Sabai Authentic Fine Thai Cuisine, Ngee Ann City
After a fantastic experience at Sabai along the waterfront, I wanted to see how the original at Ngee Ann City stacked up. It's funny, that I've walked past this strikingly fire-engine red hued restaurant countless times but never ventured in, until I tried the sister branch at Customs House. Maybe it's just that the completely-decked-out-in-red-carpet Thai restaurant just looked incongruent with its concept of Thai fine dining. The decor just didn't come across as appealingly classy or particularly chic. In fact, it just seems more like a garishly gilded and mis-matched living room. Which is weird, because they serve up one of the most refined Thai menus ever. Methinks they just need to overhaul the entire design of the restaurant for a more inviting and elegant feel.
I was there with Lips for our monthly meet-ups on a Thursday evening for dinner, and the restaurant was barely occupied. I suppose that's a good thing (for us, and not the business), we enjoyed the quiet of the restaurant very much.
We had the Moo Tawd Kratiem ($24.70) tender morsels of pan-fried seasoned pork topped off with aromatic crispy golden garlic and peppercorns for some heat.
The Kai Yad Sai ($18.50), a homestyled omelette stuffed with minced chicken, prawns, tomatoes, onions and carrots was a hit with its amazingly neat and tidy presentation.
But what lay inside was a luscious stuffing of sauteed mince, diced prawns, peas and onions that was both chunky and spicy.
Sabai does one of the better versions of this classic Thai soup, the Dtom Yam Gung ($20.50 per pot) spicy and sour and laden generously with huge tiger prawns and straw mushrooms, and laced with lemongrass, galangal, chilli, kaffir lime leaves, fish sauce and lime juice.
The Pat Thai ($19.30) flat rice noodles with yellow beancurd, eggs, shallots, beansprouts, ground peanuts and sweetened tamarind sauce was well-fried, so the noodles were moist without sticking together in a lump.This tends towards the sweet, but a sprinkling of red chilli flakes would lift the flavour of the noodles.
The Tap Tim Grop ($7) is my favourite Thai dessert, refreshingly crunchy water chestnut, coated in a red starchy ball, and then doused in syrup, coconut milk and shaved ice. I liked that this was nuanced and unlike the one at the Customs House, was less saccharine.
The Kao Niew Durian Nahm Gati ($9.50) is really just the Thai version of our durian penget, but with the addition of sticky glutinous rice at the bottom. This was very balanced, creamy but not rich and sweet but not cloying.
Sabai Authentic Fine Thai Cuisine
391B Orchard Road
#04-23 Ngee Ann City
Tel: 6333 8491
Open daily from 11.30am to 3pm for lunch; 6pm to 11pm for dinner
Website: www.sabaifinethai.com.sg
I was there with Lips for our monthly meet-ups on a Thursday evening for dinner, and the restaurant was barely occupied. I suppose that's a good thing (for us, and not the business), we enjoyed the quiet of the restaurant very much.
We had the Moo Tawd Kratiem ($24.70) tender morsels of pan-fried seasoned pork topped off with aromatic crispy golden garlic and peppercorns for some heat.
The Kai Yad Sai ($18.50), a homestyled omelette stuffed with minced chicken, prawns, tomatoes, onions and carrots was a hit with its amazingly neat and tidy presentation.
But what lay inside was a luscious stuffing of sauteed mince, diced prawns, peas and onions that was both chunky and spicy.
Sabai does one of the better versions of this classic Thai soup, the Dtom Yam Gung ($20.50 per pot) spicy and sour and laden generously with huge tiger prawns and straw mushrooms, and laced with lemongrass, galangal, chilli, kaffir lime leaves, fish sauce and lime juice.
The Pat Thai ($19.30) flat rice noodles with yellow beancurd, eggs, shallots, beansprouts, ground peanuts and sweetened tamarind sauce was well-fried, so the noodles were moist without sticking together in a lump.This tends towards the sweet, but a sprinkling of red chilli flakes would lift the flavour of the noodles.
The Tap Tim Grop ($7) is my favourite Thai dessert, refreshingly crunchy water chestnut, coated in a red starchy ball, and then doused in syrup, coconut milk and shaved ice. I liked that this was nuanced and unlike the one at the Customs House, was less saccharine.
The Kao Niew Durian Nahm Gati ($9.50) is really just the Thai version of our durian penget, but with the addition of sticky glutinous rice at the bottom. This was very balanced, creamy but not rich and sweet but not cloying.
Sabai Authentic Fine Thai Cuisine
391B Orchard Road
#04-23 Ngee Ann City
Tel: 6333 8491
Open daily from 11.30am to 3pm for lunch; 6pm to 11pm for dinner
Website: www.sabaifinethai.com.sg
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