Wagamama Tofu Firecracker

Wagamama tofu firecracker costs £15.90 and carries 1252 kcal, and it settles an argument vegans have been having with menus for years: the hottest regular dish in the building has a fully plant based version that concedes nothing. Fried tofu wok tossed with mangetout, peppers, onion and hot red chillies in the sweet firecracker glaze, shichimi and sesame over white rice, marked both vegan and gluten free.

Tofu turns out to be the best canvas the firecracker sauce gets. Where chicken holds the glaze on its surface, fried tofu's crust drinks it in, so the sweetness and the fire arrive inside the bite rather than around it. The whole dried chillies do their usual ambush work, the blistered vegetables crunch, and the shichimi lays its citrus dust over everything. Nobody at the table is being consoled with this plate.

The honest numbers: at 1252 kcal it is the heaviest of the three firecracker versions, for the same reason the tofu raisukaree outweighs its siblings, fried tofu drinks oil and sauce alike. The sugar sits around 35 g like the rest of the trio, the protein at a solid 29 g, and the price, published by wagamama, is the lowest of the three, which makes it the cheapest route to the menu's biggest heat.

For the record on how much is the tofu firecracker: £15.90 standard, with the usual climb at London and airport sites. Vegan, gluten free marked and genuinely fierce at once, it is close to unique on UK high streets. Start with the bang bang cauliflower if the table wants plant based heat stacked on heat, or calm the meal with edamame and a ginger kombucha.