I'll tell you what I want, what I really, really want

[white_hart]

I am currently in the grip of a desperate and hopeless craving for Wagamama. Miso-glazed cod ramen with a side of bang bang cauliflower, for preference, but honestly I'd settle for anything on the menu. It's nearly two years since I last ate there, and actually I can count the number of times I've eaten decent East Asian food (as opposed to bog-standard Chinese takeaway) in that time on the fingers of one hand*.

Sadly, I'm not about to go and eat in a crowded noodle bar, and they don't deliver outside the ring road, so I am not going to be able to satisfy this craving any time soon, and somehow home-cooked alternatives aren't the same.

I've almost forgotten what it was like to be able to plan holidays and actually see people in person, and I don't feel like I miss it that much, but my goodness I miss Wagamama.


*Two sushi deliveries from the person locally who does prebooked deliveries on a Saturday evening most weeks; one takeaway sushi in the rain in swimming friend L's garden; one takeaway sushi in town with friends from Glasgow who were visiting last summer; one lunch from Itsu I treated myself to last term** when similar cravings got too much.

**Maybe on one of my office days next week I could do that again, if I have a day with enough time between meetings to walk into town and back as well as eating.

Comments

[nineveh_uk]

I have been having exactly the same feelings about Wagamama. I want the chicken ginger udon. I think it's partly that I can cook e.g. Italian food, but I have no repertoire of Japanese food, or east Asian more broadly. (Though on Saturday I intended to do Tom Kitchin's east Asian poached pheasant.)

[white_hart]

Yes, that's it - it's just not something I feel I can replicate at home the way I can most other cuisines. Also, unlike, say, Indian food, it needs fresh spices and herbs and while our shopping was restricted to Kidlington Tesco we simply didn't have a source of them. And since we've been getting Waitrose deliveries I think we'd just forgotten that things like fresh limes and lemongrass were even a thing.

The east Asian poached pheasant sounds amazing!

[nineveh_uk]

I spotted it in a recipe book at my parents at Christmas and it looked both different and also pretty easy. I have been feeling that my diet has got rather boring, partly from not being in shops myself, partly from needing to prioritise the easy, so I've decided to mix the next 3 weekends spent in front of the Olympics with cooking a new recipe for dinner on each of them. Lemongrass is now in my Sainsburys delivery for tomorrow!

[cmcmck]

We are lucky to have a good Chinese restaurant in town!

[white_hart]

Our problem is that we're technically a large separate village, but functionally a suburb, so we don't have the same amenities that more separate villages would have, but because we're outside the ring road a lot of services from the city centres won't come out this far.

[antisoppist]

I am always a bit wary of Wagamama in case it has secret, unexpected shellfish in it, which I am allergic to, so I haven't ever been but I miss the lemongrass, ginger, coconut milk kind of Thai curries I used to make when I lived in Bristol and could get such things and before I had children that won't eat them.

I would just like to eat out somewhere. Anywhere. In a civilised fashion. I don't think Kentucky Fried Chicken at Reading Services yesterday really counts.

[girlyswot]

Wagamama have a full ingredients menu that you can ask to see. I find them pretty reliable for that sort of thing.

[white_hart]

T does make Thai curries occasionally, and they are very nice and close enough to restaurant Thai food to stop me missing that too much, but Japanese food is just too far beyond either of our culinary repertoires.

[serriadh]

Have you looked on deliveroo? Our "local" (not very near) Wagamama's doesn't deliver to us but they are on deliveroo. I wouldn't order anything I wanted piping piping hot, but gyoza and katsu chicken arrive unscathed.

[white_hart]

I have, but deliveroo also don't deliver outside the ring road for city centre restaurants.

[serriadh]

Boo, how rubbish of them.

[mrs_redboots]

That really is rubbish of them! I did order Wagamama once during lockdown, but we had a sort of policy of not ordering from chains, on the grounds that independents would be struggling even more. But I do love their food.... also missing Nando's, but we may go there again soon as it is less crowded than Wagamama tends to be.

[white_hart]

Oxford ring road is basically a hard boundary for most deliveries from places in the city. Our takeaway options are Indian, Chinese or Dominos, or fish and chips if we walk to pick it up, so we have had very few takeaways through lockdown.

[mrs_redboots]

Actually, could you not pick up an order from Wagamama and then take it home to eat later - I'm sure most things would hot up quite beautifully in the microwave.

[white_hart]

Theoretically, but getting it home would be a half hour bus journey and I think that a lot of things would end up quite soggy after spending that long cooling in their containers and being reheated, and what I'm missing is the kind of fresh, crisp sensation of the vegetables in the ramen, as well as the flavours.