I don't think anyone is being paid to post, but when The Bangkok Cafe gets a "great food" review (in a previous post) one feels compelled to speak up abt genuinely great food, for which I think Silver Spoon qualifies.

Am I the only one who thinks Bangkok Cafe is only so-so?

Nope, so-so is an accurate description of Bangkok Cafe. At least it's cheap and halfway authentic.

Go to the Green Lake Hotel for the best icream in Kunming. Imported Italian 8 RMB a pop. Puts Haggen Daz to shame.

Sorry for the hype in my earlier review of Bangkok Cafe. The other restaurants in comparison were so bad that I overdid my review. In general, every non-Chinese cuisine I've had to in Kunming, with the exception of Moonlight in Expo Garden, has been mediocre at best and just plain awful at worst. My recommendation: cook Western or non-Chinese at home. You can get most of the basic ingredients you need at Metro and Carrefour. Otherwise it's tough to go wrong with Yunnan cuisine: colorful, flavorful and diverse!

GoKunming now has a 'Write review' function on the listings section. We'll be adding more to this section shortly.

Listings section URL: www.gokunming.com/en/listings/

Is Best of Kunming only for places that advertise with Gokunmng... 他妈的！ You would think that Kunming had no restaurants or bars that were not within a kilometer of Yunda.

Well, to be fair to GoKunming, this award is a great idea if only more people knew about it because, originally, you were asked to nominate your favorite place.
But, like myself, not many people did this because we couldn't think of anywhere. ;-)

In response to Hiketsu, our listings section is offered free of charge to local businesses... also, only one of the 40 candidates for a Best of Kunming Award is a paid advertiser on this site.

Hiketsu is correct in saying that many of the candidates are concentrated in one part of the city. It seems that only 14 of the 40 candidates (just over one-third) are more than a kilometer from Yunda, but that is not so surprising as the Yunda/Cuihu area is well known for its food and drink options and it is not so easy for new restaurants or bars to survive far from the center of the city.

I find this thread a useful addition to the Food and Drink Listings and I would like to include the following.

Recently, we made it out to the Silver Spoon Café. Beichen Gardens may be a remote place for many people but this new café seems to have a dedicated following. I needed a guide and, therefore, I will provide such details. One simply travels northwards on Beijing Lu until reaching the Northern Coach Station, behind which is the METRO supermarket. Across the street is a KFC restaurant - the Silver Spoon is someway behind KFC, set in a large residential area with attractive gardens, together with many other restaurants, bars, and shops.

As mentioned before, it is a tiny café. The décor is an attractive Americana style with many small tables (perhaps, too many) that were not occupied during our visit, except for one person browsing the Internet. My companion suggested that a few cushions would be welcome.

We ordered two delicious garlic soups — my companion also ordered a tasty Caesar salad and I tried the roast pork and blue cheese toasted sandwich. Thin slices of roast pork as an ingredient becomes nondescript when toasted with blue cheese that, itself, was quite bland. Blue cheese is usually wonderful to use for cooking but, in this case, I would venture to suggest using something like Gorgonzola or Roquefort (if available). The home-made bread was good but some garnish would not have gone amiss.

A visit to the Silver Spoon becomes a dilemma when one's attention is drawn towards an appetising lunch (or supper) menu. Kyle Essary (above) mentioned the beef bourginoun. But this is very much a tiny café and should not be confused with a restaurant, especially as 24 hours notice is required for anything other than soup, salad, sandwiches, and the delicious deserts.

I felt sorry for 'prd34' above, and I hope that he gives it another try. But I must take Wei Xue (pseudonym?) to task regarding his medical knowledge — Although it usually takes 24 hours, or more, for food to pass through the body, if there is toxic shock resulting from either allergenic or bacterial infection, one should expect a faster reaction (I am not saying that this happened in his case).

The owners of this café should be commended because they are obviously keen to bring good western food to Kunming and, if they opened a café/restaurant on Wenlin Jie, I would be a frequent visitor.

Anyone know about the Brazilian BBQ and whether its still going? Great western BBQ, guys in cowboys suits bring round plates of BBQ ribs, etc...and the floor show with the Brazilian dancers...the eye candy is OK, was also a muzo there doing a great pan pipe version of that song outta Kill Bill