I have always loved a good noodle bar. Back at the turn of the millennium, when Yippee Noodle Bar first opened its doors on King Street in 2000, I was at college and just starting to explore Asian cuisine.

Visiting back then blew me away. The minimalist, clean design reminded me of the Kanso style I often saw during my travels across Japan, with its long shared wooden benches and the constant clatter from the open kitchen. Long before noodles arrived on King Street, 7 King Street actually housed George Scales’ brewery in 1881, supplying beer to 13 local pubs, but for the last 26 years, it has been a sanctuary for cash-strapped students, local families, and postgrads alike.

Even national critics have heaped praise on it over the years. The Sunday Times named it one of the best reasonably priced restaurants in the UK and two-Michelin-starred chef Daniel Clifford of Midsummer House has called it one of his favourite cheap eats in the city. Foodies and local influencers still speak about it fondly. Having not stepped inside in over two decades, I was excited to revisit this old friend.

Joining me was my teenage son, who has recently fallen in love with Asian cuisine during our Xiao Spot journey. On the walk over, I gave him the big build-up with stories from when I was his age. He was expecting massive things, and I was keen to see if Yippee could hold that level of consistency after a quarter of a century.

The Mixed Platter

We started with the mixed platter, and this was the biggest disappointment of the meal. But before I start whinging, I want to say that the prawn toast was exceptional. It had everything you could want, being proper thick, crispy, and packed with a lovely thick layer of prawn paste that delivered a punchy flavour and a fantastic texture against the crispy skin.

Otherwise, the rest of the board – including the spring rolls – felt like cheap oven jobs. Now, I am not saying they actually were, but the quality felt strikingly similar. To make matters worse, they were slightly overdone, leaving them hard and brittle rather than light, soft, and crispy.

Spicy Pork Noodles

For my main, I opted for the spicy pork noodles. Visually, the bowl looked the part, but the taste was rather bland. There was nothing wrong with the quality of the noodles themselves, and all the ingredients tasted fresh and premium, but there was an unmistakable absence of flavour. Especially when you compare it to my visit to Café Oriental on Burleigh Street the other day. The broth in particular was lifeless. Their idea of “spicy” seemed to consist of simply throwing a few cut-up chillies over the top, which did almost nothing to infuse the dish.

This left us in a tricky grey area. It was hard to complain to the staff team because, technically, there was nothing wrong with the dish – everything was cooked properly and fresh. But after exploring so many exciting noodle places across the city as part of my Xiao Spot series, I could not help but feel disappointed. I do not mind paying £17 for quality ingredients, but the assumption is that those premium components result in a better taste. When you can arguably get far tastier bowls in Cambridge for closer to a tenner, £17 for a lifeless broth is a tough sell.

It also struck me that this is no longer a place for a cheap and easy bowl of noodles like back in the day.

Beef Ho Fun

My son ordered the flat rice noodles (Beef Ho Fun). By eye, his bowl looked fantastic – wide rice noodles glistening under the light, looking every bit the part just like my pork noodles did. He enjoyed his dish and polished it off, but even he admitted that he preferred the ones from other locations we have visited recently on our noodle runs.

The Verdict: Is Yippee Noodle Bar Still a Cambridge Institution?

So, is Yippee Noodle Bar still a Cambridge institution? Actually, yes.

While I personally feel it has been overtaken by many of the newer Asian spots across the city, my take is only one opinion. As I have said time and time again on this blog, I do not pretend to know it all. The whole ethos of The Cambridge Foodies is that I am just an ordinary guy sharing my honest experiences. Yippee Noodles remains firmly loved by plenty of other food writers, journalists, and local bloggers.

Since sharing my reel, the reaction has been split. Plenty of people backed up my thoughts, but just as many disagreed, telling me I simply ordered the wrong dishes. Followers have been getting in touch to say that their signature Yippee Noodles, for instance, will completely blow your socks off.

I respect that. My advice? Give it a try yourself, but make sure you do a bit of homework before ordering, as there seems to be a noticeable gap in consistency across the menu. I am more than happy to give them the benefit of the doubt – especially in a climate where restaurants are closing down every week, yet Yippee stands proud after 26 years. Venues do not survive a quarter of a century purely on past reputation alone; they are clearly doing a lot right for a lot of people.

Thanks for reading 👍