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(Photo by Stephanie Breijo)
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The Talay Noodle reimagines Tom Yum soup with stir-fried shrimp, squid, scallops, tomato, scallions, rice noodles, basil and Thai chilis. (Photo by Stephanie Breijo)
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The Kanom Jeep dumplings, only available on the patio, include ground chicken, crab meat, cellophane noodles, water chestnuts, mushrooms and scallions. (Photo by Stephanie Breijo)
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(Photo by Stephanie Breijo)
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The Choochee Pla, a filet of tilapia in panang curry with kaffir lime leaves and Thai chilis, is available only on the patio menu. (Photo by Stephanie Breijo)
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(Photo by Stephanie Breijo)
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Sabai-Sabai Gai Tod, a patio menu offering, breads chicken and tosses it in a sweet and spicy sauce with Thai chilis, cashews, basil and scallions.(Photo by Stephanie Breijo)
Though 2016's summer is shaping up to be the Season of the Rooftop Bar here in Richmond, Sabai is giving that outdoor drinking trend a run for its money. Last Friday, on its one year anniversary, on regular ol' ground level, the Thai restaurant and bar opened its incredibly inviting and roughly-1,500-square-foot patio featuring bulb lights, a grill, picnic benches, trees and a repurposed SWAT truck, the latter serving as the bar for simple cocktails and refreshing smoothies.
"This is like a very Thai-style beer garden, like you'd see all over Bangkok or any city in Thailand where they'll have a lot of bars outside whether it be on the street corner or in a lot," says co-owner Brandon Pearson. "All my inspiration came from being in Thailand and this whole thing is just a reflection of things I enjoyed and places I went."
The new patio seats about 50 at its four large picnic benches, and will soon offer a communal standing bar, as well. Bananas and palms that line the fence provide some greenery, as does the kaffir lime tree by the grill where you'll catch staff fixing the restaurant's signature satays. Behind the SWAT truck-turned-bar is another herb garden — an addition to the restaurant's rooftop garden — from which the Sabai team harvests fresh flavors for its food and cocktails daily. Eventually, Pearson will clear that area to become another space for guests to enjoy, too. "I get bored quite easily and I had all this space here that were were renting, and figured: Why not utilize every square inch of it?" he says. "As I'm building, I always get it into my head, 'Why don't we do more?'"
Doing more seems to be the name of the game here, because not only is the restaurant launching its patio; it's offering an entirely new menu available only to those seated outside. Each week, Sabai will offer three new appetizers and three new entrées (currently priced $8.50 to $16.50) until it reaches a full menu of roughly 25 items, then transition some of the most popular selections to the restaurant inside. "It's a whole different menu out there," says co-owner and chef Joe Kiatsuranon, who says these dishes will be a little prettier and given a bit more attention to detail. Eventually, they'll even offer a Thai-inspired brunch on weekends, which was one of Pearson's plans for the restaurant when it opened last year.
To make this new menu possible, Kiatsuranon added another six-burner stove and a sandwich station to the kitchen, both dedicated to the outdoor menu. "Now one kitchen is two kitchens, you know what I mean?" he says. "The food's gonna come out on one side and the other will come from the other side so it won't get mixed up. It's like we put another restaurant in for the patio."
Sabai is located at 2727 W. Broad St., with its patio open throughout the restaurant's regular business hours: 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. daily. Both the indoor and outdoor menu transition to one late-night menu at 10:30 p.m.
Correction: This piece originally stated that items on the new menu reach $16.30; this was an error. In fact, they reach $16.50. The post has been updated to reflect this.
