Halal Food Guy

The Westbridge Hotel restaurant is located a few mins walk from Westfield Stratford city. They offer a fully halal menu in a halal environment as they don’t serve alcohol (but allow it to be brought in)

I came to check this place out for 2 reasons, one the menu appealed to me, steak and burgers are up my alley. Also, this place is offered 50% with a tastecard, I you know I like a discount. 

The venue is clean, contemporary and feels upmarket. It really doesn’t feel like you are In the dodgy end of Stratford.

The menu has a focused selection of items, a decent range of international starters, mains, grilled items and a few burgers.

Menus

Menus

For drinks I went for a pina colada and a raspberry Mojito. Each Mocktail costing £3.50 which is pretty decent value. The pina colada didn’t have the right balance between coconut cream and pineapple juice, so it ended up tasting like pineapple juice.

Fried baby calamari served with tartar sauce. £6.50

Good portion size was enough for 2 people, it was a very simple dish, the breading was light and cooked well and the calamari didn’t feel like rubber and was soft and nice to eat. 7/10

Pulled beef spring rolls. £6.50

The filling of pulled beef was cooked well, however, i felt that it lacked seasoning and flavour in the meat. It was a good size and a very big spring roll. 6/10

I was expecting a more from this burger. On the menu at £18 I was hoping for the distinctive wagyu flavours to come though, but i really had a hard time telling this burger apart from a standard beef burger. In fact if you were to blindfold me I would think that it’s just the standard burger from PFC or something like, i didn’t get the sense of grandeur that one would expect from a burger costing £18. It was too simple and didn’t have a wow factor. The construction of the burger was good, it didn’t fall apart, but it was served with two big and cold tomatoes, cold tomatoes just taste wrong and should always be used at room temperature. 5/10

Mixed grill £21.50

The mix Grill was the biggest disappointment of the night the menu description said I’ll be getting a sirloin steak, chicken shish, lamb shish and a chicken sausage. I requested the sirloin steak to be cooked medium rare. I was really disappointed to see that the steak has been cooked well done, the lamb shish was basically a unappealing looking lamb sausage, the chicken shish was extremely bland and had no flavour whatsoever and the chicken sausage was more of a processed sausage.

Despite having asked the state to be cooked medium rare when you get a steak that’s well-done you get a steak that chewy tough and really not pleasant to eat any other day I would normally send it back, however I had a somewhere that I had to attend to and was in a rush. 2/10

Both the burger and mix grill came with chips.

For dessert, I ordered the chocolate fondant and the creme brulee both served of different types of ice cream. the chocolate fondant was a massive disappointment it felt like it was made in a microwave the outer part of the fondant was very spongy and too soft and the middle was too hot which reinforces my idea that it may have possibly been made in a microwave it tasted cheap, lacked a good taste and was not nice at all. 3/10

The creme brulee I was ok would be the best way to describe it nothing special it was served cold. 6/10

The service was efficient and what you would expect from a hotel restaurant. The food came out within a good time. We had drinks and 3 courses done within 70mins.

My main gripe is with the pricing. Even with a whopping 50% off my bill which saved me just shy of £30, I felt like I over paid. I don’t think even at the price I paid the food was worth it, especially the mix grill and the supposed Wagyu beef burger. I say supposed as it didn’t taste of Wagyu.

Not recommended.

However, if you want a halal menu with HMC meat and no alcohol in a non “Indian” environment then this is a rare opportunity to check it out.. Just don’t order the mix grill.