By now, a lot of people know why boiled food is good for them. But what some people haven’t figured out is how to make boiled food that actually tastes good. Sometimes it’s so bland it just makes you sad. The poor thing gets drowned in a pool of water that washes all the flavor away. Enter Yaya lounge on Bukoto Street.
All the food here is boiled. I ordered a bunch of food and ground nut sauce with mushrooms. You might think duh, groundnuts are always boiled anyway so no work done but let me explain:
Smell
We as Ugandans, must thank nature for the banana tree. The tooke. In this particular instance, we are thankful for the leaves from which empombo (smoked banana leaves) are made. (More on these another day.)
The ground nuts, which are called binyebwa if you are in central were wrapped in luwombo. They had that beautiful and subtle smokey flavour that only luwombo can make. After you eat them, you will never want to eat g nuts any other way.
Taste
The sauce stole the show. So while the matooke had a flavor you don’t normally find-the one I’m talking about is when it has been wrapped in banana leaves, ndagala, and not polyethene (sigh) for hours and the sweet potato firm, the ground nuts were exquisite. They had in them those little mushrooms. The super aromatic ones, which we call obuganda. It was great to look for them in every forkful.
Sight
Admittedly, I don’t often order ground nuts but most of the times, the nuts are fried a little bit which makes the colour a darker shade of pink, peach sometimes. As you can see here, the sauce is a light pink, just as Mother Nature intended. There’s a bit of oil from the nuts to show you just how well they have cooked.
There are moments in life that make you pause and wonder ‘What have I been putting in my body this whole time?’ You might get one of those when you ask for chilli and you are presented with this fresh option.
I know it wasn’t plucked off a plant and mashed for me right then and there. But it felt that way. And it was good.
When was the last time you went to a restaurant and didn’t get an adulteration of chilli with your food? One that is ‘treated’ and bottled with an expiry date. Think about it.
Sound
Just the wind in the big tree and the waitress asking if we wanted anything else.
All meals at Yaya lounge go for 12k. Eat here when you want to do your body a favour.