wagamama — Restaurant in Amsterdam

Wagamama Chinese new year evening 2024

After a pleasant evening at Wagamama an event/ accident occurred that if managed well did not need to be more than just that…an accident. My daughter was being well behaved (as always especially for a 5 year old) but she had moved away from the table. A common thing children do. Once realised (within seconds) told her to come back to the table and this is when the accident occurred. As my daughter made her way to the table (1-2 meters away) she collided with the waiters who was rushing to get a hot bowl of soup to our table. If our daughter was at the table the accident would not have happened. Equally if the waitress was not hell bent on getting the soup to the table like a Dutch cyclist negotiating the cycle paths of Amsterdam then equally the accident may not have happened. The soup went all over the floor, partially on the waitress, splashed up and went all over my face and clothes. The splatter from the soup could be seen 1-2 metres into to my table so may well be on our jackets too. One to check in the daylight later. But then it got worse. The manager came to our table with a message and the message was to keep our child under control. On the first time she said this I responded that she’s a good kid and had been at the table the whole time and the one time she escaped the table the incident/ accident happened. So she said she had just been running back from the toilet. I mean…cmon. I know some people don’t want happy kids but she is just that and I would say she was skipping back happily and not dangerously the way it began to feel was being implied. But then she; the manager; repeated again to keep our kid under control. I’m not great with circular or repetitive conversations so I asked if there was anything else she wanted to say. She repeated the message again. At this point I can’t help feeling offended about someone telling me umpteen times how to parent my child. This began to escalate and I saw a bad opportunity whereby my daughter left the table (just to go to her mum) but I reprimanded my daughter and instructed her to sit down but quite sternly. Then asked if this was the measures that the manager was seeking?! (My daughter is now crying in her mums arms ). After being told how to parent it seemed a good opportunity to also point out some management tips to the manager: Do a proper risk assessment and consider your hazards are hot food whilst facing the public including children and elderly people Instruct waiters and waitress not to rush especially when hot food is involved. Especially if it has the potential to burn anyone including staff or members of the public. Customers. Don’t tell people how to parent. No parent is going to take that well. It’s ok to ask politely to maybe reduce noise or try to keep children seated but to persistently tell parents is going to risk a response that is not so nice. I also said as a manager it is good to learn how to diffuse a situation. We were a family and very happy enjoying Chinese new year celebrations (happy lunar calendar for others ) and now our evening was pretty much ruined. In the end I guess they conferred and we were ready to leave and now quite embarrassed and nerves jangled. We only wanted a nice evening and a nice meal and usually cannot go too far wrong in a Wagamama. I mean I’ve been to Wagamama in about at least 3 countries and across many of their restaurants and this was one of my worst experiences in a restaurant let alone a Wagamama. But the manager called Ambre had softened after leaving our table and coming back. I then pointed out that the soup had also gone all over my face (took several swipes and some tissue to remove it from my face) and it was the first one anyone had asked if I was alright. I say that because my wife had asked 5 times if the waitress was ok even when it just happened and shortly after. I thanked her for at least asking and then she said they didn’t want us to pay the bill and came bearing gifts of chocolates for my daughter (had to delete the rest...

Delicious, Fast and satisfying. We went there after a long day of walking through Amsterdam. Food and Drinks: The food was great. For the price and the fact, that it is a chain restaurant for healthy and different fast food it was perfectly alright. We had one Donburi and one Curry. Both tasted great, the amount of meat and vegetables were also fine. The brown rice was delicious, the white one also, but it was really soft in texture, not like the Japanese rice I'm used to from Japan or Japanese Restaurants. But since it is Japanese inspired cuisine, this is okay I guess. I also ordered the Miso soup and some Japanese Pickles, both delicious and authentic. For drinks we just had water, so nothing to say about it really. Ambience: It's a modern, big and bright room with lots of tables and a semi open kitchen. All is clean. The only thing is that the acoustic in this room is quite bad so it's kinda noisy and loud there. But at least, there is no extra music in the background. Service: Very friendly. The guy und guided us to our table also informed us about the restaurant and the menu. The girls who served our food and took our orders was also nice and even talked with us a little bit. However, there weren't some things from the menu available (like the Kim Chi which normally goes as a free side for the Donburi Bowl - they didn't served a different free side of Pickles with it, just nothing - very sad). But they told us in n advance what is not available, so it was alright I guess. Also they told us that the restaurant has four kitchens and so it might happen that one food arrives earlier than another. This is, for me, okay when the time difference is alright and the dishes come in the right order. But our meal came together so we didn't had the problem. Prices: For a more on the fast food side chain restaurant some meals were a little bit on the expensive side I guess... But I don't know, maybe in other locations than Amsterdam they are a little bit cheaper, I don't know. But overall, it was perfectly fine. To put it in a nutshell: Great place to visit for a quick and satisfying meal, doesn't matter if you're on your own or with a group. Also suitable for children since they also offer some really "normal" variations of the Japanese food. But do not expect to sit here with family or friends for a long time to drink some good wind and enjoy the evening. Than that's not the...

If you love Wagamama around the world, don't come in here. Me and my friends had such a bad evening, I really hope it was a one time thing since I've enjoyed Wagamama as a restaurant in both London and Milan. As for gluten free dishes, there's only one main choice: the itame. Otherwise you have two small starters: the edamame (beans) and the lollipop prawns (these are good, but won't feed you). It's overpriced compared to the same dishes of the same chain around europe, and we paid 2.60€ for 33cl of tap water, and they served it with a still-alive-fly drowning in there. Sweet. The waitress was kind, but got our drink orders wrong, and at the end of dinner, she piled up the plates to take them away, and in order to do so, she dropped sauce on the table and right in front of my face disposed of all the remains of my friends' plate on mine, while asking me where were we from. In the end we had to wait ten minutes for the check because five waiters were all arranging one take-away order. I'm sappy because this is my first bad review and honestly I just wanted to take my friends to try Wagamama as I've always been talking about it, and I just felt...