Confusing Fried Chicken

I wasn’t really intending to get lunch out, but I was walking through the St Nicholas market in Bristol and did feel a little peckish. It was quite late during the lunchtime period, so I could see some places were low on stuff. I did think about having something to eat at the Spanish place, La Lola, but in the end thought to myself I would have something I hadn’t eaten before. Across from La Lola is Woky Ko.

Located at the heart of Bristol’s historic St. Nicks Market is our lunch spot offering quick and tasty lunch boxes designed by you, made the Woky Way. Here you will find us serving out the BEST chicken Katsu curry or Korean fried cauliflower with noodles or rice. 

I have been tempted before, but this was my first visit. I do think it is an interesting perspective with Korean fried chicken served with a choice of either Japanese Katsu sauce or Thai red curry sauce.

This is three different kinds of Asian cuisine, which to be honest I am not sure actually works. I would like to have a Korean BBQ sauce with my chicken, but that wasn’t available. Is this fusion cooking, I didn’t think so. I did fancy the Thai red curry, but they had run out, so I went with the Katsu.

The fried chicken was served on rice covered in the sauce with some salad on the side.

The chicken was nice and crispy, the sauce was quite tasty. I did enjoy the dish, but I don’t think it would be something I would have again.

Vegan yasai katsu curry

We had spent the day in London and were back in Ealing and decided to get something to eat and headed to Wagamama.

As it was more late afternoon, than early evening, there was no queue and we were quickly shown to our table. I started looking over the menu. I was torn between choosing the vegan yasai katsu curry or the yasai yaki soba, both of which I have had before.

What I actually wanted, was a proper seafood ramen, which Wagamama no longer have on the menu and haven’t had so for a while. I think I will need to look elsewhere for that kind of dish.

As I had had the yasai yaki soba quite recently I went with the vegan yasai katsu curry.

My dish arrived quite quickly and is a substantial dish.

I got two slices of sweet potato, a slice of butternut squash and a smaller slice of aubergine. All were coated and deep fried in crispy panko breadcrumbs. They were served with sticky white rice and coated in an aromatic katsu curry sauce. On the side was a dressed salad and some Japanese pickled ginger.

I enjoyed the dish, the vegetables were crispy, but you could still taste the vegetable. I liked the aromatic katsu curry sauce. The salad was a refreshing addition.

Good food, not so good service

We visit Wagamama quite a bit compared to other places, however we have never been to the branch at Cabot Circus. It was a bank holiday and the place was busy and we had to queue (as you can’t book tables at Wagamama).

We were kept informed about the wait, I think partly to put people off, but we continued to wait. Eventually we were shown to a table and we looked over the menu.

I did consider having the shu’s ‘shiok’ chicken which when I went to Wagamama in Manchester was off the menu. I also thought about the spicy miso mackerel kokoro bowl. In the end I decided I would have a katsu curry. I chose the vegan yasai katsu curry. This was aromatic katsu curry sauce, vegetables in crispy panko breadcrumbs, sticky white rice, side salad, japanese pickles.

The vegetables were aubergine, sweet potato and butternut squash. I did think that usually I would have gone with the chicken katsu, but I what I wanted from the dish was the curry sauce, the rice and the texture of the crispy panko. The chicken wasn’t necessary and I liked the idea of different vegetables.

I did enjoy the dish, though I wasn’t enamoured with the curry sauce, maybe I should have gone with the hot spicy version. The panko vegetables were very nice, I liked the crunch and you could taste the vegetables.

To accompany the curry I had a Singha beer, which was nice and fresh. I would have preferred the beer to be colder though.

As for the service, I was less than impressed. I know at Wagamama the food arrives when it is ready, so dishes won’t be served together. Normally I am alright with this, but this time the first two dishes arrived quite quickly, the other two took much longer to be served. By the time the final dish arrived, we had nearly finished our food. We ordered some more drinks, and they spent a lot of time on the bar, before they were brought to the table. There appeared to be a fair few staff. I think part of the issue was they were being inundated with online takeaway orders which was swamping the kitchen.

So good food, not so good service.

Now this looks interesting

Saw this at my local Sainsburys supermarket.

It is a gluten free Katsu curry cooking kit.

I have been looking for such a kit or a while, so will be trying it out at some point.

It is nice to see such a greater range of gluten free foods in supermarkets these days. Though I do find that I still need to go to different supermarkets quite often as the ranges differ so much in each supermarket. For example I have to go to Waitrose for the Davina Steel pizza and focaccia bread mixes we like. The focaccia is great for making dough balls. I find the pasta range at Sainsbury’s really good. Asda sell some gluten free flour for 45p which is significantly cheaper than other brands which are around the £1.70 range. They don’t do the Schär Curvies (Pringle style crisps) which I get from Morrisons or Tesco.