Sabio Tapas Bar & Restaurant

Sabio Tapas Bar

Duxton Hill

Finished most of the cafes and not sure of where to settle your next must-have Sunday brunch? Then you may want to try Sabio at Duxton Hill which serves a pretty good value all-you-can-eat Sunday Tapas brunch for just $49.90. G, K and I went for this today and I believe we were pretty much satisfied despite the big room of improvement that this restaurant could have in other various ways. They have a pretty long menu and we had most of the things on it, actually we almost finished trying all the hot tapas.

For the cold tapas, we had the caviar of eggplant, marinated capsicum and seafood salad. These could be skipped I thought as they tasted really normal. Caviar of eggplant was quite bland in fact while the seafood salad tasted like what you could get on SQ.

Ah… this premium Canadian oysters are really fresh and goes really well with the refreshing lemon.

From the hot tapas, we had this sizzling prawns which were really fresh and succulent. Sauce is slightly spicy while I liked the generous amount of chopped garlic used as they made this dish more fragrant. Btw, I asked for a slice of lemon to make it even more refreshing and that indeed gave the prawns an edge!

Fresh grilled mussels with tomato condiments. This plate of hot tapas was quite delicious too as mussels were fresh. It could have been even better if lemon is added to it!

Lamb shank confit with olives. The impressive bit about this lamb shank is that it is really well cooked and you can slice slide the meat off easily the bone. Really tender and kinda melts in your mouth. Impressive cooking here.

Chicken in garlic queso manchego (cheese). The melted cheese and the slightly spicy sauce made this super tender chicken meat very fragrant and tantalising. The outside layer of the chicken has also a slight crisp while still retaining the moist within.

And we had the meat balls in spicy tomato sauce, garlic mushrooms and fluffy tortilla with sausages and spinach. Meat balls were well made and doesn’t have too much flour in it while the garlic mushrooms were fragrant but a tad salty. Tortilla though was quite bland except for those portions with sausages hidden in it.

Pan-fried calamari cooked with spicy sauce and saffron added to it. Saffron gave it the refreshing fragrance while calamari is very fresh and has an addictive texture! This plate was devoured within seconds.

Squid ink Spanish noodle paella with squid and peppers. As a fan of squid ink, we got this bowl of noodles and it indeed did not disappoint us. Noodles were moist and al dente while the squid ink makes it even more savoury and intensely flavoured. The lemon definitely added another refreshing dimension to this noodles. Yummy!

Spanish Coca with serrano ham and arugula. The tomato spread with chilli oil, bitter rocket and the thin savoury serrano ham make a good combination overall. The thing we loved best was the thin crust that tasted very fragrant and crunchy. This is really a must order I felt if you are at this restaurant as the crust is really quite special.

And after having so much, we of course have to end this big meal with all the desserts available. We had the churros with chocolate sauce, creme brulee and rice with vanilla and white chocolate. Churros were crispy on the outside and really soft on the inside while creme brulee was satisfyingly sweet. The caramelised top though could have been thinner. The most special one is the rice with vanilla and white choc; while sauce was really well made the rice could have been softer. Then again, I thought it was pretty good overall.

So, we had a good brunch here but a pretty long one for about 2.5h. We were lucky enough to be sitting in front of the air condition as the restaurant wasn’t chilled enough. Service was pretty OK though it didn’t start off well until we told them that we haven’t gotten any of our food after they have been ordered for quite a while. I believe that this restaurant is really short staffed and that explains the slightly forgetful service. So, we learnt a trick – that is to remind them about our food if we don’t see them in about 15min and they would be promptly served. Then again, if you are really patient and would like to have some pretty good tapas at a very reasonable price, then brunch at Sabio duxton would be your choice! Thanks for the bday treat from G and K once again!

Verdit: A good restaurant.