Talk:Wagamama

Comments

The website for Wagamama says "7 what does wagamama mean? translated from japanese it means ' wilful / naughty child'". Obviously translations aren't exact, but should their one be used? Orange Goblin 10:36, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

• Well, I went ahead and changed it back. Orange Goblin 10:29, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

Here is what I found from actually looking up dictionaries.

Daijirin Jiten entry:

My Translation:

Wagamama 1. (noun, na-adjective)

1. To act on one's own circumstance without thinking of others, or such action. Selfishness.
2. The act of indulging oneself.

Wagamama 2. (combined word)

Events that happen as one desires.

Jim Breen's WWJDIC entry:

So if we were to mention what the chain's website says, the source should be clearly noted as such since it isn't a translation -- it neither means naughty nor child. —Tokek 20:28, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Since when do you need a citation for the translation of a word into another language, especially when dictionaries are freely available? I'm going to put this in again, but reword it to make it slightly less "dubious". LeeWilson 10:53, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Non-smoking

1. All restaurants are non-smoking.

Is this a feature? Is smoking in restaurant still alowed around the world? Is my edit ok? Feedyourfeet 12:06, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Not sure about the rest of the Universe, but smoking is still permitted in establishments serving food in Copenhagen until 1 April 2007. After that date, if an establishment is over 100 square metres in size, it must set up a separate smoking room if it is to permit smoking on the premises. Daen 14:17, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

It's in a section which lists features that set it apart from other restaurants: being non-smoking in countries where all restaurants are non-smoking doesn't quite seem to fit. Ian Malone (talk) 15:35, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Fusion Food

Is it really considered Chinese or Southeast Asian in Japan? MaskedEditor 02:57, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

"Japanese-styled non-Japanese Asian food" is what Japanese who went there are calling it. They also warn you to avoid the restaurant and go to a Chinese restaurant instead. --Revth 09:22, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

NPOV and Sources

This article is fairly dire right now - it seems to have been written by someone with a slight vendetta against Wagamama. a) all claims within the article need to be referenced, or they can go, and b) it needs to be re-written from a neutral point of view. _TheIslander 21:20, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

The questionable section (food) seems to have been removed, so I'm going to go ahead and remove the neutrality warning as well. LeeWilson 15:29, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

On "Food"

• First point is correct. Oyster sauce may be used but only sparingly.
• Second point is mostly correct. Sometimes chicken is used, but it is usually steamed instead of grilled. Fried tofu (a tempura?) and beef are not used. Beef is especially avoided as ramen soup is made from chicken, pork, fish, or combination of these three so it doesn't go together well.
• Gyoza is served with a soy sauce-based sauce or you can mix your own from soy sauce, rice vinegar, and Rayu. I'm assuming at Wagamama, you get it with something like sweet-and-sour sauce.
• Coconut-base is never used for Japanese curry. If used, it's called Thai curry in Japan. A larger difference from Thai style curry is the use of roux in Japanese curry.
• In Japan, fried rice will be served with a Chinese style soup instead of miso soup. It's wrong in that it's like serving a bowl of breakfast cereal along with a steak at an "American" restaurant. Sure you can eat it, but you know it doesn't belong there.

I looked at Wagamama's menu and it's essentially Chinese food cleverly named using with Japanese names so people thinks they are eating Japanese food. I can see that it probably works better for them as they can probably find Chinese cooks far easier than Japanese cooks. Also, due to the perception that Chinese food are "cheap" (this shouldn't be true and Chinese are better off working to change it), this was the only way they can make it "cool" and "hip". --Revth 09:48, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Can you provide any citations for these claims? That could really help the article. Thanks. Doctormatt 18:56, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

There are thousands, but unfortunately most are in Japanese, and English language ones are hard to find. I know they do not fit the exact definition of WP:reliable source but I would suggest Wikipedia articles on ramen, gyoza and Japanese curry. Other sources are about.com articles on Japanese curry and ramen. There are plenty of sources which fit WP:reliable source in Japanese, if needed. As for fried rice, I don't think there's any debate as to the fact that it is Chinese food. Phonemonkey 20:19, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Recent citation

I reverted the addition of two recent citations. For one, this is an English encyclopedia and sources really should be in English. For two, the Japanese characters for the name of this restaurant are nowhere on this article or on the restaurant's website, which indicates original research. Third, considering I, and 99.99999% of the users that come to this page, speak English, there is no way for me to verify that "わがまま" is what Wagamama actually stands for. For four, surely we can find an English source for this? I mean...really? This is a UK-based restaurant that developed the name...surely we can find something in English? --13² 04:47, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Update on 9th October 2012

I have updated the article in the following ways:

• Updated restaurant numbers and locations
• Updated financial history with working sources
• Removed references to translations as Japanese characters were not easily verifiable (also the Japanese dictionary that was linked did include the words willfulness and disobedience so the restaurant's description apparently isn't far off the mark)
• Removed reference to company slogan as it no longer seems to be in regular use
• Removed claim that no nutritional info is provided by them as this can be easily found on the menu of their UK website

beeblebrox (talk) 12:03, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

etymology

The restaurant chain is named wagamama after the japanese word,which means selfish. Masterball2 (talk) 03:06, 10 January 2019 (UTC)