A New Spice To Dublin – Saba South William Street – The Review

The very popular Thai and Vietnamese restaurant Saba, which was located on Clarendon street for many years recently relocated to No.7 South William Street. You may be deceived in thinking this is a small restaurant from its front door entrance, but when you walk inside you will be impressed as the new Saba is housed in a beautiful 4,700 sq. ft Georgian building which dates back to 1765. The Saba team lead by owner Paul Cadden have brought this treasure back to its former glory, refurbishing its red brick walls, walnut floors and magnificent large glass roof which floods the main dining room with natural light.

Saba is a great spot for a date night or meet up with friends for some exceptional cocktails and mouth-watering food. It’s also perfect for a quick lunch which is what we went for on this occasion.

The food in Saba is of a very high quality, the menu offers an excellent choice with dishes ranging from mild to spicy, from creamy curries to Paleo caveman. As it was lunch we decide to go for two starters and two mains. For starter we had the Saba Chicken Wings (€9.95) and the Prawn Chu Chee (€9.95). The wings were sticky and delicious, coated in a soy sauce, honey and sesame glaze and were served with a tamarind dip.

The Prawn Chu Chee was an impressive plate. It was a mini tower of a crispy deep fried rice cake top with large char grilled tiger prawns served with a drizzle of light red curry sauce. We really liked this dish and is great example of the talent of the kitchen team in Saba.

For mains we decided to go either end of the spicy scale by choosing the popular Chicken Massaman Curry (€16.95) and the and the dish infamously known as Boom!! (€17.95). The Massaman was rich, creamy and full of flavours, loaded with a generous portion of chicken, potatoes, onions, peanuts and crispy shallot. We enjoyed this with steamed fragrant rice. If you like a bit of heat you will love Boom!!. The five spicy asterisks beside its name on the menu is a clear indication of how hot we are talking. The red curry paste, bird eye chillies and galangai root give it its kick, you then have a choice to have chicken, beef, prawn or vegetables & tofu as your main ingredient. We went for prawns. The Boom!! was indeed tasty and the balance of spice was perfect as it did not kill the taste of the prawns and other flavours in the dish. On the side we choose the Broccoli and baby Bok Choy (€5.95) which is stir fried with garlic and a mushroom sauce. We also had a portion of the Saba Fries (€4.95) which are delicious potato cubes with spring onion, coriander sea salt and crushed chili.

The addition of the new Saba South William Street restaurant brings the Saba family to three restaurants (Baggot Street and Kildare Village). If you are after something tasty on the go or at home Saba also have three Saba To Go outlets at Rathmines, Windy Arbour and Deansgrange.

We certainly enjoyed our visit to Saba and are delighted to see it have a new home in Dublin City centre. Saba is one of those restaurants that you can always rely on, serving consistently good quality food. We never hesitate recommending it to friends knowing they will have a good experience there. By Abigail Fox Carroll & Clyde Carroll

Saba, 7 South William Street, Dublin. 2

Phone: +353 (1) 67 92 000

Website: https://www.sabadublin.com/south-william-street/