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2009-08-08
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Based on past bad experience with other restaurants in Royal Garden, it has taken us quite a while before deciding to give Sabatini a try.We were welcome at the entrance and led to our table which is at the far end of the restaurant. The décor is reasonable for a causal dining environment and definitely not grand. But the immediate feeling is that every single inch of space was utilized to put up as many tables as they could without any consideration of the patrons. You could literally shake ha
We were welcome at the entrance and led to our table which is at the far end of the restaurant. The décor is reasonable for a causal dining environment and definitely not grand. But the immediate feeling is that every single inch of space was utilized to put up as many tables as they could without any consideration of the patrons. You could literally shake hands with the patrons at the table next to yours. The setup is more for family gathering and friends reunion and definitely not suitable for couples who would like some breathing space and a bit of peace and quiet. Caprice of Four Seasons or Petrus of Island Shangri La is miles better.
There were more tables than the staff could handle and obviously the service is not attentive. However, you can see the staff being very busy, running round to try to serve each table but
There is a movable side table which is attached to our table. To our surprise, one purpose of the side table is as a transient area for the bottles of water ordered by the patron next table, the plates with finished meals collected from near by tables, etc. We have been t virtually all the top dining places in the territory and have never come across such experience. This is totally unacceptable and all I could say is that the staff there just didn’t have any common sense on how to serve in a fine-dining restaurant or is Sabatini supposed to be a fine-dining place ?
Regarding the food, we had crab meat with fried soft cell crab and Parma ham as appetizers. Followed by seafood soup which is excellent but my mushroom soup was nothing special. The scampi risotto my wife had was not again nothing special but my char-frilled yellow flounder fish was tasty. Overall, the food is OK.
The 30 oz T-bone steak seems to be a popular choice and we can see many people ordered that for sharing. The problem with the steak was the way it was served. The serving staff would slice the steak into portions by your table. The are two major issues with this way of serving : (1) the whole operation takes about 10 minutes and by the time the sliced steak was served on a plate to you, it should be at most warm and not sizzling; (2) the slicing was done on a chopping board and needless to say the meat juice would all be lost and you would not get a single drop of it. Is this the Italian way for serving steak ? Didn’t they know these issues or people having it didn’t know how a steak should be served ?
Nevertheless, I would not go again due to the service and environment. And for $1800 per person, there are many much better choices, Petrus or Caprice would remain my top favourite. Sabatini is just not up to standard in many ways.
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