The "new" Original Sab-E-Lee's in Rancho PQ

Just yesterday, I had the pleasure of having lunch with some awesome folks...

Our lunch destination was up North (well, for me it was), in Rancho PQ...

In this little strip mall is the newest "version" (for lack of a better word) of Sab-e-Lee...

It opened a few weeks ago and we were all curious to see how it measured up to the restaurants in Linda Vista (the Original Original!), and Santee (SEL 2!). It was great seeing Carol of CAB Cooks, Kirbie and her DH of Kirbie's Cravings, and finally meeting Jinxi of Jinxi Eats.

It was much bigger than the Linda Vista location, which seats about 12 or 14 at the most. Smaller than the Santee location, this place was probably the nicest one in terms of decor as it was brand spanking new. It was very orange in there! The color scheme was a bit 80's...

There were two seating areas which were divided by a low wall.

There's the other side...

Their menu which had an array of rice, noodle, and curry dishes as well as Issan specialties (like a fried fish that I'd like to try in the future). When we placed our orders, we asked for "medium" spicy which the waitress equated to about a '5'. She seemed to think it would be "too spicy" for us so we downgraded to a '3', which ended up being on the mild side.

I kept one of their menus for reference and as luck would have it, I misplaced it! Drat! I'm sure it will turn up somewhere. Most of the stuff we ordered ran about $7.95. For the five of us, we ended up paying $10.71 each (which included the tip). Not bad, eh!

We ordered a little bit of everything. I was curious to try their Beef Jerky. The pieces were shorter than the kind at Asia Cafe (yes, I know that's Laotian) and a bit more moist, but still on the dry side of course. The accompanying sauce had quite a lot of crushed pepper seeds in it and I couldn't handle too much of it. I ordered this with a side of sticky rice and noticed halfway through the meal that they had forgotten about it or mistakenly thought I said 'steamed' rice since we had a plate of that instead of the sticky.

Carol recommended their Duck Larb which most of us hadn't tried before. I was surprised (and glad) to see that the meat wasn't minced, like the Beef or Chicken Larb. This had a bit of heat to it.

Instead of Pad Thai or Drunken Noodles or Pad See Ewe or Lad Nah, we got something we never had before, the Crab Noodles. The noodles were the same as the Pad Thai with only a little bit of crab on top and more eggs throughout. The flavor was a little sweet but on the bland side for me.

We also enjoyed the refreshing Papaya Salad. This probably could have been spicier but it was still plesant enough to enjoy and not have to worry about the, uh afterburn. I really like the textures and flavors in this salad.

The Issan Sausage Fried Rice - I was actually looking to see if this restaurant had my favorite thing from the other restaurants, the Issan (Northern) sausage, made of fermented pork and rice. Seeing that it was not on the menu as a stand-alone item, but as an ingredient in fried rice, we decided to try it. The dish kind of reminded me of a non-crunchy Nem Khao sans the peanuts and chilis. I normally don't ever order fried rice anywhere but had to because of the sausage. Can you see any? There wasn't enough sausage in my opinion. I would rather pay $7.95 for the sausage alone than have it meagerly chopped up and hidden in the dish.

And finally, the sticky rice which was late to the party. Now I could really enjoy that beef jerky with this wrapped around it!

Can you see the camera happy hands?

My plate which had a little bit of everything, except for the sticky rice which they forgot about and brought in late when we were almost done eating.

Even after all this food, we still wanted something sweet. It was like we had one hollow leg or an extra stomach or something.

Overall, we liked the variethy of dishes we ordered. I think we would get them spicier next time if we ever do another meetup here. I'm sure the other bloggers will turn out their own posts about our lunch in due time. Good to know that Sab-e-Lee has this new location and hope that they have good business here.

[Update - Hot off the press! Kirbie's post of our lunchhere with better photos as well as the menu]

[1/23/13 Update #2 - Jinxi's post is now up!]

[2nd update - And I guess we were also on the same wavelength with Gastrobits because he also just posted on SEL-RPQ (saw the link from Kirbie's sidebar]and gives a rundown on who owns/runs each SEL.


The Original Sab-e-Lee
13223-2 Black Mountain Road
San Diego, CA 92129
(858) 780-0022

originalsab-e-lee.webs.com

Up next, dessert in neighboring Manila Mesa Mira Mesa!