Having not had Spanish cuisine recently, my friend and I decided to head down to Sabio By The Sea. A restaurant which has been on my list of places-to-check-out for a long while now.

As Sabio By The Sea is located within Sentosa, we drove in. Did not like the hassle of having to take the train in and walk or take the Sentosa buses lah. =) But while trying to find a parking lot within Quayside Isle, we kept thinking we missed the entrance to the carpark when one will (just) need to keep driving along the long stretch as the entrance is nearer to W Hotel.

And it could be that we came on a weekday evening that the restaurant was not too busy.

And from the menu (pages 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6), we ordered:-

1) Croquetas de jamon, $14 (above) – Ham croquettes. Crust was crispy and fried to a beautiful shade of golden brown while filling was creamy. However, the heat was not handled properly as 2 of the 5 were served, burst.

2) Esparrago, $18 (above) – Grilled asparagus, serano ham, soft egg, paprika & sherry vinaigrette. Asparagus were overgrilled. Or simply, burnt. 80% of each asparagus was black. A great pity cause this would have been a must try as we really liked the combination of crunchy aspargus, cured ham and half-cooked egg.

3) El pulpo, $21 (above) – Grilled octopus leg, “viola” mash potato, sauce paprika. Again, this was overcooked. Restaurants have to understand the power of social media. Comparing the other nicer photographs (of this dish) shared by others on instagram, I was disappointed to see ours was nowhere near those. A sign of inconsistent cooking? The texture of the octopus was so mushy that my friend thought he was eating chicken! And the paprika was brown-purple instead of a vibrant shade of purple as shared by others.

4) Vieiras en salsa de cava, $18 (above) – Sea scallops with sparkling white wine sauce. This was okie, although my friend felt the sauce was a little too salty.

5) Paella negra, $26 (small) (above) – Mixed seafood in black ink squid. Paella comes in 2 sizes; $26 for small and $45 for large. Having had tried paella in Spain before, this was nowhere near the authentic taste. We concluded it could be due to the wrong type of rice used. This was too mushy.

6) Crema catalana, $6 (above) – Catalan custard.

7) Pina asada, $14 (above) – Roasted marinated pineapple served with vanilla ice cream. It tasted almost like the pineapple grating of the pineapple tarts baked for Chinese New Year, but slightly more bitter. Thus the pairing with sweet ice cream. I thought this was okie but my friend was really not impressed.

8) Churros, $12 (above) – Crunchy fried dough Spanish doughnut. It’s stated on the menu there’s a choice of either chocolate or caramel sauce. However, it could be that our order (for desserts) was taken during last order that the waiting staff assumed we wanted chocolate sauce in the rush of taking our orders. However, that aside, this has to be the highlight of dinner. Long, thick churros which were served warm were chewy. Nice.

Generally, we were not too pleased with our dining experience. Food was not executed well. Most of our dishes were over-cooked. Burnt asparagus, burst croquette and overcooked octopus. It felt as though the restaurant was not taking pride in the food they served. I would expect the chef to re-do the dishes instead of sending burnt food to the table.

Service was lacking too. When we arrived at the restaurant, we waited at the entrance as we thought we probably need to wait to be seated. However, a particular waiting staff made eye contact with us twice and ignored us. So we thought we could walk in on our own. However, as we walked in, the staff then quickly walked over and re-led us to another table. Hmm…

I won’t recommend Sabio By The Sea. There are other options for Spanish, and at more accessible locations. The other options may not have a water view but good food and great service are more important.

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