Wasabi

Eh who likes to eat soggy yakisoba and dry chicken? Not me! I’ll give an extra star for the gyoza that my daughter devoured.
This place is a chain and I’m not sure why. Maybe because I’m Asian and I have higher standards. Nah, it just wasn’t good. :(

You can always find something good at Wasabi. My favourite is the pack of «dog ends»; the ends of sushi that have been chopped off and mushed up and covered in a spicy sauce… I’m sure there’s a much nicer name for the salad but whatever it is, it’s yum and costs less than £2! They also do a crab salad for the same price and a really good sushi bowl. The only thing that tastes nasty is the crabsticks, but you can easily avoid them.

You must try the Okonomiyaki here. You can choose from veg, chicken or seafood. Think of it as a Japanese version of pizza and pancake rolled into one. It’s got veg and your chosen filling. Topped with super super yummy sauce. If you do take away they do place it in a pizza box so you can surprise your coworkers if you feel like. Personally I wouldn’t share. I can polish off the whole thing myself quite easily.

This new addition to the Wasabi family opened recently and is a mere 10 feet away from Itsu. So I wasn’t sure how this resturant would do in this location.
After today’s visit, it looks like its doing pretty damn good. It’s much larger than most other Wasabi resturnats and boasts outside seating as well as a sizeable seating area downstairs which gives you a view of the glass enclosed kitchen. Very cool.
The selection of food, both hot and cold is pretty intense. They have pretty much any kind of sushi or soba that you can think of. And with a price point a bit cheaper than Itsu, its no wonder that the food here went pretty quick.
How inexpensive is the food? My regular serving of chicken yakisoba was £4.45. And in the epic battle that was my stomach trying to consume all of the contents of my massive soba noodle container, the soba won — hands down!
The queue for food wasn’t too long and went rather quickly. I noticed that most patrons were office workers who just wanted to grab a quick bite. However, there were quite a few tourists enjoying their Japanese al fresco.
My soba was just okay. It wasn’t anything amazing but it did it’s job. I’d come back if I was craving Japanese and was on a budget.