Saba Restaurant — Restaurant in Dublin

We were invited along to a Saturday cooking and cocktail class recently and it was a delightful afternoon.

The idea of this class, which takes two hours out of your afternoon, is that you learn to cook some authentically flavour busting food and learn what cocktail compliment them. The two gentlemen, head chef Tao and head mixologist, ran the class alongside each other, complimenting each other at the pauses with flawless precision. They took volunteers for each dish up to the cooking station to help with the cooking or mixing. After the first dish, we were fighting for a go!

They set out the dishes and cocktails prior to class and provided booklets for the attendees to follow the recipes. This was seriously handy because we got to keep them and I could double and triple check what I could and could not eat or drink. Obviously soy sauce was not going to be gluten free, but the rest was easily adaptable for me.

Our first dish was this spicy prawn soup called Tom Yaam Goong. Because of the spice level it was complimented by an "Under the Tropics" cocktail. It had a creamy banana flavour to coat the tongue after the spicy tingles. We were told to have a spoon and soup and then a sip of cocktail and so on. I'm really not a fan of banana, so I may have just had the soup and I can tell you that it was gorgeously spicy.

The second cocktail I was a little iffy about as they said it genever, which they described as being distilled through beer. Red flag for me, so when they asked for a volunteer to help make it I hopped on up! To be safe, because he was unsure, we substituted gin for the genever, which as it turns out was what they had started making the cocktail on. It was delicious anyway! The dish it accompanied was a salad, and no, it does not look like a salad as we know it! This was an asian salad called Yamm Woon Sen, a Thai Spicy Glass Noodle Salad with minced pork and prawns. I had a go at chop sticks with this one, after about 10 minutes and 3/4 of the dish I gave in so I could finish it all. I cleaned the plate, great proof I enjoyed it at least!

During the whole presentation Chef Tao was instructing the attendees on the composition of the dishes and giving tips on ingredients. He recommended the smaller Asian shops for ingredients, rather than the larger superstores. I asked about substituting Tamari sauce for Soy sauce and he suggested the fish sauce for these dishes instead as it packs more flavour. Another great tip is when your meat is 70-80% cooked, add your veggies because if not your meat will be overcooked.

I couldn't eat the third dish as is contained soy sauce, but I could have the cocktail. I asked my neighbour if I could have a quick pic of her dish, which was called Xao Xa Ot. The cocktail was the Garrigue and was close to our mixologists heart as it reminded him of the South of France in taste and fragrance. It reminded me of fields of hay, but hey, everyone gets their own tastes from these things!

The final dish was a green monkfish curry (Gaeng Kiew Wnn Pia) accompanied by Mango and Cucumber gimlet. This dish was so creamy without having that texture of cream. The monkfish was perfect, but the most pleasant experience of this dish was thai pea aubergines that burst in your mouth and filled it with flavour as you bit into them.

Overall, this was an excellent way to spend an afternoon. Although it'd be great any Saturday afternoon, I'd particularly recommend it for a birthday or a hen party as an fun and filling afternoon activity.

Saba has never let me down on the gluten free or flavour fronts. They are dealing with more and more allergies everyday, according to the manager. This is definitely one of the gems of the town and between themselves and Saba To Go they have a variety of price ranges to cater...

My first and last time. Probably was due to the first weekend after the lockdown, but was a terrible experience. We hadn't booked and kindly asked for a table for 3. They kindly told us that there was a fixed menu of 40€/p and a table available at 7:00pm, and we were asked to pay for a deposit (20€), fair in my opinion. We were outside waiting just before 7, and then asked if we could have some drinks since was literally freezing and the manager acknowledged and asked to still wait outside before being called. People started to build up outside waiting for their table, and so were we. After 45min later (ndr 7:45pm) we were the only ones outside still waiting, then we got in to ask what was the status and if we'd to wait more, but surprisingly they said out table was not ready yet, but after 10mins they found us a spot. We were also allowed to order a la carte (surprisingly), which we did: starters, main courses and 1 bottle of wine (~50€/p). Almost finished our meals, and before 9pm we were served with the bill w/o asking for it, and at 9:04 a waiter came to ask us to pay, and that our 2hour window to eat was over. Nobody told us we had only 2 hours, and worst that they didn't take into account when we started. What was also upsetting is that we saw tables seated before us still there when we left. Rice-based dishes definitely not worth €25/€27 each, really nothing to do with original Thai/Asian food. Still I don't understand where all the awards are coming from, but I guess you just need to pay the right € to the right people. Lesson learned: always ask when you have to leave and how much time you have before booking and don't look at the awards at...

Very mixed. We booked and on arrival brought to our table which appeared to be given away, so were stood in middle of restaurant waiting for new table for a couple mins, no problem. We were then brought to a booth near the door, we asked could we move up to another empty booth and told ok, but 5 mins later told by a female host that we had to move to a different booth or we could only stay 1 hour as it was specifically booked, so we moved.

Starters were good, tiger prawn bomb in particular. Mains were mixed - lamb shank was very good. Crispy duck was inedible though, very chewy and overcooked which was a shame as the rest of dish was quite flavoursome. A male host (who was very good and attentive) noticed and took the meal off the bill.

Overall a bit disappointed. It's a few years since I visited Saba, I would have been a frequent visitor to the old Claredon street restaurant. Not sure ill be in a rush back. A huge focus was on turning tables very quickly, being sat by the door I lost count the amount of times the female host announced to people on arrival without a booking "1 hour only though, 1 hour". I guess its start of xmas period but its a bit off putting . Maybe an off day as the reviews are quite good and I never had a...