Hello all, shockingly, this isn't one of my delayed posts at all. In fact, this was written literally a day after I went. I was that excited about this experience so I naturally overshared on instagram and on snapchat but of course work got in the way of me writing this post immediately.

I heard so much about the new trial vegan menu from other bloggers and their instagrams and a lot of people have been raving on about their Vegan Seitan Katsu curry. Their curry has been so popular that I saw on Fat Gay Vegan's instagram that it even sold out for awhile. 

I obviously had to try their new items so I went  all the way to Dean Street Wagamama's where their Noodle Lab branch is. If you haven't heard of the Noodle Lab, it is essentially where Wagamama's trial and test their new items. Hence, all the items I have featured here you cannot simply order from any other wagamama's. You gotta go to this one! 

Alisha who was super enthusiastic about getting the Seitan curry decided that we should all leave work right when the clocks turned 5 pm. Due to the curry's popularity we made our way swiftly and anxiously to Noodle Lab in fear that the curry would have been sold out. To be quite honest, had the curry been sold out we both would have been devastated. 

When we got there we pondered over the menu though we already knew what we were in there for and called the waiter over and placed an order for the Seitan Katsu which is actually called the limited edition vegatsu on their menu priced at £8.50. After much deliberation I also ordered the vegetable tempura to go along with my meal.  This was as I knew I would be too full to get a doughnut on my way to the Dua Lipa gig I was going to so I just went for the tempura as well ( as the hip young people say you only live once).

Our food arrived really quickly with the Seitan Curry coming out first followed shortly with the vegetable tempura. I'm going to go over the vegetable tempura first as I only have a very brief few things to say about it. Firstly for £4.50 I thought that it was absolutely delicious. The vegetables were tenderstem broccoli, asparagus, red pepper and sweet potato all in a light and crisp batter.  The sauce that was drizzled on the plate was a sweet and sour sauce.

Before I went, I had not looked up any photos of what the vegetable tempura looked like, instead I saw another one of my co-workers who had went a few days before post a photo of her order on instagram. In the photo she took, the batter looked a lot heavier than what I have featured here. She also mentioned to me that she felt that the batter was a bit too heavy on the tempura. I think it really shows that they listen to feedback at Noodle Lab because there was less batter on ours. In my opinion, I would have liked a bit more batter, but I am not going to be difficult because I absolutely loved how this tasted.

Now on to the main attraction, the Seitan Katsu curry. Apologies that the photo is all the way at the top. It had to be placed there for it to show in my top bar on my site. I'm working on recoding this website as we speak so you won't have to put up with my photos being in odd places for much longer.

The Seitan Katsu was incredible. It came with a side salad which I ate first because I wanted to save the best bit till last.  The Katsu was coated in such crispy panko breadcrumbs which added to the authenticity of the dish. I have tried myself to make Katsu curry from my own home with the Quorn vegan fillets but it isn't the same as often the breadcrumbs just separate from the fillet which is crap. 

Another thing that impressed me about the Katsu was that being someone who used to eat meat, I could definitely feel the 'meatiness' of the seitan when I bit into it. I really think therefore that having alternatives like this does help increase the appeal of veganism to people. It helps show that people who follow the diet or lifestyle are able to eat things other than falafel or salads or as one of my friends affectionally describes the diet 'eating a load of grass'. The sticky rice also went well with the seitan fillet, however as seitan is quite filling, some may struggle to eat of the rice (I did because I was super hungry and being half asian, I fucking love rice). The curry sauce too was impressive, it tasted like any other Japanese curry sauce that you could think of and having been to Japan, this sauce tasted pretty damn authentic. It had a pleasant after taste, unlike some curry sauces that have a more herbal or 'incense' taste to it, very hard to describe but I am so sure that I am not the only one to have experience odd tasting Katsu curry sauce.

Overall I would give this meal a solid 11/10. It was super delicious, everything I had dreamt it to be and I am still dreaming about it today. I just want to go back there every day until they stop doing it to have this meal over and over again. I really hope that this becomes a staple on their national menu. I don't frequently go to wagamama's but if this makes it's national debut I will be going all the time.

Have you tried their noodle lab menu? What do you think about it?! Let me know!