Wawa's — Restaurant in Lausanne

Wawa's is a cozy little place. There aren't a lot of options in the menu but that's not necessarily bad. More is not always better.

I had a soup with udon and the service was kind enough to let me combine the soup with duck instead of spicy beef. I also got a bubble tea and the papaya salad.

The papaya salad was quite good, almost as good as the ones I had in Thailand but it wasn't spicy at all. I guess this is to be expected given that in Europe we cannot tolerate the touristic spiciness of Asia. Other than that it was delicious!

I was a bit dissapointed with the udon soup. The duck was fresh and tasty but the udon felt like it was cooked a long time ago and just put in the soup when ordered. It was very firm in contrast to freshly boiled udon which is soft. Given that udon needs very little time to be boiled I was a bit surprised by that. In general I felt like the quality of the ingredients in the soup didn't reflect its price.

In addition the bubble tea was watered down and had very little flavour to it. It was like drinking water with a hint of tea.

In general, I believe that Wawa's can be a great restaurant if a little more care is put in the quality...

We experienced subtly uncomfortable service here, which was unexpected.

When my Chinese friend and I asked for tap water, the waiter responded not with a simple “sure,” but a noticeably sarcastic “for sure.”

We communicated in English throughout, but at the end, the waiter insisted on asking me if I thought he “looked Chinese.” The question was abrupt and confusing, and I had to clarify it twice before understanding. I told him that China is a very large country, which means I don’t assume anyone’s nationality based on appearance. He then said he was from Hong Kong.

Given that we never spoke Chinese or mentioned anything about nationality to the waiter, the interaction felt strange. This kind of experience never happened when I came here with friends from...

I took the crispy beef, and the honey and yuzu tea. The waitress asked me if I wanted it sweet or not too much - bonus point for the suggestion. I didn't touch the rice on my plate because the portion was really generous. The manager suggested that next time I tell them I don't want the rice, and they will compensate with more vegetables. (The meal included vegetables already, quite generously too). Double bonus points for this. The decor is quite bland, service is quick. The staff is efficient but when I asked where the toilets were, the waitress took me there patiently ( the toilets are in another part of the building. There is a code for the access, and they were spotless clean. More bonus points). Prices are ok for the location. I will come back....