Wagamama Hot Honey Fried Chicken with Teriyaki

Wagamama hot honey fried chicken with teriyaki glaze costs £9.90 and carries 806 kcal, the middle child of the fried chicken trio and the crowd's default. The double crunch chicken under hot honey folded into teriyaki, mixed pickles and zesty vegan mayo beside, familiar sweetness with a chilli hum underneath.

Teriyaki plus hot honey is comfort arithmetic: the soy caramel depth everyone recognises, sweetened further and warmed with chilli, over chicken fried to the shattering standard the whole trio shares. Where the yuzu glaze asks a question and the firecracker picks a fight, this one simply satisfies, which is why tables with mixed heat tolerance land on it more than either sibling.

It pays for the comfort in sugar: at 39 g this is the sweetest plate of the trio and one of the sweetest savoury items in the building, worth knowing before it joins other glazed dishes at a table. Calories at 806 kcal sit mid trio, the protein at 37 g leads it by a nose, and the salt is the highest of the three.

One price covers the trio, so how much is the teriyaki fried chicken answers itself at £9.90, and the real question is the pairing: this glaze fights every teriyaki main on the menu for obvious reasons, so keep it away from the donburi bowls and soba plates that share its sauce logic.

Its best company is contrast, the chilli squid for salt and crunch, the smashed cucumber for relief, and a ginger kombucha whose sharpness does what the pickles do in liquid form. Families note: mild children eat this happily where the firecracker version would end in tears.