Review of restaurant Vuong, Amsterdam

This blog starts with the typical weather of Holland. Rain! As I was biking to Leidseplein, the heavens opened up on me and poured out all they had. So by the time I reached my destination, I was completely wet. Of course my water-proofish coat did help either. Not that it wasn’t water-proofish, more that all the water rolled off it onto my pants, making them even wetter.

Anyway when I got to Leidseplein, the rain had stopped and my friend was waiting dry under a porch. And he said he had biked too, but with umbrella. Me being soaked, we decided to have a coffee close by to warm, not wanting to bike any further with wet clothes, cause, honestly it feels like you have peed in your pants. But where to go? Leidseplein being one of the central squares of Amsterdam, next to Rembrandtplein and de Dam, you’d think it would be easy. But we are very picky!

So we decided to go the supposedly “hip” place called Vuong. Vuong is owned by the same owner as the equally “hip” nightclub Jimmy Woo. As you would expect from the name, the place had an Asian theme. Although the only Asian things in the restaurant were the decor and the furniture, all the people that were working at the time looked suspisciously not-Asian. Anyway we weren’t there for Asian cuisine or Asian drinks, we just wanted a Koffie Verkeerd!

Well, after browsing in the magazines there for about 10 minutes, the waiter finally noticed us and asked us if we had ordered yet. Of course we hadn’t, because he was the only waiter working there. Also the waiter didn’t quite fit the Asian theme either, he sounded like he would be more at home behind a fish-stand on the market. So after some more waiting the coffee’s finally arrived. I have to be honest here and confess that my friend was harassing the waiter a bit, asking about the music and whatever, distracting him from the coffee-making.

The coffee itself was fine, although no Starbucks. But then again we still don’t have Starbucks in the Netherlands. That’s still the great Starbucks mystery… The surprise came when we had to pay. We wanted to leave, but it took forever to get the waiters attention for the bill. I think he was suffering from the one-time-only-service syndrom. I just wanted to leave 5 euros on the table, thinking it would be more than enough for 2 coffee’s and a small tip. But my friend finally got the attention and then it turned out 5 euros wasn’t enough! It was 5 euro 20 cents. FIVE euro TWENTY for 2 very small Koffie Verkeerd, so that it TWO euro SIXTY per coffee, so that’s about 40 cents per sip! I guess Asian “hip” coffee is quite expensive…

update: Vuong has been closed