笑笑居樂屋 Warawara Japanese Casual Restaurant

Warawara

Mongkok

Yeah! Finally, I’ve come to Hong Kong again for the third time this year to ‘celebrate’ Christmas and have a good holiday with my parents. But of course, managed to seize the opportunity to meet some of my uni friends. Met L and J tonight and we had a great dinner and conversation with loads of banter. Am so glad that I have met these people in the Chemistry department and I can still vividly remember how we shared a fumehood doing experiments together. And now, we are all working adults already. Time flies but relationships stay (if they are worth staying)!

So, we went to Mongkok as I just arrived this evening and am staying at Royal Plaza Mong Kok east. I have to say that HK has a great night life, very lively even in the wee hours. I felt so energetic while walking along the streets of Mong Kok. OK, and so we randomly went to this Japanese restaurant called warawara Japanese casual Restaurant which appeared to be pretty good and wallet friendly too actually.

Was a really quick Christmas present I got from the airport as I was working all the way till Friday before that.

We got the tonkatsu with egg rice. Tonkatsu was crispy on the outside and skin wasn’t soggy while the rice grains were also fragrant.

Oo. I love this unagi egg. Warm, soft egg on the outside which wraps the soft, moist piece of unagi in between. The sauce was also flavourful, slightly sweet and tastes like teriyaki sauce.

Cheese wanton. The first time I’ve had a fried cheese wanton. I like the fact that cheese isn’t too heavy, just right and skin was thin. As I’m not a fan of cheese, this wasn’t my favourite but thought was good enough.

I forgot the name of this tofu but it was the only tofu dish on the menu. The batter was well fried and super crispy even though there was quite a little  bit of sauce drizzled onto it. It’s prepared a little similar to agedashi tofu but the sauce used here wasn’t as light. The onion slices were also stir fried before and makes the dish fragrant.

Teriyaki chicken pizza with mayonnaise. This actually reminded of the teriyaki chicken bread with mayo we had in Singapore. Taste is very similar. The crust of the pizza here isn’t like the Italian ones that we have but is still pretty delicious. It’s quite an imaginable taste. A simple but good combination of teriyaki and mayo.

Grilled mackerel which I think was quite well prepared. The skin was crispy and you could hear the ‘gutz’ sound when you poke it with your chopsticks. The flesh was moist too but I think I squeezed too much lemon into it and it tasted a little too sour for my taste buds. Nonetheless, it’s still good.

Warawara serves very simple, traditional Japanese food and its taste is very much expected. Actually this reminds me of a restaurant in London – Asauka but of a much better price. Despite its simplicity, I would say it’s a very good place to go for a gathering still as food is decent and price isn’t exorbitant. We spent about HKD$350 for 3 people and that is really a very good price. Have to thank J for giving us a treat cos he has just started work recently. Dor ze sai! I can’t wait to see more of these HK friends on 23rd Dec again.

And before leaving to our respective homes, we got a picture along the busy streets of Mong Kok!