It’s lasted 17 years in Leicester for a reason
Wagamama in St Peter’s Square, where it has been since 2008(Image: Google)
I can still remember the day in 2008 the Highcross opened in Leicester city centre with lots of new stores and restaurants, including Wagamama. It must be just about the only eatery in the new bit of the shopping centre still there from the grand opening.
It was a great day. There was a happy atmosphere everywhere, partly due to all the free fizz being handed out in the shops, and the press were treated well. We had our own little room with coffee and biscuits and were also given tokens for free grub – I spent mine at Wagamama.
And while so many restaurants around St Peter’s Square are long gone and been replaced, sometimes several times, Wagamama has survived.
Scrolling through the Deliveroo app looking for somewhere to review it was the first place that came up that I hadn’t already reviewed. The takeaway menu is huge on the app and it took a while to decide what to get.
I chose three pricey starters and a main, plus a drink. With nearly £4 of Deliveroo fees added on it came to a whopping £51.98.
After a man on a bike handed me the big brown sack of food, the first dish I went for was the box of gyoza dumplings. Sometimes gyoza are floppy and wet, sometimes they’re crunchy and greasy, but the Wagamama ones are crumbly like a delicious tiny pie.
I’d gone for Duck Gyoza, costing £8.50, and they came with a little pot of hoisin sauce. I tried my first one undunked and the smell, the taste and the texture were all amazing. And with a dollop of the sauce – sweet, rich, thick and tasting a bit like Christmas – they were even better.
With Deliveroo fees it cost £51.98. And it was all gone in an hour.
The box of gyoza (or is the term gyozas?) was soon empty, sadly. But next up I had a couple of Korean Barbecue Beef Brisket Bao Buns, which were £8.50. The first ever time I’d tried bao buns – just a few months ago – I’d found them a bit weird.
The almost-flavourless buns always seems to dominate a bit too much and the taste of beef was somewhere in the background, behind the spicy sauce. But the weird texture of the buns has been growing on me and while the price was very high they were pretty good.
The last of the three starters I had was the most expensive of all – Chili Squid, costing £9.30. It looked like a box of orange crinkle-cut chips and it came with a pot of sweet chili sauce.
The seafood strips had been scored with a knife to let the seasoning and sauce in, which also made them easy to chew and they had just the right amount of rubberiness. Like the gyoza, they were pretty addictive and it wasn’t long before they were all gone.
I had a swig of the delicious Tropical Fresh Juice, which cost £5.90 for a pretty tiny bottle but did taste very good, and moved onto the main course – Chicken Raisukaree Curry, for £15.80.
It was loaded with ingredients and had a yellow sauce with a lot of green in there, too – beans, chopped green peppers, bits of parsley and a quarter of a lime. It seemed like a relatively healthy curry, with less sauce than they could have used.
It was tasty and livened up by the lime juice and a few tiny slices of hot red chili. But, as often seems to be the case, the big expensive main dish was outshone a bit by the starters.
In conclusion, it was tasty but very expensive as a takeaway. Usually when I spend so much on a review – although I’m not sure I’ve ever spent this much – there’s a load of leftovers for another meal later on. And sometimes lunch the next day, too.
This time it was all gone within an hour. But if you’re really rich – or claiming it on expenses – it’s pretty great food.
Our rating: 4/5
