Tag: wagamama

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Had my usual…

When I get to Wagamama, part of me says, try something new, another part of me says, I like the yasai yaki soba, which is mushrooms,  soba noodles cooked with egg, peppers, beansprouts, onion, pickled ginger, crispy fried onions and sesame seeds.  I decided I would have this and some mushroom bao, another dish I regularly order. 

I don’t always order this, when I was visiting a branch of Wagamama at Cabot Circus recently, I had Honey Fried Chicken and Chicken Pho. Whilst in Nottingham though I went with the yasai yaki soba I had different bao.

This time we were back in London and visiting the Wagamama branch at Covent Garden. We have been there before and had an issue with the delay in getting the gluten free dish we had ordered to the table before everyone else finished their food. Part of that was that the server took our main order, but a manager has to take the gluten free order for the table. 

We were quite early in the evening, there was no queue, and we were shown to our table, one aspect of Wagamama which is useful in central London, and to be honest elsewhere as well, is that not only do you not need to book, but you can’t book anyhow. So, just turn up and see if a table is available. When we came to order, we asked for the manager straight away, so we could order everything together.

I really don’t mind that Wagamama bring out the dishes when they’re ready, but we did have to wait nearly an hour for our food. Luckily this time all our food arrived within a reasonable timeframe.

I enjoyed my yasai yaki soba, though I always think it could do with more mushrooms. If I order the chicken yak soba, I get a fair amount of chicken, with the mushroom version, they appear to be quite stingy with the mushrooms.

This was rather tasty, I like the contrasting textures and flavours in this dish.

I also enjoyed the mushroom bao buns. The crispy aubergine is a nice touch which gives the dish a contrast of soft fluffy bao bun, the crunch of the crispy aubergine, and the delicate texture of the mushrooms.

We all enjoyed our food and we settled the bill using the app. As we left there was now a queue which was out of the building and down the street. 

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Shiitake Mushroom Donburi

I was charging my car at Cribbs Causeway and needing a quick dinner, a visit to Wagamama was the solution. You don’t need to book and usually service is efficient and quick.

There wasn’t much of a queue, and it wasn’t long before we were sat at a table pursuing the menu. The obvious choice was the mushroom yaki soba yasai, something I have eaten a lot when eating at Wagamama. However, this time I decided I would have something different, and there were some new donburi dishes on the menu.

I went with the pulled shiitake mushroom donburi. This was pulled shiitake mushrooms in a sweet + spicy teriyaki sauce on a bed of sticky new white rice, shredded carrots, mangetout, sweet potato, cucumber, edamame beans and kimchee. I added a fried egg to the dish as well.

Shiitake Mushroom Donburi

The bowl looked good, however despite the nice appearance, the dish was something of a disappointment. All the “extras” were nice, but the star of the show, the pulled shiitake mushrooms in a sweet and spicy teriyaki sauce was dry and lacked flavour. The mushrooms definitely needed more sauce.

I had also ordered some bao buns, but they never arrived. As the place was busy and I had virtually finished my bowl I didn’t get a chance to ask about them. When I looked at the app on my phone, they weren’t on the bill when I came to pay, so didn’t question it.

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Honey Fried Chicken and Chicken Pho

After an appointment in Bristol we headed to Wagamama in Cabot Circus. Now I thought to myself I don’t think I have eaten at this branch before. However going through my photos using the Map feature in Apple Photos I discovered we had gone there in May 2022 and I hadn’t been impressed with the service back then.

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.

I have to say this time the service was so much better. My usual visits to Wagamama are when I am travelling or if eating locally, I find myself at the branch at Cribbs Causeway more so than Cabot Circus.   A lot of the places I would normally have eaten at when visiting Cabot have either closed down or have become something else. 

I went with a main course and a side dish. I decided I would definitely go with dishes I had not had before. I do like the food from Wagamama, but a lot of the time I order the same thing, I really like their yasai yaki soba and eat that a lot when I visit Wagamama. This time I wanted different things, also there were some new items on the menu.

For my side dish I went with the hot honey fried chicken with yuzu. This was chicken coated in hot honey + yuzu sauce, topped with mixed pickles and served with a zesty vegan mayo on the side.

hot honey fried chicken with yuzu

For my main dish I with the new pho – chicken thigh, a vietnamese-inspired noodle soup with a clear yuzu broth, red pepper, bean sprouts, spring onion, coriander, mint, lime; served over konjac noodles, a lighter alternative to rice noodles made from the root vegetable, konjac.

pho - chicken thigh

I usually avoid pho or ramen, only because they can be a bit messy to eat, being more of a soup. However I liked the sound of the dish, so against my usual behaviour, I ordered it.

The pho was really good, I really enjoyed the clear yuzu broth which had a real depth of flavour. I liked the konjac noodles too. I did think the chicken could have been better, but it was still nice. The mint was an interesting addition that I wasn’t expecting which added not just a different flavour, but also an interesting texture as well.

I have wanted to try the hot honey chicken for a while now. It was nice, but it was in the main crispy fried chicken with sauce and mayo on the side. Don’t get me wrong I enjoyed it, but I am not sure I would order it again any time soon. I washed the meal down with an alcohol free beer.

My daughter had the duck donburi with some yuzu sauce. She didn’t enjoy it as much as she thought she would, probably would have been better with either no sauce, or some teriyaki sauce.

duck donburi

Overall the experience was so much better than it was in 2022, even though the place was busy (and they had online orders as well) the service was both speedy and efficient.

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Wagamama at Nottingham

It was one of those times when I thought to myself, what do I want to eat, I will go with something I know and like, it’s getting late and all that. I was staying in Nottingham for a conference and having arrived the day before, I headed out to get something to eat. I chose Wagamama as I do like the food and the restaurant was relatively close to my hotel as well. I had looked on Google Maps before heading to Nottingham to see what was around, but the few places I looked at were not open on a Monday night.

Wagamama was heaving and I had to wait for a table, normally I prefer not to wait, but I did think all I probably would do would be walk around a bit and then end up back at Wagamama. I was a little surprised on how busy it was, this was the end of June on a Monday. All the students would have “gone home” and I would be surprised there would be that many visitors around compared to July or August.

After waiting for a short while I was shown to my table. I had missed out on lunch so was quite hungry, so I ordered the chilli squid, pork + panko apple bao buns, and yasai yaki soba. Despite the busyness or the place, it wasn’t too long before my food arrived.

The chilli squid, is Wagamama’s iconic crispy fried squid tossed in shichimi spice, and served with a chilli + coriander dipping sauce. 

squid

This was lovely generous portion of crispy squid. They’ve stopped doing the crispy chilli mushrooms which I may have ordered as an alternative. I did think about having the hot honey fried chicken, but went with the squid; I do like the squid and it was nice and tasty.

The next dish to arrive was the pork + panko apple bao buns, which was two buns, that contained slow-cooked pork belly with crispy panko-coated apple, sriracha and vegan mayo, topped with coriander.

I would usually have the mixed mushroom bao buns, I also thought about trying out the korean barbecue beef, but I liked the sound of the pork and apple buns. The pork was tender and soft, which contrasted well with the crispy apple.

My main dish was a regular choice of mine, the yasai yaki soba. This is mushrooms,  soba noodles cooked with egg, peppers, beansprouts, onion, pickled ginger, crispy fried onions and sesame seeds.

I think it needed more mushrooms. The amount of mushroom in this dish is rather inconsistent when I have this dish, which surprises me. Despite the lack of mushrooms, it was a very tasty dish and I enjoyed it.

Overall the food I had was very tasty and rather filling. I don’t think I really should have two side dishes with my main course, but it is hard then to choose just one. Maybe next time I will just have side dishes instead.

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yasai yaki soba with mushroom

We were in London for a show, and afterwards we headed to the Covent Garden branch of Wagamama.

That area of London is quite busy on a Saturday evening, but the advantage of Wagamama is that you can’t book. We arrived and were able to go straight in. When we left there was a queue for the place.

There was a wide range of choices on the menu, I had initially considered a Korean hotpot with tteokbokki, however it was quite a hot day and I wasn’t sure if I wanted a hot pot dish, also for me that ruled out a ramen as well. I did like the idea of a salad, but in the end I went with the yasai yaki soba with mushroom.

This was soba noodles cooked with mushrooms, egg, peppers, beansprouts and white and spring onion. topped with crispy fried onions, pickled ginger and sesame seeds. It was really good. I love the combination of flavours and textures. It is probably my go to dish when visiting Wagamama. This dish had a good portion of mushrooms and I found it delicious.

Though service was okay, we did have a long delay on the gluten-free dish for our table. When it did arrive it was very tasty I was told. I really don’t mind that Wagamama bring out the dishes when they’re ready, but we weren’t really expecting the difference to be nearly thirty minutes! As a result I had finished my food (as it was the first to arrive) by the time the gluten-free dish arrived on the table. That was disappointing.

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Crispy Duck Stir Fry

Crispy Duck Stir Fry

I was going to call this dish Crispy Duck Donburi and then I realised I had no real idea what make a donburi a donburi?

Anyhow onto how I cooked this dish. I took my sliced duck breast pieces and coated them in some plain flour. I use gluten free flour, but I would have thought wheat flour would work just as well. These pieces I cooked in the wok in some oil. The idea being to both cook the duck, but also with the floured coating make them a little crispy. After the duck was cooked I put them to one side. I then stir fried some mushrooms and when nearly cooked added some soya sauce. These were put to one side as well. In the wok I then added the vegetables and these were stir fried for a while before adding back the duck. I added a pouch of Wagamama Korean BBQ sauce.

I served the duck with the mushrooms, some sticky rice dressed with crispy onions and a soft boiled egg.

Was really nice.

Now to discover what makes  a donburi a donburi.

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Seafood Ramen

I don’t always write up all the meals I have, this can be because I didn’t take a photograph, it’s something I have written about before, I didn’t enjoy the meal. Sometimes its just because I was busy or forgot.

A case in point is the delicious Seafood Ramen I had at Wagamama back in September 2017.

I never wrote about it, but did write about other things I ate at that time.

This was a typical Wagamama ramen of the time, with noodles, vegetables and a lovely selection of seafood, including prawns, squid and other stuff.

It has been a while since I ate it, but drawing on old memories I did enjoy it. I had eaten this dish before, which is probably why I ordered it again. Sadly Wagamama no longer have the seafood ramen on their menu, which is a pity. I do like it when places add or change their menus, but sometimes this means dishes I like disappear.

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Wagamama in the heart of the city

I do like the food at Wagamama, though I like trying new things, I also like having what I had before. On a recent visit to Wagamama in the City of London,  I went with two dishes I had before. For my starter I went with the crispy otsumami. 

This is six squares of crispy fried rice soaked in a soy + yuzu dressing, topped with pulled shiitake mushroom, smashed avocado + edamame and sriracha mayo, garnished with coriander cress.

I had these before when I went to Wagamama in Basildon. I did think this time they were even better. They are tasty morsels of yum! I like the different textures and the flavours combine to create an extravaganza of different tastes within your mouth.

 For my main I went with the silken tofu gochujang rice bowl. I had this before in Ealing in 2023. This is silken tofu in a spicy gochujang glaze on a bed of sticky white rice, bok choi, pickled cucumber, snow onion slaw, red and spring onion, red chilli, sesame seeds.

I like the contrast between hot and cold ingredients in this bowl. There are a diverse range of complementary flavours within the bowl. Overall a tasty dish.

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Time for Wagamama in Basildon

I was on my way to East Anglia and was staying over in Festival Leisure Park in Basildon at the Travelodge.

Across the retail park are various places to eat. I did walk around looking at various outlets, thinking about what I wanted. In the end I went to Wagamama with the plan that I wouldn’t have what I usually have at Wagamama. For a starter (or is it a side) I had the pulled shiitake crispy otsumami. 

This is six squares of crispy fried rice soaked in a soy + yuzu dressing, topped with smashed avocado + edamame and sriracha mayo, garnished with coriander cress.

These were really interesting and tasty. They were also very pretty. They were quite an intense flavour, but I liked them.

For my main course I went with the (new) crispy chicken sambal fry.

Described as lightly battered chicken coated in garlic + red pepper powder, mild tomato sambal, vibrant pickled slaw. coconut rice. chilled turmeric-stained egg, amai sauce on the side.

I wasn’t as impressed with this dish as I thought I would be. The chicken was disappointing, and I didn’t really like the mild tomato sambal sauce. I enjoyed the plate of food, but I wasn’t blown away by it. Think I should have had my usual mushroom yaki soba.

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Slow Yaki Soba Yasai

Needing a quick dinner, a visit to Wagamama was the solution. You don’t need to book and usually service is efficient and quick.

I had a look over the menu and decided what I would have and waited…

I then waited some more…

Then a little more time…

I was about to leave when a member of the waiting team arrived to take my order. They did apologise, but not sure what the issue was.

I went with the mushroom bao buns and the yaki soba yasai with mushroom. 

This was soba noodles cooked with mushrooms, egg, peppers, beansprouts and white and spring onion. topped with crispy fried onions, pickled ginger and sesame seeds.

The yaki soba yasai arrived first.

It was really good. I love the combination of flavours and textures.

 My mushroom bao buns arrived a little later. This was mixed mushrooms with crispy panko-coated aubergine and vegan mayo, topped with coriander.

These were nice but felt that they lacked enough mushroom. I have had these before and wrote back then:

I did feel the mushroom bao buns could have had a lot more mushroom in them, what mushroom was there was slightly overpowered by the crispy panko-coated aubergine.

Pretty much felt the same this time as well.

I did think both dishes needed more mushroom. If there is mushroom in the title of the dish then I think it needs mushroom in the dish.

Overall, I did enjoy the food, the service once it started was good, but I did feel the delay in taking my order did impact on my enjoyment of the dining experience.