, rather it seemed thrown together. The BBQ pork puff with preserved vegetables did not have any preserved vegetables in them. The radish cake fried with XO sauce arrived cold as was the century egg porridge, which I subsequently sent back to be heated up. We also ordered a stir-​fried vegetables with macadamia nuts — also cold, and bland, and looks like some home cook stir-​fry! The siu mai is good, but one dish out of the 10 we ordered is dismal indeed.

My first time at Wah Lok was filled with mouth-​watering dim sum.
From the usual Har Gao, Siew Mai to the Bo Lo Bao and Lotus Leaf rice… each bite just gets more and more intriguing. at least for me. :P
A good dim sum always makes me happy and I’ll love to come back for more soon.
Just remember to order their bo lo bao to try… the crust is crisps, bread soft and the char siew is juicy… Love love love!

Nice place, think they upgraded quite recently so it’s fairly modern and chichi looking. We made reservations but it wasn’t that crowded when we were there around 1pm.
We had dimsum for lunch — Decent food though I thought portions felt a little small. I liked the Po Lo Bao, freshly made, soft bun with gooey char siew filling. Rest of the food was ok — nice but not particularly outstanding. The chee cheong fun with fried you tiao was oddly a lot more you tiao than chee cheong fun, and you had to add on the sauce separately. The steamed carrot cake is served in a dessert-​looking-​container, couldn’t identify what it was at first!
I liked that they could do exact numbers for some of the dim sum — so everyone was ensured 1 pc without too many leftovers. They served lukewarm towels at each table instead of disposable wet napkins, felt a bit like I was on a plane.

We went to Wah Lok for an aunt’s birthday lunch and on retrospect, we should have picked Hua Ting for assured quality Cantonese food instead of being all experimental. Didn’t think it was at all value for money either.
Food: OK it wasn’t lousy, but it wasn’t fabulous either. The deep fried white bait was soft and soggy, most disappointing. The steam prawn dumplings and steamed shrimp with pork and roe (har gau and siew mai respectively) were very average, and the steamed rice rolls with dough sticks tasted oily, flat and soggy. The fried beancurd skin prawn roll was too oily and the sliced fish congee had a thin consistency with very little ingredients. Mango pudding was the only decent thing we had. Overall disappointing.
Ambience: Too dim
Service: Manager was very nice but service otherwise unimpressive. Pfft.
So will not return.