Wagamama Beef Brisket + Kimchee Gyoza

Wagamama beef brisket and kimchee gyoza cost £9.20 for five and carry 232 kcal, the Korean accented corner of the gyoza list. Steamed dumplings filled with slow cooked brisket and kimchee, served with a zingy yuzu dipping sauce, the same braised beef and fermented cabbage logic as the brisket bao in dumpling form.

The filling is the most complex on the gyoza page: brisket brings the deep slow cooked base, kimchee ferments through it with sour heat, and the yuzu sauce answers from outside with citrus instead of the soy the other plates lean on. The three make a loop, rich, sour, sharp, that keeps a five dumpling plate interesting to the last one, which plainer fillings cannot claim.

The numbers sit comfortably between their siblings: 232 kcal for the plate, 9 g of protein, modest sugar and salt figures that reflect steam rather than fry. Like all the gyoza they are portion arithmetic that spares the main, and like the chicken plate they vanish faster than five dumplings should reasonably vanish.

The published price of £9.20 matches the duck plate, and on the question of how much are the brisket gyoza the fairer comparison is thematic: they are the starter that previews the tantanmen ramen and the brisket donburi, and tables planning either sometimes discover the preview beats skipping ahead.

They belong in front of the bowls that share their logic, tantanmen above all, and they hold their own beside plainer company that needs a loud guest. The yuzu sauce is worth a moment of attention alone, the only citrus led sauce on the page and the reason kimchee sceptics finish converted.