Dines Out: Sabai

I wish with all my heart that I had been lucky enough to visit Thailand, and maybe I will one day, but for now I make do with indulging from time to time in Thai food. I’ve no personal experience of the food cooked in the country but I have over the years eaten some great Thai food and sadly some very poor ones. By poor I mean cheat Thai, skimping on the real ingredients, ginger where galangal should be, peas and not pea aubergines, things that make all the difference in creating those unique flavours.

A few years ago I met Brian and Gina, a young couple who were opening a new restaurant called Sabai. I loved it because there I found all of those unique and precious ingredients used to full effect. It’s a few years on and I occasionally pop in for a bite to eat when the urge for Gina’s amazing and fiery beef salad takes me, how I love that dish. And last night, even though there were so many new dishes to try, I could not resist ordering a portion of that favourite – and it was as good and exciting as ever, rare beef, tomato, fish sauce, mint… a powerful hit of red chilli, wow, I love it.

Unique & precious ingredients used to full effect

But the real reason was to try a few new offerings and the first was a sharing platter of delights. Sabai make great satay, tender chicken skewers and a properly constructed peanut sauce that lifts the dish in that magical sweet and savoury way. The papaya salad was the bright and again spikily refreshing mix of crunchy fresh fruit, peanut and vibrant dressing, and the plain noodles the perfect cooling foil to that heat. Thai sausages were meaty and heavily fragrant with lemon grass, made to Gina’s recipe and spice blend by their butcher. The vegetable tempura was good too, cooked for enough time to heat the vegetables and make the batter crisp. The whole platter was generous and satisfying and possibly a complete meal in itself.

Gina was having none of that and wanted me to try a new sea bass dish. Now my companion that night was Mr S, a man fearful of fish, silly thing. So in addition to the fish we had a green chicken curry, a really good green curry buzzing with spice, lime leaf and softened by coconut. We both loved it. But it was the sea bass, boned and butterflied before frying and then topped with wonderful stir fried vegetables and then a branch of amazing fresh green peppercorns, another tell-tale ingredient, that won both our hearts and was for Mr S another step in his road to fish eating.

We had no room for dessert, but had enjoyed a bottle of their very good and sensibly priced house white.

Sabai looks good, the service is impeccable and the prices sensible – and as far as I can say, the food is very authentic.

Sabai, 165-169 Princes House, Princes Place, North Street, Brighton BN1 1EA
01273 773030, www.sabaibrighton.co.uk