Wagamamas to me was always part of a huge chain, but with good quality food. I didn't know much about them and I had no idea how much they like to get involved with charities. I was invited down to the restaurant in Gunwharf Quays, Portsmouth to meet the head chef and learn about how they have teamed up with the charity 'Mind'. 'Mind' are a mental health charity who provide support and advice as well campaigning to improve peoples understanding of mental health illnesses.
The whole Wagamama x Mind campaign revolves around Mindfulness, with training your thoughts and attention in your daily life to live your best life, as well as mindful eating. Thinking about what you put in your body and stopping to appreciate what you are eating.
"We won't give up until everyone experiencing a mental health problem gets support and respect" - 'Mind' Charity.
We started off enjoying a Positive Juice. It has a mix of Pineapple, Apple, Lime, Spinach and Cucumber to give you a great hit of serotonin, stress busting quercetin, vitamin c and energising vitamin b. It's basically health in a glass, and best of all it tastes amazing!! We had a special menu to choose our dinner from that incorporate at least three of the five senses in the body. Sight, Scent, Sound, Taste and Touch.
Whilst enjoying our food, the Head Chef told us all about how the ingredients for their dishes are fresh and sustainably sourced. They recycle everything they possibly can and making sure all of the food is fresh. They care about what they serve to their customers, which shows in the quality and taste of the food with all of the combining flavours.
We started off with the edamame including hearing, touch and taste into the mix with the pop and crunch of the pods as well as the salty taste and the fresh pure beans. We chose to have them with a salt topping, but you can also have them topped with chilli too. My mum had to choose from a different menu for her main, as she is gluten free (not by choice but medically) and this means she had a whole different menu, as well as her food being prepared completely separately with the utmost care. How cool!
I originally chose the Chilli Chicken Ramen and ordered it for my main meal. This had all five senses, sight, hearing, scent, touch and taste.
(The meals shown above is the ramen and the warm chilli salad)
What I didn't realise, is that i didn't like ramen. It just wasn't for me! Everyone else who ordered really enjoyed it but I just found it difficult to eat and not right for me. So I sat and nibbled some edamame and watched everyone else enjoy their food. What I didn't know is their policy on try new foods. If you don't like your food, because they are encouraging you to try new things they allow you to change your dish when they come around to check how your food is! I told him I wanted to try it but I really didn't like it and couldn't eat it but was starving, so he asked me what else I wanted and I pointed at the Donburi that Brogan had in front of me.
Not too long later my new dish arrived and it was absolutely amazing! It had so much flavour and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I would 100% recommend this dish and I finished all of it right to the bottom!! It's great how they let you try before you decide eh!
Overall I had a great night, and loved thinking consciously about what I was eating, as well as getting all of the health benefits from the juice!
Until the 6th March 2018, Wagamamas will be donating 25p of every positive juice purchased, to the mental health charity Mind as part of the WagamamaxMind campaign. If you want to get involved, pop along and drink some juice!
Find them on Instagram here: @wagamama_uk
SEE MY YOUTUBE VIDEO OF THE WHOLE EXPERIENCE HERE:
https://youtu.be/qajM3qjJ6ck
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