Wagamamas, Mansion House

On Wednesday afternoon I found myself with 45 minutes to spare between my last meeting of the afternoon and the beginning  of a meeting that was bound to go on most of the evening and involve alcohol. My mission, therefore, was to find something to eat that would be reasonably swift, that would also be pretty decent quality and go a long way to fending off my hangover-in-waiting. Once you rule out fast-food places, bars that do food on the side and restaurants that serve at a leisurely pace then the list can be fairly shortin the City, particularly when down near Cannon Street, so I eventually plumped for Wagamamas round the back of Mansion House station as a safe option.

Now unless you’ve been hiding out in an MP’s moat for the last few years you’ll know that Wagamamas started from a single restaurant in Bloomsbury many, many years ago and is now an immensely successful global chain of noodle bars which serve up 12 tons of noodles to the hungry masses each week and have various branches across the City. I’ve been to Wagamamas numerous times in the past and in several different countries but hadn’t set foot in one for a couple of years so I was wondering if things were as I remembered.

The Mansion House branch is tucked away in a little side street just behind Cannon Street and I got there as the clock approached 4.30 which is relevant for only one reason. It was delightfully empty. Having been there once before in the conventional lunchtime scrum this time there was only a tourist couple for me to share the entire place with and the waiter wisely put me some distance from them. After ordering I got down to reading the London Lite while waiting for my food to arrive with the main dish of ebi raisukaree arriving a minute or two before the side order of duck gyoza. Ebi raisukaree is a great rice dish as I’m not a particular fan of rice as such but this has enough sauce and spice to go with the tiger-prawns to keep the whole thing interesting. The duck gyoza looked a little powdery on the pastry side but lacked nothing in flavour, particularly with the gorgeous spicy hoi sin sauce they come with. I was out of there in plenty of time to wander over Southwark Bridge to my meeting came away happy with the whole experience. It’s not the style of food I’d eat every week but I need to remember to go there as a bit of a change from my normal routines. All in all it met all of my expectations for a quick and tasty meal and best of all….. hangover averted!

What I ate:
duck gyoza : five deep-fried duck and leek dumplings, served with a spicy cherry hoi sin sauce

ebi raisukaree: stir-fried black tiger prawns in a coconut and lime curry sauce with ginger, galangal, chillies, coriander, green and red peppers, red and spring onions and mangetout. served on sticky white rice and garnished with sliced red chillies and a wedge of lime

What it cost: Under £15 with no charge for tap water.

Wagamamas
4 Great St Thomas Apostle
off Garlick Hill
London
EC4V 2BH
phone : +44 (0) 207 248 5766
www.wagamamas.com