We went to Wagamama’s last night…

[Starrylawn]

We had one main course each, some edamame, some cucumbers, two glasses of wine and two soft drinks.

What do you think this cost in this day and age?

I used to love Wagamama years ago, it was well priced and the portions were big.

We can’t afford to eat out as a family. Maybe twice a year when we go away for a week. And I’d never have alcohol with a meal. I’m not paying out for one little glass of wine when I can get a bottle for a fiver from Aldi (I’m not a wine snob, it all tastes the same to me).

I was diagnosed with coeliac a few years ago anyway, so eating out isn’t worth the hassle.

Lol. This is mumsnet. Since when did commenting mean you care??

We eat there every few months and only get mains. Otherwise the price jumps very quickly especially when it’s for a 40 minute meal. So I do understand your point.

We went for lunch the other day: 1 starter, 2 mains, 1 posh lemonade and 1 small fruit juice - was around £60 😳

I disagree on portion size though - I barely managed half of my teppenaki noodles dish, it was huge.

Agree and I'm fed up of poor service. Another meal not one waiting staff ever took away any glasses from our table even to the point of regareanging the forest of glasses on our table to rent and get our puddings down ??

Of course I can ask them to.remove them which i did in the end but a meal out shpuldnt be about me having to direct staff and worry about Clean tables. How hard is it to organise this ??

Don't come away from a table empty handed ?

I was looking at several high end places because it's been a significant bday year and I'm put off so many becusee of reports of bad service and food !

Wine also pushes up the prices in the UK. The wine was probably a quarter of the total bill.

When did you last visit the US? My sister was in California earlier this year and said eating out was around double London prices.

Your experience of Europe also feels somewhat out of date to me. Gone are the days when eating out in most of Europe felt cheap to a Brit. In the last year I’ve spent time in France, Luxembourg, Belgium, Switzerland and Germany and eating out in all of those places was at least as expensive as London.

15+ years ago things used to mostly feel cheaper abroad, but that’s not the case now.

As an aside we have a local indepenant Korean retaurant near us and that does amazing bento.boxes for 12 quid etc

Oh ffs, there’s always one..

Id have estimated the same. Strange post though as you can see the prices of pretty much everywhere online these days before you go so not that hard to choose a place that suits your budget, plus the menu has the prices on there before you order so how can the bill be that much of a surprise. 😬

That’s cheap, I’d have expected north of 100, wine usually bumps it up. 2 glasses each in 40 mins is quite a pace as well 😀

£70

About 15-20 for a main
Another 8 for a starter
10 for 2 soft drinks and 14 for 2 wines
This would be the rough price for a chain nowadays, so £79 possibly on the dearer end of normal.

I think she means 2 glasses (1 each)

Well was it 2 people who had 2 drinks each or 4 people? Can’t guess as number of people unclear. In saying that we are a family of 5 and it costs us about £130 last time we went for lunch.

In addition she could have ordered the cheapest thing on the menu and surreptitiously sneaked a meal she prepared at home onto the plate.

The free green tea is so lovely in Wagamamas though. I feel like the cost of our meals there aren't so bad because I can get the green tea and I'm not paying the drink cost on top. It is a huge plus of here over elsewhere for me.

Foe me the beauty of wagamama is that it's fast. I'd rather pay £40 per person to be eating a main meal in 15 minutes than the same in a restaurant that has barely got the starters going in that time.

Both DH and I are decent ' ethnic" cooks. DH made an amazing Thai curry last week for maybe a pound per serving, and I can make better Indian food than most restaurants. The trick is laying in spices.

But they do have different minimum wages, business rates, rent and utility costs

I was expecting it to be around £85 so wasn’t far off. The quality in Wagas has gone downhill recently as well. I used to eat there a lot and haven’t been for ages. The food is reasonably priced, it’s not cheap but it’s fresh and used to be decent recipes and quality.

And at that price I'd expect for both main courses to arrive at the same time. Wagamama don't appear to be able to do this - even when specifically asked.

I don't want to "share" my meat eating partner's food, thank you very much!

We just got from holiday. 2 adults 2 kids and we reckoned we spent about 200 quid a day on food alone. For 2 weeks that is A LOT!

I would estimated £80.
We ate out in a lovely Italian place last night, 3 courses, 2 glasses of wine plus side salad , padron peppers and a shot of Amaretto. £120 including £15 tip. Great value

£20 a head without booze or sides, easily £40 a head with alcohol, soft drinks and a side order each. Wagamama has never been particularly cheap for what it is; it's reliably OK and acceptably healthyish and coolish without being groundbreaking. An office worker's desk lunch of Pret salad, fruit and a drink is, what, about £15 now? Back in the 00s I used to be able to regularly get a full lunch at Pret on a recent graduate salary and I doubt anyone does that now.

We went 2 of us. £43. No alcohol
Thats why the teens all have pre drinks. @Starrylawn
Drinks are where you were got!
We had a main meal each and 1 side.