Sabai Thai Restaurant — Restaurant in Grapevine

I make it a goal to eat Khmer/Cambodian food when traveling if the place I visit has it, since I’m Khmer myself and there are no Khmer places back home. I found this spot by the DFW airport, which was super convenient as we were about to take a flight back home, so I chose here for dinner. I loved the name too - I know it has its own meaning in Thai, but “Sabai” in Khmer can also mean “happy”! It’s located in a small strip of stores/restaurants.

The restaurant is counter service, you order and pay there and they bring the food to your table when it’s ready. There are tables and half booths that line both sides of the walls and TV’s that plays a picture slideshow of all the dishes they offer. The water, cups, and to-go boxes are self serve. The menu consisted of Thai, Lao, Cambodian, and Viet dishes - a mixture of Southeast Asian cuisine.

I came with 3 of my friends. 3 of us ordered Cambodian dishes and 1 ordered a Thai dish. We ordered: Taro rolls: Hot, fresh, & crispy. But literally just mashed taro in an egg roll wrapper. Chicken Lok Lak: It tasted more sweet & was missing that classic lime-pepper flavor that lok lak has. Stir Fried Flat Noodle w/gravy: This was advertised as Lad Nah which is what they call it in Lao, but it was under the Cambodian menu. We call it Meekathang. Anyway…good flavor, but drowned in thin gravy. Some like it that way, but I prefer thick gravy where it’s not overpowering the plate. Sweet & Sour Tofu: Typical sweet and sour taste, no complaints. Stir Fried Lort Cha (Rice pin noodle): My first time having this dish ever, so I really don’t have anything to compare it to. I had it with shrimp. It was good though- great texture. A lot of crunchy elements I enjoyed like onion, green onion, and bean sprouts.

I really wanted to try the lemongrass beef skewers as that is a Khmer staple, but they ran out. I saw that they had dried beef strips also, but they ran out as well so that was kinda disappointing.

All the food had a good flavor, but it just didn’t seem like authentic flavors to me. Nothing was like “wow, amazing”. Maybe we chose the wrong dishes, but everyone seemed to like it, so I won’t knock it...

Dined here in October, thought about doing this review for awhile and finally decided that I would. We called to reserve for 8 people plus a baby. It was for my brother's going away to Navy Bootcamp dinner. I suggested Sabai cause my family had never been there and I was always treated nicely and their food was great. Was told they wouldn't be able to seat us together due to the time but they would accommodate us as best as they could. We then arrived at our reserved time and weren't seated for 30 more mins. We then got sat at 2 tables behind each other on the opposite wall of the booths. 4 people per table. This was disappointing but we knew we weren't going to be able to sit close to each other. We noticed a bigger party sitting in the middle, once they left, I asked if we could move to that table. We still hadn't received our food at this time, still waiting just as they made us wait past our reserved time. We'll when I asked our server (I forgot her name, I wanted to find out so I could name her in this review), she said that there was already a reservation for that table and they were regulars (i guess they get treated better). We received our food and ate and they close at 8pm or 9pm(i think, either way, we stayed til closing cause of the wait and after eating).. by this time, no one ever sat at that big table. So while we were trying to enjoy ourselves and celebrate my brother for going into the Navy, this place still found a way to ruin our dinner. I was soooo disappointed cause I liked this place and so my family questioned why I suggested them. They did accommodate to seat us but the lying and waiting for seating/food really sucked. So that's the reason for my 3 stars. I'll probably keep updating my review if I ever come back here. It was our last dinner with my brother before Navy bootcamp! As far as food goes, I love the food. A bit pricy for the amount of food you get (maybe just the appetizers) but the main meals are great. Maybe getting to go is a better route cause then you wouldn't have to deal with what we dealt with. If you're still reading, thanks...

Not good food!! Service is nice. I was struggling with deciding to write this review because I support small businesses and I do believe it takes an adjustment period to get things right. However, it is equally important to provide feedback so that businesses better understand their weaknesses as much as their strengths. With that being said, I have rated this business as such because their is a lot of room for improvement of their menu. The customer service is very good and staff is friendly and helpful. However... We ordered their steamed chicken with rice but it was basically bare, flavorless, boiled chicken, with rice being the same. My take is that if I wanted something that bland and effortless then I would not have bothered ordering out for “something special and tasty”; I would have done the same at home, and just thrown a piece of chicken in boiling water with some rice & no flavors/spices. The second order was for the chicken Pad Thai. It had NO chicken (yes ZERO) and maybe 5 pieces of tofu with sprouts on the side. Sauce had little flavor, and it was bitter, no balance. There was hardly any sauce on the rice noodles & those were completely stuck together making it difficult to separate and therefore inedible. It was a very disappointing meal and it baffles us as to the amount of ‘good reviews’. The meal was not a good experience and certainly not worth a try or price. It really was a waste! Hopefully the cook/owners pay closer attention to the lesser star reviews for the offered feedback so that they consider a better execution of their menu as they are lacking the culinary skills / experience thus far to a journey of a...