wagamama cheshire oaks designer outlet — Restaurant in Little Stanney

We decided upon a spontaneous dine in experience at my partner's favourite restaurant. Upon arriving they were particularly busy. We had to wait for approximately 10-15 minutes and we were made aware of this upon arrival. The staff regularly checked in with those in the queue ensuring we were okay with the approximate wait time (which were actually fairly accurate).

When we were seated, we didn't have to wait long before our waiter Luke came over to greet us and introduce himself. Although the menu had changed the day before he was professional, kind and courteous throughout our entire meal. Well done Luke. I'm sure you had done this I thousand times that night. But, it still felt personable and welcoming. This service we receive at this particular Wagamams is what sets itself apart from others and regularly keeps it as my partner's favourite among many we've visited.

This brings me onto my next point. Every meal we've had here has a slight edge, be it freshness, taste factor, love. Whatever you want to call it. It's got some sort of extra "umph" that makes it ever so slightly better than the other stores. Nothing is stodgy, stale, or lacking in flavour. In chain restraunts, each and every one needs to live up to the repeatability factor. The customers generally know what their favourite food from their favourite chain tastes like. For me, Yasai Katsu Curry is my favourite. The Didsbury venue is what I benchmark all other stores against. If this isn't the best compliment I can give a chef working in a chain I really don't know what is; again. Really well done.

I'm glad to see they've survived the pandemic and are back on top...

Noisy with awful acoustics couple this with the mumbling staff, means you need to be a skilled lip reader to be able to get the food you want. Of course once you have managed to place an order, the meals are brought to the table as soon as the chef makes them. Which is great if the chef made all the food for a table at a time, but they choose not to as there was a 15mins delay between the 1st main course arriving and the last. All the time waiting is spent watching food being delivered to tables who ordered after us. All very frustrating. I had to ask the staff several times where the remaining main course was only to be told they would go and check but failed to return.

The actual food was very mediocre verging on bland so there not being very much of it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. However; with the food being overpriced, there not being very much of it wasn’t necessarily a good thing either.

The table was sort of clean. Utter confusion by the staff who I asked for their calorie redacted menu for one of our party. Awful mid height (not low enough to be chair height and not high enough to be stool height), stools with a predetermined hollow/shallow that your bum cheeks must conform to if you want to sit anywhere near comfortably.

I understand they’re trying to go for a theme here, but unless there them is displeasure, then they’re way off trying to convince a restaurant full of people who left it too late to book a table at Yo Sushi, to make Wagamama their first choice next time.

Couldn’t wait to get...

Review concerns takeaway only (dining in is 5* experience):

Partner and I have been twice before, to eat-in and come away both times extremely impressed with both the quality and quantity of food, with speedy and kind service to boot. Tonight, we decided to order and collect. The steam machine or something was broken, meaning we couldn't order any Gyoza or steamed buns - no fault of the establishment, but disappointing anyway. Regardless, we ordered a Steak Bulgogi tepenyaki and a Yasai yaki soba teppenyaki, along with two desserts; a chocolate caramel cake and a mango + matcha layer cake.

Problems we encountered: No ice-cream with the caramel cake, yet we were still charged full-price. My partner's Yasai yaki soba teppenyaki had zero flavour - there was no sauce or flavouring to be found whatsoever. My steak bulgogi teppenyaki was delicious as expected, but there was barely a decent portion. When eating in, we've been surprised by the generous portions which we've managed to stretch to 2 or even 3 meals, so this was extremely disappointing. Finally, my partner's mango + matcha layer cake was a bit of a mess in the box, with the sauce all over the place.

Overall, really disappointing experience considering how much we've enjoyed it previously. We'll continue to dine in, given how great that experience is, but I'd warn anyone away from the takeaway experience, at risk of receiving meager portions, flavourless food, or...