Edit: The Western Co stall at Foch Road coffeeshop has closed but they moved to 35 Tyrwhitt Road (T: +65 9655 4445) and changed into a cafe.
Just 10 minutes’ walk from Farrer Park MRT or Lavender MRT, with the addition of The Western Co, Foch Road Kopitiam has become my favorite kopitiam in Singapore.
The month-old stall is started by a young 23 year-old hawkerpreneur, Larissa Yang. She studied hospitality in Switzerland for two and a half years, and worked in France for a while. Her true passion, however, lies in food.
I asked her, “Is your family in the F&B business?”
She said, “No, my mother is a teacher!”
Armed with only her passion and no experience in F&B, when she returned to Singapore, she opened a café, which was unfortunately killed by high rental fees. Still, she did not give up.
Like that Star Wars girl, the force is strong with Larissa. She returned to basics, asked herself what she liked, and came up with recipes for The Western Co by herself. At the stall, Shatec graduates help her maintain high standards of cooking.
The Western Co has only a few ingredients but they are combined in interesting ways. While the menu is small, the quality is high. Frankly, I prefer a tight but excellent menu, to an extensive but bad menu.
The crazy Hawaiian Raclette chicken burger ($13.90) is a recipe drawn from her own experience. There are other countries that produce cheaper Raclette cheese, which is originated from Switzerland. But The Western Co insists on importing the cheese from Switzerland, and one full wheel costs a whopping $280-$320 and serves only 45-50 servings. It’s a light, nutty cheese so it doesn’t feel heavy.
The brioche bun is also excellent, with a medium density that goes well with the ingredients. The brioche bun, I was later told, is catered from an artisanal bakery. No wonder it’s so good.
A last thing to note about the burger is the chicken. It’s marinated for 6 hours, and doused in tomato sauce, enhanced by rosemary and other herbs with chunky pineapple. On the whole, there is a nice balance of flavors here, partly sweet, partly savory, partly acidic, and partly tangy. It’s visually stunning as it is delicious.
Although the burger is my favorite dish, the best seller is the signature ying yang combo ($13.90). To say it’s gold and black fish and chips is reductive, because it’s more than that.
They give TWO whole fillets of dory fish with thin, crispy light batter, and tender, moist flesh. The fillets are marinated for 12 hours, and the batter is made from 4 types of flour.
The “gold” fish is the classic type, while the “black” is covered with Taiwanese bamboo activated charcoal, the same ingredient found in charcoal pills, good for detoxing, cleansing blood, and clearing toxins from the stomach.
The gold goes with chilli crab sauce, which is spicier than normal, and more savory than sweet. I like the “chaotah” one, which pairs with salted egg yolk sauce, which is made fresh daily. It has a robust buttery sensation, very shiok. Heck care about heart attack, right?
The raclette burger is for people who like balance; the ying yang combo is for people who like rich food, this third recommendation, cereal lemon butter grilled fish ($7.90, below), is for young people because it’s a sweet main course. The lemon butter is homemade, made fresh daily, combining several herbs. It is first slathered on the tender grilled fish, and then topped with sweet cereal, curry leaves, and chili padi.
Besides the mains, the sides are good too. The garlic fries have real bits of garlic (not garlic powder), and it is damn potent. Long after I ate it, the aroma lingered in my mouth. (You can ask to make it milder, but I like my breath smelly in case I meet Edward Cullen.) They make their own mayo for the coleslaw, which is sourer than other places, so that the sourness can cut through the richness of the food. Every main comes with 2 sides of your choice, such as warm mac and cheese, home made potato salad , home made coleslaw, aglio olio etc.
I’m very impressed by the high standards of The Western Co. This is a superb meal, and I’m definitely bringing my friends back here.
The Western Co
30 Foch Road Singapore 209276
M-F 11.30am-9.30pm, Sat 11.30am-10pm, closed Sun
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Written by A. Nathanael Ho.
Categories: $0-$20, Families, Featured, Hawker/ Food Court/ Kopitiam, Large Group, Lavender, Little India, Western
Rubbish Eat Rubbish Grow 
How is it possible to give a burger for $13.90 when just the cheese costs $5.6-$7 per burger ($280-$320 per wheel for 45-50 servings) and also the chicken and the bun are so creatively cooked? Things don’t add up properly.
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Not sure. But you can ask them when you go there to eat or ask them on their Fb. I’m sure that the small business would appreciate the clarification.
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Most business when starting out would have to operate on a loss/ minimal profit so as to build up a wide customer base. Also, buying supplies in bulk would give you larger discounts, reducing the price per ingredient.
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Just go try and eat , think so much for what lol..
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Too bad they are closed! :(
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Correct. The opening timing is from 1:30pm. Not 11:30am as stated.
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they changed the opening time recently. The information was correct when this article was published.
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My friend had a bad experience there. They waited 110 mins for their food that never arrived. Other tables that came much later than her had their food served first. When she went to enquire about it, the stall owner told her not to show any attitude and that “I told you the waiting time is 90-120 mins. It’s not even 2 hours yet and you’re complaining.”
After reading through their Facebook page, I am less inclined to dine there. Such rude public relations.
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https://www.facebook.com/share/dialog/?app_id=25554907596&id=10154035278862283&internalextra%5Bfeedback_referrer%5D=%2F&internalextra%5Bfeedback_source%5D=21&share_params=%5B%22709262282%22%2C%2210154035278862283%22%5D&st=all_modes&type=22
Check this out, totally cannot make it.
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Sorry, the link doesn’t work. Do you have an alternate link?
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did the owners of western co paid u to do review? just wondering? a lot of fb comments saying food sucks. the way u describe their food is like it is from heaven but in actual fact many netizens in the FB is claiming otherwise.
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I’m very impressed by the high standards of The Western Co. This is a superb meal, and I’m definitely bringing my friends back here.
UNQUOTE
Can u please advise?
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Look at the date of the review.
1. I did bring my friends to eat a few days after the review, and we paid for the food ourselves, and my friends like it. The hawker stall uses high quality ingredients and they are doing something special that hawkers don’t. They also started the raclette cheese trend in Singapore.
2. I spotted the stall before it got famous and crowded. I was the first one to blog about it when it was still unknown and when they still didn’t have much business. The stall didn’t imagine that it could get so popular after my blog and couldn’t handle the crowd. They even closed the stall down permanently because they can’t handle the workload, with no plans to open a new one; that’s what they told me. (Not sure why they open the cafe and I haven’t been back to try the cafe. I actually only knew that they open as a cafe last night.) I am not the business owner, I can’t be responsible of the consistency of standards of the food before and after it got popular. (By the way, I haven’t tried the food recently so I can’t affirm or deny the verity of your statement that the food is bad. In fact, it appears that you haven’t eaten it yourself, so you shouldn’t judge the food too.)
I can only be responsible that the review is honest and accurate at the time it is published and I try to be always honest. A review is accurate at the time of publication. And this review is written months ago.
3. People have expectations of the food after they queue for it. Tell me: what food is nice after you have queued for 2 hours?
4. Don’t confuse taste with service or portion size. People are complaining about the service, but the ones that I saw on instagram have mostly favorable reviews for the taste. (I read those instagram reviews a week after my post was published. Again, time is important in referring to reviews. So maybe now you may be right that people are giving it bad reviews now. )
5. Please be objective. If you have an issue with them, please take it up with them, and not me. The Western Co and I are not related. I have almost 2000 reviews on my blog, I cannot be attacked for the positive and negative reviews I write. I write based on my honest opinions.
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This shld work :P
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Other people have told me about the incident. Thanks for the link!
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