Today, I will be blogging about my experience at Pasta De Waraku, a Japanese Casual Pasta & Cafe Restaurant. Just to spoil you a little first, it is a mixed review. I am not in anyway an expert in reviewing food so this is just purely on how I truly feel about the food served in layman terms haha.
I've had great and jialat (bad) experiences with this restaurant chain so read on if you are somebody who loves pasta like me (read on also if you don't in case if you have friends who likes pasta :D).
I will start off with my good experience with Pasta De Waraku.
The last time I went to Pasta De Waraku was when I was still in my poly year 1 days where the restaurant had attractive promotions for students. Me and my friends frequent the restaurant and when they decided to end the student promotion, we just stop going to the restaurant because it was kinda pricey for us back when we didn't have any income, savings or whatsoever. The food back then was pretty good and consistent in standards :)
So I am starting my impression on Pasta De Waraku afresh because it's been about 2 years ( or maybe more ) since I've visited this restaurant.
My first dining experience at this restaurant this year was around in end of May with ma boy at the Changi Airport outlet around 3pm (awkward timing for a meal haha).
This is how the restaurant looks from the table where we sat.
The first item that was served to us was their signature corn soup which I swear has a humongous portion for two person! Me and ma boy barely finished it hahaha
Mini salad that comes free with every pasta that you order as appetizer
Our drink :) Something Oreo but I forgot the exact name already. This one over here is a little too sweet for me but it will be good for those with sweet tooth haha.
Next, we also have Potato Mentai Cheese and Tofu Mentai Cheese!
Me and ma boy LOVEEEEEEE mentai dishes so we decided to try out these two dishes!
This is the Potato Mentai Cheese
This dish tastes super awesome!! The potato was slightly cripsy at the sides and along with the fragrance of the mentai and cheese...AWESOME (Y) hahaha
The Tofu Mentai Cheese didn't taste as good as the potato one cuz the tofu had a kinda weird smell to it with the combination of the cheese and mentai o.o not sure why also but we didn't order it again during our subsequent visits
Spicy Prawn Cream Soup Pasta!! Taste pretty good but I've taste better ones before
This Carbonara is the bomb! Taste really awesome and I wished I had ordered this as well hahaha
You can tell how nice this Carbonara is liao with the way he is eating HAHAHAHA
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Okay on our 2nd visit to Pasta De Waraku, it was the day I flew to Korea for my summer exchange and me and ma boy wanna come and have their pasta again before my trip. However, the food this time round was kinda disappointing though. Not sure if it's because we came at dinner time and there's quite a lot (but not over flowingly many) of people so the food tastes....rushed. :/
I forgot what this pasta is called already but it's made with their signature wafu sauce with prawn and mushrooms. Drastic difference in terms of the amount of sauce given with this pasta and the Carbonara that we had the other time.
This pasta tasted more like the spaghetti was just simply coated with soy sauce and a little bit of sugar (cuz it taste both sweet and salty) and nothing else. The spaghetti was super dry and the prawns wasn't as fresh as the other time when I had my prawn soup pasta. Didn't like it :(
And because of our pleasant experience we had with the Potato Mentai Cheese, we ordered it again this time but although it looks the same, it tasted different. This time round the potato wasn't as crispy and the fragrance from the mentai and cheese wasn't as good as the other time. Seriously I think everything was too rushed and the quality was kind of compromised.
But this is still not the worst (for this visit only. The worst visit has yet to come).
The worst is this Doria over here. Same here the prawns wasn't fresh, and the meat had a weird smell to it, worse still, the rice was...just plain rice. There wasn't any baked rice tastes to this Doria. Sighh..
We thought it may be because we came at the rush hour that's why the quality of the food was compromised so we decided to give it a try again recently but this time round it's at their Clarke Quay The Central outlet.
And I tell you, this visit is my worst experience of all.
Firstly, they forgot to serve our mini salads and we had to ask them for it after the pasta were served. That was a small red light for us at the start of the meal.
Ma boy ordered Salmon & Asparagus Cream Spaghetti. This tastes pretty good (Must say the good stuffs first)
I ordered Prawn Yolk Basil Cream Spaghetti. This one wasn't as nice. Moreover, the yolk was a little overcooked compared to the ones I previously had.
Now, the 2nd worst experience belongs to this corn soup. Taste wise, it's as good as the one we had previously. But serving wise, it is god damn little compared to the ones we were served at the Changi Airport outlet.
As you can see from the above image, the Changi Airport outlet's corn soup is being filled all the way to close to the brim of the bowl. Me and ma boy spent a long time trying to finish this delicious soup.
On the other hand, the Clarke Quay one was like half (or maybe slightly lesser than half?) of what was served at the Changi Airport outlet. I had about 2 scoops of the soup in the second picture and hence I have placed an arrow to show the original level of the soup when it was first served to us.
And although the bowls are in different designs, their sizes are about the same and hence the difference in the amount of soup given was significantly obvious. Moreover, we finished the Clarke Quay one in like less than 5 minutes. Very obvious that they gave super little liao lohh.
I didn't know that different outlets will have such a big difference in terms of food serving portion seriously.
But still, this is not the worst.
This is the worst part. This is the Potato Mentai Cheese that the The Central outlet serves.
We ended up returning this horrible dish right back to the kitchen and here are a few pointers on why we did it:
1) It is not served in a teppanyaki pan which the Changi Airport outlet did (and the menu also shows a teppanyaki pan). Instead, it is served on a PLATE with wooden bottom that is clearly supposed to be used with a teppanyaki pan. -.- And yes, there were other tables that was served with the teppanyaki pan so I don't know why ours came up like this.
2) Look at the cheese, mentai and potato. The entire dish looks like an omelette man.
You see the difference? There was no sprinkles of green vegetables like garnishing (sorry I don't know what it's called) on the Clarke Quay outlet one and the cheese looks...undone.
3) The potato is terribly...splashy soft. Not crispy and probably not even fully (and/or properly) cooked. The ones we had at Changi Airport were NEVER this soft. NEVER. So I don't know why the Clarke Quay outlet one tasted this way.
This was the trigger point where we decided to return the dish to the kitchen and asked for it to be redone because it was not like anything we had eaten before and we were CRAVING for it like crazy you know. Can you imagine how disappointing this is. Sigh
And the reason given by the chef that the waiter relayed to us on why the potato tasted like that was because the kitchen had ran out of the type of cheese that the chef was supposed to use to cook this dish and that was why the potato tasted so soft.
I was like "Oh, so you're telling me it's the cheese fault instead of the cooking done on this dish that has caused this potato to taste so soft?". That was what I felt in my heart by the way. I didn't speak to the waiter so harshly after all they are not the ones who cooked the dish.
We told the waiter that this dish was not in anyway the way we had and craved it. It is 100% different which is why we insisted on it being recooked. After that, the chef told the waiter that the outcome of the recipe for this dish is like this so there is nothing he can do about the dish.
So we were asked to pick another dish, which we didn't because there was nothing else we were craving apart from this (disappointing much really) and so we had the Potato Mentai Cheese cancelled out from our order instead.
But seriously, why can two outlets from the same restaurant chain can cook the same dish but the outcome is so freaking different?? Different outlet different recipe ahh? Weird right?
There's really something wrong over here.
The inconsistency is too huge and I hope Pasta De Waraku can work on this issue as well as the consistency in food servings for all their outlets.
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But for now, I will avoid the Clarke Quay outlet for sure and so the next day, during my poly gathering for October, we went to the Changi Airport outlet again because we all were craving for pastaaaaaaa hahahaha (and also me and ma boy are craving the Potato Mentai Cheese very much haha)
Group shot before the food comes in :)
This time round I ordered the trusty Carbonara! :) Look at that nicely done yolk (Y) Love it totally.
The taste is really good (Y)
Ma boy ordered the Prawn Fried Rice this time round because we have yet to try their Fried Rice before. The rice tastes...bland. But at least the prawns were fresh.
MS's wafu clam soup pasta
I forgot what is the name of this pasta but there is bacon and asparagus in it with cream sauce ordered by YD :)
And of course Potato Mentai Cheese again and this time, a properly done one. Cravings truly satisfied for both me and ma boy :D
And lastly, we decided to give their dessert a try and once again, I forgot what is dish called but it's on the last page of their menu haha.
Seriously, it tastes AWESOME!!!!!!! The combination of the matcha ice cream with red beans and toast is just simply fabulous and delicious!! :)
We will definitely order this again :)
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That concludes this long food review and once again, I hope Pasta De Waraku can rectify the inconsistency in recipes and food servings soon so that me and ma boy won't be limited to visiting the Changi Airport outlet only.
But for now, please just go to the Changi Airport outlet and have their delicious pasta as well as potato cheese mentai (rice dishes are not recommended btw cuz they tend to taste blend compared to their pasta :/ after all they are a pasta restaurant) :D
Update 3rd July 2015: Pasta De Waraku at Changi Airport is closed. Sobs :(
Also, if you know any restaurants / hawker stalls / cafes / etc. that serve awesome pastas, PLEASEEEEEEE LEAVE A COMMENT BELOW AND LET ME KNOW!!!
Me and ma boy would love to try them all out! We both love pastas very much seriously hahaha
Informative commentary ! BTW , if anyone was looking for a AZ DoR A-4 , my husband came across a blank version here http://pdf.ac/1ElD5t
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