With a face-lift and updated menu, classic eatery remains family favourite
The favourite deep-fried rolls, duck's tongues in spicy salad and cold pork jelly. |
Delicious fried crab with chillies and garlic. |
The restaurant's best-selling grilled suckling pig. |
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When it comes to S.B.L., there are only two types of people - those who are long-time regulars, and those who don't know the restaurant. I was one of the latter until I married into a Thai-Chinese family 13 years ago.
Opened in 1954, S.B.L. was originally named Somboonlarb. Today the 400-seat restaurant is widely known by its abbreviation as S.B.L. or "Saw Baw Law", and has long been cherished among the Thai-Chinese community, which is known for its gastronomic meticulousness, as one of the best Taechew eateries in Bangkok.
With fine ingredients imported from Hong Kong, whether it's the sauce, seafood or seasonal vegetables, S.B.L. is a place for first-class authentic Chinese dishes such as braised sea cucumber in brown gravy, snow fish in Chinese plum soup, stewed goose legs and deep-fried pigeon.
Yet, like several of Bangkok's well-cherished traditional family-style Chinese restaurants that try to survive in this digital age and an ailing economy, the age-old image has now been modernised by the second-generation owners to cater to the younger generation of customers.
New "contemporary" dishes have been added to the menu and the place has been given a face-lift, lending a more fashionable look. So other than the rarely-found classic Chinese delicacies, you can now find, scallop coated with butter sauce, snow fish with teriyaki sauce and duck tongue in Isan-style salad.
I've been to S.B.L. numerous times over the past years, but my latest visit to the restaurant last week was basically part of my duty. So forget the family's usual shark's fin soup, steamed crab claws with soy sauce, grilled freshwater prawn and stir-fried egg noodles, which can be a bit too "predictable" - we were there for the new enticements.
Our lunch kicked off in style with por pia sai roong, or rainbow rolls (150 baht per order). The dish presenting five pieces of deep-fried dough stuffed with scallop and creamy fruit salad proved to be enjoyable, though the name was misleading.
Equally delightful was por pia miang, or egg rolls with stir-fried duck filling (150 baht). Just like the rainbow rolls, the egg rolls were so flavourful that they needed no dipping sauce.
We also sampled the refreshing, hard-to-find cold pork jelly (150 baht), which was basically chilled pork leg stew in palo gravy, and lin ped nam tok (150 baht) or spicy Isan-style salad with duck's tongue, which was very scrumptious.
For main course, we skipped rock lobster for poo hima phad phrik kluea, or fried saltwater crab with chilli and garlic (950 baht) and found that the crab was huge and yielded a firm, though slightly insipid, meat. Personally, for those who'd like to savour the naturally sweet crab meat, I would recommend that you have the restaurant's famous steamed crab claw (450 baht per claw) in soy sauce instead.
For fish, we went for pla kaphong tord, or deep-fried seabass (700 baht). The fish, dipped in bread crumbs before being deep-fried, presented an impressively crispy golden exterior and soft white meat. Since the fish had not been seasoned, it was enhanced by the sour and spicy seafood dipping sauce.
I couldn't afford to miss S.B.L.'s best selling moo han, or grilled suckling pig (1,000 baht). The piglet came with its pre-slit mahogany-colour skin, thick sweet sauce and a plate of steamed buns.
Addictively tasty as usual, the aromatic crispy skins, cut into rectangles (about 30 pieces) and enjoyed with bun and sauce, disappeared quickly. Normally we would order the restaurant to deep-fry the leftover meat with garlic and pepper. But this time we went for something unusual, although it sounded rather plain and simple.
The pork meat went back to kitchen to be flavoured with the restaurant's special seasoning and re-roasted. The result, as we all agreed, was marvellous. The roasted pork meat offered a very aromatic and flavourful meat. It was sad to think how much tender meat over the years we've had ruined by having it deep-fried. Our last entree, baked scallop with butter (140 baht per scallop) was just fine.
For dessert, try dried Chinese dumplings with black sesame seed filling (20 baht each) if you'd like something different. Or stick to ow nee pae guay, or sweet sticky rice with taro paste and gingko nuts in syrup (150 baht) for a more traditional finish.
The restaurant also has 10 private rooms for private group dining. Reservations are highly recommended, especially on weekends.
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