Wagamama — Restaurant in Amsterdam

The restaurant has a central location and looks clean but the food and the service was not acceptable for the price. We came after the peak hours in the evening but all waiters were still super busy, looked utterly stressed and even had conflicts with each other behind the counter. We ordered and waited very long for our food. My husband and I received our orders first while our little one still had to wait. We had to share food so that she didn't have to starve after a very long day. Even when we had finished our food, our kid's order didn't come yet. We thought we'd cancel it but no one came to our table, even though at this point the restaurant was only half full. We tried to make eye contact with any waiter walking by to no avail. In the end we had to stand up and went to the counter to say it but we were told the food was coming. It did come but the cooks messed it up - there was hot (as in chili hot) curry in the chicken even though it was a kid's menu and no curry was ordered. When we told them it was wrong, they told us to wait again so that they'd make another one. We gave them a chance to fix their mistake even though it was almost 10pm and our daughter had almost fell asleep already. The right food came in the end; the chicken was so dry and hard she barely ate anything. Our orders didn't impress either. Even though it was supposed to be an Eastern Asian fusion restaurant (which was a generous description, as to be exact it was supposed to be Japanese), none of the cooks was Eastern Asian and none of them looked like they were slightly interested in what they were doing. The food was neither Japanese, Asian nor fusion - it was bland and showed no passion or at least responsibility. For these reasons, the price we paid was too high for what we received. We will never come here again and unfortunately cannot...

The restaurant is located in the new hall at Amsterdam Central Station and looks nice and clean. The first thing I noticed, when I entered the place was that there is an open kitchen. Without too much noise you can still see how you food is being prepared.

The personnel, was helpful and friendly. I had a few questions regarding their menu which they fully explained to me. The food arrived after a short amount of time.

I ordered the pork ramen with a home-made ice tea (€16,10). The ramen was served with a thin chicken broth which was very tasty. It is served with an egg, but not a half boiled Japanese egg. It was hard boiled and I couldn't taste that it was marinated in tea.

They don't serve the popular 'Hakata' style ramen, but the noodles are still nice. The noodles are on the firm/hard side, but well enough cooked. The 'menma' (bamboo) was brilliant! I loved the taste, it was sort of spicy like cinnamon. There was fresh spinach served as seasonal vegetable, which was lovely and healthy.

Conclusion: Very good and popular restaurant at a superb location. They serve lovely food, although a little bit expensive for the quality you get. I had better ramen elsewhere in Amsterdam for €5,- cheaper. Still I recommend eating at Wagamama at Amsterdam Central Station.

P.s. I got a free package of the spicy menma from the...

The experience was rather awful. The food was is worse than mediocre compared to other locations. The service is non-existence and staffs appear not care about customers at all.

First, waited to be seated for at least 5 mins at the entrance without any greeting or attention, even though the hostess literally walked by several times without even acknowledge our existence!! She absolutely does not even care!! Note that there are 5 staffs on the floor and 4 cooks behind the counter.

Second, ordered the “tom yum ramen”, the dish portion is very small, even compare to those wagamama I have been in UK or Belgium. Furthermore, the dish is not ramen at all, it is flat white noodle! It’s absolutely a joke! The most ridiculous is…. the dish is supposed to be with prawns, but, size of those are so small that they should not even considered as shrimp, let alone being called prawns! Then, the appetizer came after the main, which once again shown that the staffs just DO NOT CARE!

The cashier, probably the owner, asked me for feedback when I paid the bill at the front at the end. I did provide some candid feedback on portions/sizes of the dish! He was nice enough to give me a small discount on the bill.

This location does need a lot of improvement to live up with other wagamama...