Seeking a new place to meet last Saturday afternoon we arranged to check out the recently opened Japanese WA Cafe. The website is pretty trendy, and accurately represents the cool and fresh vibe that is also present inside.
The large glass door at the entrance has a funny little pink button to the right to automatically open it, but before you enter you can already see the beautiful line up of glamorous looking pastries and cakes at the counter. The decor is extremely bright, elegant and modern - providing a lively space to entice you into the unusual section of treats to take away or enjoy sitting in.
We met at 2:30pm and the cafe was pretty busy - but we found a small table and the turn over seemed to be relatively fast so we also nabbed another to make enough space for the four of us. It was bustling in a nice way, and not such that it intruded with our own conversation.
As for the food, an exciting array of unusual cakes, pastries and snacks were lined up in rows, full of colour and unusual names. The staff were good and explained anything we didn't understand. One online review summed it up well I think - the cafe has is something of a French influenced patisserie by sight, but uses Japanese ingredients we are less familiar with. Soba tea - made with buckwheat, some coffees, the sesame cheesecake, bread and butter pudding and a Japanese style sausage roll were on our order. All beautifully presented. The cakes certainly delivered, and provided an unusual sweet treat, but were well balanced. The sausage roll was a sausage cut in two and embedded in both ends of the pastry - so sausage-less in the middle - which was a bit of a surprise.
The website has a menu so it will entice us go back and try some more of the cakes on offer soon. All in all a great and different way to spend a Saturday afternoon.
The large glass door at the entrance has a funny little pink button to the right to automatically open it, but before you enter you can already see the beautiful line up of glamorous looking pastries and cakes at the counter. The decor is extremely bright, elegant and modern - providing a lively space to entice you into the unusual section of treats to take away or enjoy sitting in.
We met at 2:30pm and the cafe was pretty busy - but we found a small table and the turn over seemed to be relatively fast so we also nabbed another to make enough space for the four of us. It was bustling in a nice way, and not such that it intruded with our own conversation.
As for the food, an exciting array of unusual cakes, pastries and snacks were lined up in rows, full of colour and unusual names. The staff were good and explained anything we didn't understand. One online review summed it up well I think - the cafe has is something of a French influenced patisserie by sight, but uses Japanese ingredients we are less familiar with. Soba tea - made with buckwheat, some coffees, the sesame cheesecake, bread and butter pudding and a Japanese style sausage roll were on our order. All beautifully presented. The cakes certainly delivered, and provided an unusual sweet treat, but were well balanced. The sausage roll was a sausage cut in two and embedded in both ends of the pastry - so sausage-less in the middle - which was a bit of a surprise.
The website has a menu so it will entice us go back and try some more of the cakes on offer soon. All in all a great and different way to spend a Saturday afternoon.
| Summary score table /5 | |
| Food Deliciousness: | 3.5 |
| Drinks Tastiness: | 3 |
| Service Skills: | 3 |
| Atmospheric Vibes: | 4 |
| Recommendation Score for a Casual Eve: | 4 |
| Recommendation Score for Showing off Ealing: | 5 |
| Total average score: | 3.75 |
