Deal of the week - SABA's Fixed Price Dinner Menu
SABA, Clarendon Street, Dublin
I love the lightness of Thai cuisine, so I must admit I found myself very willing to pop along this week to take advantage of SABA's set evening menu.
Tucked away on Clarendon Street, the darkly presented, multi-award winning restaurant serves a fresh and authentic blend of Thai and Vietnamese food within what is a contemporary colonial setting.
The fixed price selection isn't exhaustive, however, it does contain a good selection of dishes from the wider SABA menu and as such it should be varied enough to cater for most tastes.
My starter of aromatic duck rolls were served warm as opposed to hot, which kept the appetiser nice and light. I also found time to try the black pepper squid which frankly was nothing short of superb. Each piece of squid was wok fried to perfection with a crisp pepper batter and served with a fresh ginger infused dip.
I decided against wine as I was dining on the stroke of six, so drinks were kept to a couple of beers. A real surprise was IKI, a rich, green-tea beer which SABA source directly and this went perfectly with a main course of Saigon noodles with ginger, sweet basil and fresh juicy prawns.
If you prefer Thai food on the spicier side, you might try the Bankok rice noodles which combine stripped cuts of beef fried with red chillies and sweet holy basil. The dish is light and quite spicy but the real kick was in the holy basil, which comes all the way through at the end.
My dessert of mango sorbet and chocolate tart was perfect. The sorbet, as it should be, was more fruity than sweet and the tart filled with a rich, dense, dark chocolate body.
I had a little room left over and needed a quick lift after my three courses, so it was over to the bar for a Toblerone cocktail. Tipped-off in advance as I was, it in no way undermined my expectations - a wobble inducing white chocolate treat to finish.
The SABA fixed price dinner menu is available on Sunday, Monday and Tuesdays from 6pm until close and includes three courses for €25 - to book call 01 679 2000.
