Wagamama 2001

Wagamama is one of my favourite restaurants in London. I started eating there not long after the original restaurant opened in 1992. I took Barb there on our honeymoon and it was as good as ever.

With the Canadian dollar being so low against the British pound, eating in London is expensive for Canadians. Fortunately however, a growing number of restaurants feature inexpensive delicious food (by London standards anyway which is about 10 pounds per person) in a casual or cafeteria style ambiance. This was a trend pioneered by Wagamama and it's nice to see that other restaurants like Belgo's and Masala Zone have started in a similar vein.

At Wagamama you sit on benches, so you are always sharing a table. It's loud but fun because the mostly young, international crowd gives the place a positive multicultural buzz! The kitchen is open so you can watch them cook and the servers carry wireless data pads which beam your order back to the kitchen.

They started out as a noodle house and they serve superb noodle soup with ramen style noodles and they have branched out now to serve rice dishes and other non noodle soup dishes. All are delicious.

On our honeymoon visit, I ordered the chili chicken ramen as usual and was as good as ever, I am happy to report! The broth is for me almost the best part. Wonderful and not fatty and always good. The broth is accompanied by grilled chicken, bean sprouts, onions, coriander and chilis and a lime. Mmmm. A perfect winter warmup!

Barb had the yaki soba: ramen noodles fried with shrimp, chicken peppers, bean sprouts, shallots and ginger! Also good but I prefer the noodle soups.

We also had some tasty chicken deep fried with ginger,soy sauce and sake aka tori kara age as a starter. to drink I had an excellent combination of passion fruit, apple and orange juice and Barb had a Japanese sparkling drink called Gusto which was OK but not as yummy as my fruit juice.

The total was 21 pounds and 40 pence and the amount of food was more than adequate for two. If we hadn't been feeling so hungry, we could have skipped the Gusto, fruit juice (and just drunk the complimentary green tea) and the kara age and the meal would have been only 13 pounds!

Highly recommended if you are in London or any of the other cities in Europe where they have a location such as Amsterdam.

Wagamama, Streatham Street, London, UK, +44 207 3239223

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