My experiences at Waraku have been mixed. But I definitely wanted to give this Japanese pasta offshoot of theirs a try (The Central #02-82/83, 6534-8085, with another location at Marina Square). Sure, one can get things like spaghetti mentaiko elsewhere if you know where to look. But this was a dedicated shop with much more variety...and that huge display wall of plastic food sure made a number of items look good.
I went for the Hokkaido corn and butter variety (really...how could one resist with such a huge chunk of butter on top?). The noodles came out nice and firm, but the cream sauce was a touch on the sweet side. This wasn't completely unexpected, but it was pushing the limits of what I could tolerate for sweetness. (That cream sauce was used in several other of their plates too, so just be mindful of that if your taste buds have an aversion to sweet things like mine do.) Fortunately, I could still finish the whole thing without much trouble.
Similarly, the daikon sarada, while fine at its base, was overloaded with an inch-thick carpet of bonito flakes on top (you ended up tasting more fish than daikon). So while my mixed experiences with Waraku have continued, this is place is worth a visit if you're curious to try a Japanese interpretation of Italian pasta. Just make sure that you come with an expectation for Japanese flavors rather than Italian.
2 comments:
hello! i stumbled across your blog a couple months ago (i just got here to sg--i'm from the bay area too) and have been looking around a bit from time to time. recently though, the places you've written about are close to home--i live in the little india area, and i had made a res @ waraku yesterday (but cxld--still have to try that place). the coincidences have spurred me to actually comment and ask, is there a way to communicate with you directly? i'd love to chat and get recs about food & restaurants with a fellow CA-n. :)
Maybe you could try the "soup" pastas. I had horrible experiences at both the Japanese & Pasta de Waraku. The oba leaf at Waraku burnt to ash, leaving charred bits on my food, this despite their boast that it would not. And all I got was a curt sorry at the payment counter.
Similarly, I had yellowed salad leaves at Pasta de Waraku and a staunch refusal to waive the service charge.
Waraku is not getting my business anymore.
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