West End Garden

West End Garden

190 Melbourne St South Brisbane

Value: Good

Quality: Good

Atmosphere: Good

View from outside dining area.

I’ve been to West End Garden before and my previous experiences might colour this review with a hint of nostalgia. West End Garden is sort of an institution – almost everyone has been there at least once  –  and the food is quite good. Usually what makes this place a warm memory in your heart is the history of dinners with good friends. This is the sort of place you can compare to your neighbourhood Chinese place growing up, where the food always tasted great until you moved out of home. West End Garden still has that hold over me, although I didn’t eat there until I was 19. I should really get on with the review itself.

West End Garden's major draw card is its outside area, which makes up 90% of the restaurant space. This area which is a tad tacky – it has a little water feature in the corner and is rimmed by fairy light –   but is very adaptable to different table sizes and seems quite conducive to sizable dining groups. This, provided you have the right company, usually results in great conversations and overall a pleasant experience. 

Vietnamese Duck

The staff here hasn’t changed in years; they still wear the “traditional” white dresses, and are still as attentive as they always have been. Really in general this place has changed little in the 4 or so years that have passed since I last went here. I’m pretty sure even the menu is still the same. The food was prompt, and was perfectly timed to coincide with us finishing our entrees. We ordered two dishes and shared them between us. The entree was spicy quail, a favourite of mine, which, though a little dry, carried a lovely flavour with the requisite refreshing spiciness. This was followed by the “Vietnamese Duck” which while it tasted like crispy skin boneless roast duck, came with fresh vegetables and what I’m pretty sure was sweet chilli sauce. The duck itself was cooked exactly right with just the right level of crispiness in the skin and juiciness in the flesh.  The vegetables while masterly cut to look wonderful, were just vegetables of decent quality.

West End Garden is open for lunch and dinner Monday-Saturday and is open only for dinner on Sundays and public holidays. Meals cost $6-$13 for entrees (the Spicy Quail we had cost $9.90)   Mains around $15-$36 with most meals being on the very less expensive end of the spectrum. The Vietnamese Duck we had cost $29.90 but was enough for two people. West End Garden also have many vegetarian options, which tend to be on the cheaper end of the spectrum as well.

Drinks start around the $5 mark for domestic beer and go up to $34 for bottles of wine (our beers which were Tsingtao’s cost $6, other imported beers are the same price. West End Garden is also BYO for wine only with corkage being $2.50 per person.

West End Garden have a Website with all their menus and their drinks list at www.westendgarden.com.au