Wagaya

Ordering via touch screen is lots of fun, and service is excellent, but merely adequate food lets this place down. We ordered lots of sushi, sashimi, a hotpot, skewers and takoyaki — all fine but nothing remarkable. There are much better places for Japanese food in Sydney, but this place deserves points for fun, service and great vibe!

Brilliant concept of ordering via a touch screen. Food is delicious and made with care.
My only issue is it’s too easy to keep ordering and rack up a huge bill! Not to say each dish is expensive — they are fair priced — but if you go overboard, the price can compound.

There’s something about not dealing with human customer service that makes a dining experience so much more enjoyable. Lord knows I like this ordering style best. We encountered these types of restaurants in Japan alot but first time here in Sydney.
You go through an unsuspecting entrance from the street, upstairs to a nice décor establishment.
We sat at a booth which had a touch screen panel menu on the wall next to the table to place our orders. It was all so very simple and straightforward. All the menu items had good descriptions and clear pictures. What we ordered on the screen, ended up exactly on our table. The food came out very fast and was actually tasty. We were there around opening hours so it was only starting to build up and we got seating straight off. They have larger tables for group dining. If you must deal with staff, you can still ask questions of them, as they are walking around serving fast and regularly. The ramen here wasn’t too bad also, my tonkotsu was just too much pork for me. The sushi nigiri was fresh, not as good as finer Japanese dining but better than the usual sushi train styles.
Watch yourself on the drink ordering, you can get easily carried away ordering drink after drink and lose track of what you ordered, classic mistake. Although you can choose to see what you’ve ordered so far on the screen.
Probably the fastest I’ve ever received the cheque before. Press a button and boom, bills on the table. I fricken love that, none of the old trying to make eye contact and flag down a disinterested waiter routine that I despise.
All in all a pleasure eating here and will gladly return.

Located across the street from Haymarket, Wagaya is a japanese restaurant with both sushi train + tapas-​style japanese food.
Service — O.K. Since one orders through the touch screen, one saves the frustration of trying to flag down a server or missing an order etc. However, the servers dont really come and check on your table, you might need to go find one yourself shall you need something.
Food — Hit and miss.
I think this would be a great place to hang out with friends, order and share many different dishes. But if you are looking for decent japanese food, I wouldn’t recommend Wagaya.

Wagaya Haymarket serves consistently good tapas. I love the iPad ordering — and despite the busy-​ness of the place (and it’s a pretty large place!), service is super fast and food comes out quickly. Reservations are highly recommended because this place gets crazy busy!

Fun atmosphere and great food. One of my favorite sushi places of all time. I have not been to a ton though. So take it at what it’s worth.

Went to a surprise birthday here and got a private room, there were at least 15 people there. The atmosphere was cool but the sitting arrangement was strange, the seats were half in the ground half above. sounds weird? Because it was! So difficult to get up and back down! It was a massive pain!
That was the only thing that ruined the experience, other than that the food was great and the service was also awesome. The ordering process was nice and easy, the fact that it is self ordering from the room on a screen makes ordering fast and easy and you can really take your time ordering.
The sushi was nice and fresh and the chicken dishes were flavoursome, the portions were pretty small but the prices weren’t terribly expensive, with the in room ordering it made it way to easy to order, especially in a bigger room where there is 2 screens to order! Very hard to police who is ordering what.
Overall it was a cool place to go with nice food and good friendly service.

Wagaya ‘s food are good quality and staffs are nice and helpful, also you can order on the computers

Wagaya not only has great food and a huge variety, it’s a lot of fun to order. i’ve been here several times and every single time with a group of friends. best to go with a group a friends so you can order a variety of things as the menu is pretty extensive. what makes it fun is that everything is available on a touchscreen monitor that is at the end of your table. from drinks to main dishes, everything is handled thru the touchscreen. it also provides you updates to the status of your order and total costs of your meal at that point in time.
the food is great here and it comes out almost as you submit your order. the must try is the sushi roulette. 6 pieces of salmon nigiri are served, but with 1 having extra wasabi. each person tries one and waits till one reacts to all the wasabi. the bill can get a little out of hand if you’re not careful especially if you’re drinking. most dishes are fairly priced which allows you to try all sorts of dishes.
not sure how this would do with a couple, but it is lots and lots of fun with a group of friends. just make sure you keep an eye on the bill!

the screens are fun, but the food is nothing special and the fish is not very fresh (you can tell by the color and taste of the fish). the quality of the food was really inconsistent. the same dish could be really good the first time around and when we ordered another one, it would be cold and a bit off. i was really disappointed in this place. the service also is terrible. we were there for a mate’s birthday and it just did not live up to expectations. we made a complaint about one of the items (on our $ 200+ bill and b/​c it tasted awful) and the manager (Yuko) was extremely rude and basically told us that she could not replace or cancel the item and other people like this item. this place just left a really bad taste in my mouth. will not be going back.

For a change I went to this fine establishment a) in daylight hours and b) not rat-​arsed during a big night out.
And I was pleasantly surprised that it still managed to live up to the somewhat beer-​goggled view one tends to have of anything to eat after 47 drinks and after midnight.
Touch screen ordering is a novelty that from a efficiency perspective pays of really well — you order as and when you like and hey-​presto! Automagickally food appears soon thereafter.
The food is good workmanlike Japanese — it isn’t the best in town, but it is routinely of good quality and presentation. The staff are helpful, although English is sometimes challenging.
Easy to over-​order, specially if with a crowd of folks who have imbibed one or two refreshments previously.
The wine list is OK but I think the storage of it must be crap as I had a pinot that I know is OK and it was pretty ordinary — so BYO is the go, or drink Asahai and sake — they got plenty of both!
Generally expect to wait for a table unless you book, get there early or belong to their club. Generally a pretty short wait, however.
Enjoy!

Nice atmosphere, some Japanese beer on tap, food is average. I also like how it’s open until late.

Brilliant! The food here is fast fresh and good. Th touch screens are an excellent and authentic to the real japanese restaurant experience. We come here fairly often and always have a great time. We once got a big group of friends together and booked a room and had an awesome time!

Wagaya combines two of my great loves; Japanese food and ordering things through a touch screen.
The food is good, not the best Japanese in Sydney, but still good. We ordered a bevy of dishes, the highlights being the soft shell crab and the sushian roulette (6 pieces of sushi, 1 packed with wasabi).
Despite the touch screen eliminating almost all need for human interaction the service was still a little poor with staff trying to kick us out only an hour after we got there, claiming it was a condition of our booking.
My only tip would be to keep an eye on how much you are ordering, it is really easy to go overboard.

Affordable Japanese food here as long as you don’t go overboard with the snazzy touchscreens. Check the total amount for the check, so you don’t get any nasty surprises.
They do accept credit cards/​EFT, and do group payments (min is 3 credit cards), so if your group orders more than how much cash you’re carrying then it may help a little.
(note: no refunds once you order! particularly if you’re going to order a bottle of sake.)

You’re not coming here for excellent food — you’re coming to press the bright coloured buttons on the computer screen when you order your meal. Wagaya is a small taste of Japan in the heart of China Town.
It’s food is good — not amazing… but did I tell you they have a computer touch screen that allows your to preview your dishes before you order?
Wagaya has a beautiful set up — which each person getting their own booth — and although it gets quite crowded you seem to still have the feeling of having your own space.
My fun recommendation would be to try sushi — roulette — a dish which has 6 pieces of rice with salmon sashimi on top — 5 are normal and one has a GIANT serving of Wasabi inside… Lucky for me, I didn’t get the wasabi bomb, but it was fun to watch the guy who did.
A fun place which is more about atmosphere than food — did I mentioned they have touch screen computers??? :p

Trust the Japanese to come up with touch-​screen ordering. At first its a novelty, but then you realise just how efficient the whole process is. There is no waiting around for a waitress/​waiter to come serve you, or any chance of mis-​communication. Its all up there on the screen. Even the table water can be ordered via the touch screen priced at $ 0 lol.
So the result of all this is, food is coming out faster and it gives you the freedom to pace yourself, as I always tend to order too much food.
The food is pretty good and priced well. And they serve Sapporo beer, which is one of my favourite beers ever since my last trip to Japan. The sushi roulette is a cute idea but make sure you order it when with people who can’t take wasabi. I know I’m pretty evil haha.
Overall, its one of my favourite casual Japanese restaurants and highly recommended.

For all tech-​savvy people out there, Wagaya is definitely with it. Touch screen ordering ipads at every table makes it simple, quick and fun to order. Be warned though if your overly eager fingers traipse across the screen, the servings are quite small and you may end up with a much larger bill than planned.
Although the food is reasonably priced, it’s not recommended for heavy eaters. There are heaps of different dishes to choose from, and the food is categorised to make finding your favourites that much easier. I have a few friends that are terrified of eating eel but the dragon rolls, which is eel with a smoky bbq sauce and cream cheese is enough to tempt even them. The service is quite speedy, so no more waiting for table water as the staff zip from one booth to the next. On busy nights waiting for a table can be the pits because it gets heaps of customers who are coming from Darling Harbour.
For bigger groups, it’s recommended you book out private rooms in advance. If you do get one, you’ll get a feel for an authentic Japanese dinner, with a low table and floor cushions to kneel on. I’ve heard a fair bit about this place and I’ll admit that I haven’t tried their sushi roulette (salmon rolls where one has a nasty wasabi surprise) but that’s definitely the next fun thing on my Wagaya agenda!