Yum Saap and a little of LE:EN

Today was rainy, we planned on doing nothing today and just sit in our sweatpants and shirt all day long. We got up at 9-ish and started our exiting day. At 6.30pm we feld so depressed that cooking was out of the option. Hell, we didn't even wanted food delivered out our home! So we got up, turned of the ps3, got dressed and started walking towards Yum Saap at the Twijnstraat in Utrecht.



After a nice walk in the rain (=_=) we arrived at a half-empty restaurant. The waiter said there were plenty of tables free so we could choose any 2-pers table available (when we left almost al the tables were occupied). He then explained that Yum Saap is a "tapas"-like restaurant where you could order several dishes served with rice. Although Yum Saap means delicious salad the have a wide selection of Thai and Vietnam dishes including salads, soups, currys and their specials. The specials are small dishes like spring rolls, wontons, steamed, stirred and roasted meat, inkfish, crab, etc. The place looks really nice.It has a fresh and modern vibe to it. Thumbs up for the open kitchen and the almost real miniature monk looking over Kina's shoulder.



We were pretty hungry but since this was our first time here and we had no idea how big the dishes would be (the soup I saw on another table could fill my entire stomach). We choose 2 curry dishes and 2 specials. Kina had the Keang Kiauw Waan (green curry) with vegetables and some Bi Cuan Chay (fresh spring rolls) and I chose the Keang Deang (red curry) with beef and a portion of Hoanh Thanh Chay (spinach wontons). We had no idea how to pronounce this, luckely they remember the numbers of the dishes :).

The dishes weren't that big. The curry (both the red and the green) were pretty good but nothing really to write home about. Their specials were - as the name discribes - special indeed. The spring rolls - filled with basil, mint and some veggies - had a taste I didn't taste before. Don't know if it's authentic, but I felt a little more Thai inside. The spinach wontons were great as well. Unfortunately we only got 3 and you probably want to eat 10 of them...We drank a nice cup of ginger/lemon tea which I can recommend as well!

After 2 dishes you actually still feel a little hungry. You can order some more food but we thought it was better to just enjoy one of their coctails and then order our dessert somewhere else. The cocktails are nice, if you like rum go for the Mango Dream. Everybody else: take the other one, Thai Margarita with wodka, lime and ginger; it tastes great after this food. We then paid (they forgot our cocktails, yay!) and left on tour to our dessert.

Overal conclusion for Yum Saap: If you like Thai and Vietnamese food you should def check it out. It is a bit overprices I think (4 dishes and 2 tea costs us 35 euro and we weren't really full) but it's worth it. Hopefully the prices will drop when more costumors come! The service was as you'd expect (we didn't found hair in our food to check out their real customer service). If we would've given it stars it would be 3,5 out of 5.

Alright, then for our grand finale we went to LE:EN. For everybody who didn't go there already: go there. It is also a tapas like restaurant but with a asian-fusion kitchen. No review on that now, only about the dessert we had: the Special Moon. It's a white chocalat pie with spekkoek (indonesian layered cake) and cocos. O M G you gotta eat that!!! I had it tons of times before, so didn't even look at the card but if you are at a restaurant and the desserts are poor, check out LE:EN. You feel like you can not get enough but if you would eat more the yummy yummy in your tummy will then explode in a million bricks and you can not walk afterwards (just so you know). Kina.s dessert had a little piece of plastic wrapping on it (no big deal) and when Kina told them it was on the house (2nd time yay of the evening!!).


So after our rainy, boring and depressing day, these two restaurants were able to cheer us up. Guess that says enough!! Check back soon for more om nom nom!!

-wtr