The boy with the chilli sauce

On the back of one of the comments by Alex on my last blog post (link here, if you’re interested), I realise that I’ve turned a bit of a blind eye to the benefits of Asian food in being milk-free. In the interests of shameless self promotion, here is the guest blog about aforementioned Alex on his travels around Asia (currently) as written by his wife, Rachel. The truth is, with my wife being a beautiful combination of English, Scottish and Chinese-Malay (and with Singapore in particular being a key location of importance in her family’s history), Asian food is so common-place in our cuisine that I forget to talk about it separately.

I have always loved Indian food and own just about every spice I can get my hands on in order to make a large range of curries. To make it a shameless hat-trick of blatent self-promotion: here is the post in which I talk about curry luring me out of vegetarianism – link. Chinese food came a little later, once I’d met my wife. A general appreciation of Thai, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Malaysian etc… food has come over time as a result of becoming more comfortable with eating out. In particular, helped by a honeymoon 7 (!) years ago in Singapore and Bali (I know, I know…).

For all the restaurants I’ve talked about for being positive for allergy information, I’ve never really written about the credit that the chain Wagamama’s deserve. I really like their food and am never disappointed whenever I visit. However, the one glaring issue for us is that the food is soya-heavy! It’s brilliant (without the need for substitutions) for avoiding milk, but as Japanese-Chinese fusion; a lot of the meals contain soya. As a result, our options are limited (I go soya-free when the three of us eat out so that we can all share).

Despite this, we found ourselves in a busy Windsor city-centre on Saturday after a vigorous 2-hours of ‘swimming’. I say swimming, Piglet is no Michael Phelps yet but he’s been to Water Babies swimming lessons nearly every week since he was about 6-weeks old and he LOVES it! His confidence in the water is terrifying and he loves spinning around in the water, jumping in off the side and going down the slides. This exertion leaves us all feeling pretty exhausted and having stayed out longer than we’d realised (we must have been in the pool for about 90 mins!); lunch was too pressing to go back home and prepare.

I was quietly pleased when the first place we visited was too busy to get a table having already decided that Wagamama’s would be our backup option. It was busy too but we were sat fairly quickly and I realised that we’d been served by the waitress before, having previously left a very good impression. We were easily given the allergen menu and it was easy to see which options were suitable. They give a fantastic level of detail in being able to say whether a meal contains an allergen as an ingredient, has cross-contamination risks despite not being an ingredient and, most useful for soya, whether the meal can be modified to remove that ingredient. Even better, if you choose a meal to be modified, they have a document that lists what the substitution would involve so you know what you’re getting. It’s worth knowing because some modifications are more drastic than others.

Eating lunch, we tried to go for an element of self-restraint but probably still ordered more than we needed. We ordered a Ginger Chicken Udon (modified) and a Chicken Samla curry with two of the side dishes (pork steamed buns and battered prawns). Knowing that some of the options might be quite spicy and not sure what he would like, the plan was to share all-four with Piglet.

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It’s the little touches that make a big difference. On asking for tap water for each of us, two big glasses with ice are brought out for us two adults and a slightly smaller plastic ‘glass’ with no ice is brought for Piglet. Exactly what we would have wanted without having to ask.

As is the case with Wagamama’s, dishes come as and when they’re ready. The curry turned up first and was notably spicy at first taste. I gave a little bit to a hungry Piglet and he gobbles it down with delight. No gasping or panic drinking of water, just “more chicken, please”. The curry comes (on request) with brown rice and Piglet works his way through spoonfuls of this until the prawns arrive. These he tries to eat from the shell covered end until I intervene and tear one open to blow until cool enough to eat. Watching mummy dip them in the spicy chilli sauce – he decides he wants some too. I dip a cooled piece of prawn into the slightest trace of chilli sauce (it’s hot!) and wait to see his reaction. His eyes widen, he pants a bit and reaches, desperately, for his water. I start to feel like a bad dad – who in their right mind feeds sriracha sauce to their 2-year-old?! He tells us that it’s spicy, “spicy! I like spicy”, and asks for more. Before you know it he’s worked his way through half the prawns and most of the chilli sauce. I think I got half of one in total!

Despite being tired from a lot of swimming and a slightly late lunch, Piglet worked his way through a share of all four dishes. The only thing he didn’t want to eat was the coriander leaf in the steamed buns (he doesn’t like leaves but the chilli sauce is fine)! The very kind waitress even brings Piglet a spring loaded set of chopsticks to use which he delights in eating the noodles with. By the time she comes back to collect the plates there’s barely a morsel left on any of them. Three happy customers.

The only slight bugbear, and the reason we don’t eat there more often, is that the bill works out as quite a bit more than I’d reckoned. £45 for two main dishes, two sides and two large smoothies. Even the waitress, I think before biting her tongue, commented that she was surprised it was so much. I remind myself that, as good as it is, it’s a treat rather than a default eating out option. It really is the only thing I’d change about the experience though.

To continue Piglet’s chilli education – I made Chicken Fajitas on Sunday night from an old Jamie Oliver recipe I’ve used for a few years. I deliberately make this fairly mild but we serve it on the table with pickled jalapenos. Three-chilli-rated-hot pickled jalapenos… Again, seeing mummy and daddy eating them, Piglet wants to try them. Chilli sauce is one thing but even a tiny bit of pickled chilli could be a big mistake. It doesn’t seem fair to deny him any just as an arbitrary rule so I cut the tiniest slither that I can and pass it to him on a fork. I’m nervous as he takes a bite and I can instantly see that it’s hit him. He coughs a bit and downs his entire glass of water. ‘Too much’, I think to myself. After composing himself on a second glass of water yet again he says, “more, please”. I can barely believe it. But he means it. Over the course of the rest of the meal he genuinely works his way through two whole slices of jalapeno. I tell you what, Piglet, you’re your mother’s son. But you don’t half make me proud.