Wagamama Chicken Gyoza

Wagamama chicken gyoza cost £8.50 for five and carry 195 kcal, the plainest and most ordered dumplings in the building. Steamed chicken gyoza with a chilli, soy and sesame dipping sauce, the plate almost everyone's first wagamama order includes and the one regulars never quite drop from the ritual, whatever else the table experiments with.

Steam rather than fry is the choice that defines them against most UK dumpling expectations. The wrapper stays soft and slightly translucent, the chicken filling reads clean and gingery, and the dipping sauce supplies the salt, heat and toast the dumpling itself politely withholds. It makes them the lightest possible start to a heavy meal, and the sauce ritual, dip, drip, eat, is half the pleasure of ordering them.

The numbers explain their role perfectly: 195 kcal for a plate of five is starter arithmetic that leaves every main on the menu affordable afterwards, with around 8 g of protein and the second lowest sugar figure of any composed plate wagamama serves. Nothing about them needs to be planned around, which is precisely what a starter should offer and rarely does on modern menus.

The price at £8.50 is published, and asking how much are chicken gyoza at wagamama mostly matters as a benchmark: they anchor the cheapest end of the shareable plates, undercut only by their own vegetable sibling. Between two people a single plate disappears in ninety seconds, so tables that know themselves order one each and stop pretending.

Pair them under a mild bowl like the grilled chicken ramen and the meal stays gentle end to end, or use them as the calm before a firecracker. The pickled ginger habit from the yaki soba pages works here too if you ask for it.