The Japanese are really great at marketing, aren’t they?

Who can resist walking into a restaurant when tempted by this!

Japanese plastic food displays have been around since before I was born and they always look better than the real food being served, but I’m still suckered by them every time. Of course, it helps that, in general, Japanese food actually tastes good.

Anyway, although I always find myself drawn to yummy-looking silicon sushis and parfaits (I would just stand at the window and gawk endlessly), I’ve been successful at managing my temptations, only very ocassionally caving in and allowing myself to be lured into a restaurant.

But Pasta de Waraku is something else altogether. They have like a hundred plates of shiny, mouth-watering pastas on display. Pastas you’ve never seen before. Pastas you simply must eat.

OMG all these delicious-looking fake pasta!

This was something I just had to allow myself to be tempted by.

We started our meal with some refreshing beverage.

Grape Cassis (alcoholic) and Japanese Red Wine (which is light and sweet, unlike normal red wine).

And then an appetiser. (Not that we needed any help to whet our appetites. The silicon food displays outside provided all the help we needed.)

This is Tofu Tomato w/ Cheese (swimming in some kinda sweet-salty Japanese sauce).

It’s quite tasty, but I don’t like tomatoes, so this is not a must-order for me. But The Goonfather loved it.

Because there were simply too many flavours of pasta to choose from, I couldn’t make up my mind. So I ordered the Half & Half Set, which gives you two mini-sized pastas, soup, salad and a drink. Unfortunately, you can only choose from five different pasta flavours if you order this set.

I chose the Japanese Style Cod Roe and the Carbonara WARAKU Style.

The cod roe pasta tastes quite good, although I would really preferred to have flying fish roe (tobiko). It’s worth ordering if you fancy cod roe.

The Carbonara is very disappointing. The sauce is not creamy or salty enough and the bacon is quite bland. Crispy bacon bits would have been better. But the egg is great. Haha.

The Goonfather had the Salmon Roe w/ Wafu Sauce.

Judging from the expressions of ecstasy rolling over his face every time he bites down on a salmon roe, I would say he quite enjoyed it.

But his final verdict was: “I will come back to Waraku but I won’t order this again.” According to him, the salmon roe pasta is good but not quite good enough.

To be honest, the fake food display on the outside of the restaurant hyped the food too much, so that when we finally got down to eating, our expectations weren’t met to the max. We enjoyed our food but we didn’t get blown off like we subconsciously expected.

Or maybe we just ordered the wrong dishes.

But it was a good enough experience for us to want to go back there again, to try the other flavours.

You can check out the menu and outlet locations at the Waraku Singapore website. Go ahead, make yourself hungry.

In case you’re lazy to click there, Pasta de Waraku can be found at #02-82/83 The Central, and #03-257 Marina Square.

Happy eating, and if you discover a to-die-for dish, share here!