Cafe de Waraku specializes in Japanese style pastas.  Their business hours are Wed to Mon from 11am to 10 pm and Tues from 5pm to 10pm.  They are located at Central Square in Richmond.  155-4231 Hazelbridge Way. Telephone: (604) 273-8917.

iPanda was going out for dinner with a group of friends one night and decided to stop by Cafe de Waraku.  One of our friends have been to this restaurant multiple times for lunch already. So, I knew it would be pretty good quality because she said that it was pretty good.  Upon settling down in a booth, we were served some hot water.  I found this rather odd because most places would serve tea and not hot water.  However, this is a Japanese style pasta restaurant so I don’t know if it’s customary to serve water.  Japanese green tea would have been nice!

Anyways, there were lots of choices for pasta.  I chose the mixed vegetable creamy pesto sphagetti.  I was impressed by the variety of vegetables in my pasta.  They had cabbage, asparagus as well as green and yellow peppers.  I talked about other restaurants using red and green and yellow peppers HERE.  However, I found that the asparagus balanced out the amount of peppers in this dish very well.  As for the sauce, it was white creamy pesto.  It wasn’t extremely thick so that I was not overwhelmed by the creaminess of it.The cost of this dish was $7.99.  They have a special going on at dinner time where you can add $4 to the cost of the pasta and get either a salad (caesar or garden), a garlic bread, and a drink or soup.  I wasn’t very hungry that night so I didn’t order the additional combo.  As for the lunch special, I think that each meal comes with a free drink.

One of my friends ordered the assorted mushrooms penne for $6.99.  I’ve always prefer sphagetti because I feel like there is more of it.  I’m not sure if others feel the same sometimes.  This penne is topped with dried seaweed slices.  The dish is their original flavour Japanese stir-fried original.  They say that they do not add msg to their dishes.  I sampled a little bit of this and found it to be pretty good but a bit bland for me (Panda loves rich and creamy stuff).  It definitely focused on the original taste of the ingredients.  I also noticed that they had creamy tomato sauce and meat sauce pastas on their menu.  I would love to go back and try these.

My friend ordered the combo and that’s why she also had a cup of coffee.  I was actually most impressed by the coffee because it smelled so good.  It wasn’t like HK style coffee at other cafes because there were frothy bubbles floating at the top.  Even before the cream and sugar were added, it already looked deliciously blended.  I wonder if the milk teas here are just as good.

Who doesn’t love cakes? So we had to finish off the meal with two slices of their homemade cakes.  We ordered the New York cheesecake and the green tea mousse.  I had high hopes for these because I’ve been looking forward to finding another place with delicious Japanese style cakes.

The cheesecake was definitely the better of the two.  The green tea mousse was good but rather regular.

I had hoped that the two layers of cake inside the mousse cake would be made using Japanese cheesecake.  Everyone loves Japanese cheesecake but are often surprised by thier similarity to sponge cake.  I think the green tea mousse would really surprise their customers if they are able to blend the green tea mousse with Japanese cheesecake layered in between.

It would have also been nice if they added some decorative art to the sides of the plate or paired the cakes with mixed fruits on the side.  It has always been the little details in the dishes that make customers want to return for more.

Overall, I think this is a great restaurant.  It is quiet and very clean.  The atmosphere and service here are very friendly.  I hope that they can expand their menu to include other Japanese style food.  Although they have an extensive menu of different pastas, it would be great to come back and be able to try Japanese style pizza, curry, katsu don, or even rice omelet.

They have a coupons page on their website.  But upon looking at them, I realized that they were expired.  Hope those will get updated soon! This is definitely a must try for anyone who hasn’t visited yet.  Good job!