Ah so...this mama likes wagamama (Wagamama)

Member Name: hypno06

Product:	Wagamama
Date:	02/01/09 (238 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Freshly cooked, delicious food from friendly staff.

Disadvantages: I had no room for a pudding!

Yesterday we found ourselves in the rare position of all four of us being together - normally either my husband or myself are working in one of our many jobs, so a day together was a real treat.

With it being New Year's Day as well, we decided to make it a little special, and took the children ice skating, followed by something to eat - we hadn't planned where to go, but found ourselves heading into the Norwich branch of Wagamama.

For those that have not visited Wagamama before (they have plenty of branches, so there may well be one near you) it is a Japanese influenced noodle bar. On first sight it looks a little like a school canteen, with long tables and benchlike seats. This means that if you are in a small group, as we were, you could end up sharing your table with many strangers! However, this simply becomes part of the fun, rather than an annoyance!

The staff in the Norwich branch are all incredibly friendly, and knowledgable about the food they are serving. They are happy to answer questions about the menu, and to make recommendations based on their own experiences, or comments made by the chef. My 14 year old daughter is only just venturing into oriental food, having had stomach problems in the past which restricted her diet, so was unsure what to have, and the waitress was happy to sit with her and discuss her likes and dislikes before recommending a non-spicy noodle dish with chicken and prawns. It wasn't overly busy at the time we sat down to eat, but even so, it was nice that the staff were happy to take the time to make sure that their customers got something that was appropriate.

We were tempted by the duck filled crispy dumplings for a starter. These were expensive at £5.50 for 5 but they were delicious and we really felt that they were worth it - we only had one portion between the four of us, but that was just enough to give us a taste of something yummy.

My children are now 13 and 14 with the appetites of full grown adults, so we no longer need to see the children's menu, but I can say that there were several children eating in the restaurant who were all tucking into fantastic food, so I feel that Wagamama's certainly look after their "customers of the future".

The main menu has a huge variety of dishes, some are soup based, others are noodle or rice based. Vegetarians are well catered for, and we have previously visited this restaurant with a vegetarian friend who was most impressed with the range available to him.

The dishes are given in Japanese but with an English translation so you get to learn a bit about the origin of your dish rather than just asking for "chicken and noodles". Ingredients are all fresh and the meals are cooked to order. My husband cannot eat onions and the chef was happy to exclude these from his dish.

Between the four of us, we had a steak dish cooked on the teppan hot plate, with chillis and noodles with veggies, a king prawn thai curry on sticky rice, my daughter's noodle dish that was rather like a chow mein that you would get from the Chinese takeaway, and a chicken and mushroom dish, again on sticky rice. The portions were substantial yet we all managed to polish off all our food making many appreciative noises as we ate!

When your order is taken, you are reminded that because all dishes are cooked from fresh, and all take a different amount of time to cook, they may all be delivered to the table at different times - for us, however, all dishes arrived at more or less the same time.

A new addition to the drinks menu, which gives the usual soft drinks along with some wonderful fresh fruit juice mixtures, and beer an wine, is tea and coffee - on previous visits, the only hot drink available was green tea, which is offered free of charge with your meal, but if you wanted coffee etc you had to go elsewhere. Although an English adaptation of the Oriental menu, the coffee was much appreciated yesterday, and was a good price too, with a latte being £1.70 from memory.

Puds are divine at wagamama with some really good oriental influences such as chilli and ginger combining with more British dishes, such as cheesecake.......yummmmmm! Sadly, we were all full from our main course, so passed on dessert yesterday, but I can vouch for them in meals gone by!

The atmosphere is very relaxed here - no need to dress up. Come as a family, or with friends and enjoy some good food in a nice clean friendly setting.

The bill for 4 adults having a main course, drinks and the one starter between us was a little under £50 which at £12 or so a head for excellent food, was a nice way to spend time together and to start the new year.

Wagamama's also sell cookery books with some of the recipes in - I will be adding this to my birthday/Christmas list for this year, so if my hubby is reading.........!

I also noticed that they are happy to prepare food for taking out - as my husband works nearby, I can see the odd box of noodles being carried across the carpark.

We will definitely be back...

Summary: A lovely relaxed way to spend time with family or friends.