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Consistent Coffee

Despite the fact that it shouldn’t be the case I am still surprised by how varied coffee can be from different branches of the same chain. In some ways that could be argued to be a good thing, as coffee is an art and maybe shouldn’t be the same everywhere. However though I do expect a level of difference between the coffees made by different baristas, the differences between the coffees should be marginal. However as I said often I find a flat white in one branch is totally different to one from another. Even the simple Americano can be made badly.

What I would say though is my experience of Caffé Nero has been unusually consistent across the different branches I have been to in various cities. It’s also great coffee as well as consistent.

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Duck Gyoza

You don’t really have starters at Wagamama there are side dishes that arrive when they are ready. Out with friends we ordered a few alongside our main dishes.

Though generally I enjoy most items I have eaten at Wagamama I was less impressed with the deep-fried duck dumplings served with a spicy cherry hoi sin sauce.

Not that they were bad, more for me the dumplings in themselves lacked flavour and the hoi sin sauce was very overpowering. The texture was good and they were crunchy.

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Teriyaki Chicken Donburi

Having to stay overnight in London for a meeting I needed somewhere to eat and as I had enjoyed my last meal at Wagamama decided to go to the branch in Covent Garden.

I did consider having a ramen, but thinking that I always go with ramen so time to go with something different I thought. I looked carefully over the menu and in the end I went with the Teriyaki Chicken Donburi.

Rice

Grilled juicy chicken glazed with orange teriyaki sauce, sticky white rice with thin sliced carrots, pea shoots, spring onions and sesame seeds and a side of spicy kimchee.

I really did enjoy the dish, the combination of chicken, sticky sauce and rice combined with the freshness of the carrot and pea shoots worked well. The sauce has sweetness and sourness and though I expected strong orange overtones, but there weren’t any.

In case you were wondering I decided to give the kimchee a miss…

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More Chilli Squid

Having to stay overnight in London for a meeting I needed somewhere to eat and as I had enjoyed my last meal at Wagamama decided to go to the branch in Covent Garden.

I recently wrote about the Chilli Squid from Wagamama that I had when I was in Leeds.

This looked fantastic, was beautifully cooked and tasted delicious. I really liked the squid and the dipping sauce added to the dish without overpowering it.

Though there were other things on the menu, but as I do like squid I went with the squid again.

Squid

The menu describes it as deep-fried squid seasoned with sea salt and shichimi. It was served with a chilli and coriander dipping sauce.

This squid looked great and quite different to the squid I had in Leeds.

I would say the squid in London looked a lot better and I thought the squid in Leeds looked nice.

However though the squid I had in Leeds tasted delicious, the version in London was not as tasty. Still really nice though and the dipping sauce was great.

I think next time I go to Wagamama I will probably try something different.

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Soft and Sweet

Recently at Bristol Temple Meads I was changing trains, down in the subway is a (relatively) new Starbucks. I didn’t enjoy the coffee I had at the AMT stand so even though it isn’t my favourite coffee, I always think they over roast their beans, I went to Starbucks.

In the end I went with my usual standby, a tall Americano and in their usual marketing ways, I was asked if I wanted a cake or a pastry. I was feeling a little peckish, so looking over I decided to go with the chocolate caramel slice.

Once on the train I settled down to my coffee and cake. The coffee wasn’t that bad and I was quite pleased. I think it’s interesting how different coffee can be even across a chain as standardised as Starbucks. The worst place for Starbucks I find are the motorway services where I generally get poor service and not so good coffee. However this time I was pleased with what I got.

As for the chocolate caramel slice, I remembered that i much prefer them if they are chilled, this was a little too near room temperature. Having said that the shortbread was crumbly and flaky, I did feel it crumbled a little too much and needed a lot more bite. The caramel (as was to be expected) was soft and sweet, but not too sweet. The chocolate though was a little on the thin side, I think had it been chilled, so it was hard and brittle, it would work well with the soft caramel, as it was it too was a little soft. So the end result was soft shortbread, soft caramel and soft chocolate, not quite what I wanted or was expecting.

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Pork Dumpling Soup

I was up in Leeds earlier this month and with some old friends we went to Wagamamas. I have enjoyed my previous visits to the noodle chain and was looking forward to the meal, and I wasn’t disappointed. I was tempted to go with the Seafood Ramen that I had on a previous occasion, but in the end went with one of the specials, a pork dumpling soup.

Pork Dumpling Soup

Somen noodles with sweet and spicy char sui pork dumplings in a pork, coriander and lemongrass broth with sichuan spicy sausage, tea stained egg, bean shoots, leeks, baby spinach, garnished with spring onions and garlic chive.

The broth had flavour though for me was a little salty. I really liked the char sui pork dumplings which had a great flavour, good texture and weren’t overpoweringly spicy either. I was expecting the sausage to be more spicy than it was, but it was just okay. Most interesting was the tea stained egg, which at first glance appeared to be weird within the dish, but did in fact work well.

Overall I enjoyed the dish, it looked fresh, appetising and tasted delicious.

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Aceitunas Manzanilla y Couchillo

This is from the new Tapas range from Tesco. A selection of manzanilla and couchillo olives dressed in oil and parsley.

These were very nice, certainly more flavour than the standard green and black olives you usually find in supermarkets.

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Chilli Squid from Wagamama

I was up in Leeds earlier this month and with some old friends we went to Wagamamas. I have enjoyed my previous visits to the noodle chain and was looking forward to the meal, and I wasn’t disappointed.

You don’t really have starters at Wagamama there are side dishes that arrive when they are ready. We ordered a few alongside our main noodle dishes (I will cover mine in a later blog post). One of the first dishes to arrive was the squid.

Deep-fried squid seasoned with sea salt and shichimi. Served with a chilli and coriander dipping sauce.

This looked fantastic, was beautifully cooked and tasted delicious. I really liked the squid and the dipping sauce added to the dish without overpowering it.

Regular readers of the blog will know that I am a real fan of squid and it’s almost a benchmark for me on how good a restaurant is. Squid is a relatively simple dish to cook and if a place can’t cook squid properly than what hope is there for any other dish from the place. At Wagamama the squid was excellent.




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Fruit loaf

Fruit Loaf

I didn’t make this, my wife did and it was really really nice. However you wouldn’t want to have eaten too much of it as for some reason it contained bran flakes and prunes. However a thin slice with butter was delicious.