Sorry for the delay, real life once again got in the way of doing this stuff and I had to focus my attention on real work, i.e. my first speech at an international conference and a bit of research there on. Also, it appears as though work is back on the agenda, so I can at least do this more regularly again and finally finish this off.
It had been a while since I’d been to Sababa’s, and in fact I’d kind of forgotten it was there. It IS in one of my usual haunts, but it is too far down the street from another place I usually go to, and as I’m a bit of a simpleton (think Homer Simpson “Food goes in here”) I find it hard to change habits. Which of course, was one of the reasons I began this thing.
In fact if I think about it, the last time I had been here was about six years ago after a Jewish colleague had left his job. Now, the fact he is Jewish has absolutely no bearing on anything except for the fact that in his words, he had been to nearly every place he knew about that served food he could accept. I had noticed that there was some Israeli food or something from a glance I’d taken at the menu a few weeks earlier and suggested we go there. I don’t recall any complaints.
There is some suggestion that I could be Jewish by the way. Ethnically at least. My maternal grandmother was probably the most Jewish looking woman who ever existed. Famously, the Scottish twins who make up The Proclaimers won a competition to find the most Scottish people in the world. Well, if there was a Jewish version, auld Miriam would have come in first. Yep, her name was also Miriam and several things about her just didn’t add up. She swore all her life she wasn’t but, my Slavic features and so many other things point to a high possibility. As Jewishness is matrilineal, I guess I could be. I dunno I guess it could explain my fondness for early Woody Allen films, not Woody himself, as adults we should be able to separate the person from their work (see also James Brown- godfather of soul and terrible man, Dave Grohl lovely bloke- does nothing for me musically and so on).
Anyway, what can I say about this? Well middle eastern food again, doing its thing and me enjoying it too much. The décor and menu had changed a bit from when I had last been in. Things I remembered weren’t on the menu anymore. I can’t vouch if they had gone due to unpopularity or whatever as I’ve never been blessed with enough cash to work through a restaurant’s entire menu. Overall, nice vibe and I think this may have been the first time I’ve been in an ethnic restaurant during this and all the customers (not including my party) were foreigners. I assume they were young people studying Chinese at the local University upon earwigging their conversations.
It was lunchtime, so I went for the 220NT meal deal. I had lamb yoghurt pita (as always, the missus was not around so I go for lamb when I can), which came with potato wedges and drink, (I had mint tea).
Now I enjoyed it, I was always going to because I’ve now decided that this region is my favourite food, but felt it was a bit small. This was for me a little bit of checking it off the list, rather than finding anything new. I’m told the pita/falafel crown has been taken by another restaurant, which I’ll have to get round to at some point but I chose this one because I know it has the pedigree.
So tip top for what it is, I’d say it is a good entry level food for the Middle-East if you don’t know much about it and need to start somewhere, but veterans of the food will like it but may come off wanting.
I’m likely to do another entry pretty quickly this week because we have a three day weekend this weekend and I need to show a couple of ladies a good time 😉
Address: No. 17, Lane 283,Section 3.Roosevelt Rd, Da’an District, Taipei City, 106
Opening hours: 12-2:30 then 6- 9 weekdays
12-9 Saturdays
12-8:30 Sundays
Normally I don’t comment on this but this is a bit strange considering the area. They are situated slap bang in the middle of Studentsville so I would have thought it would have been an all-day affair in the week, but nope.
Best way to get there: it is between Taipower Building and Gongguan MRT stations on the Green line. Taipower probably takes it for being closer, but I’m not about to take out my stopwatch.
52 Cuisines? 