This is an easy one……
There are a couple of reasons why this place is our go-to take-out joint. First, we (obviously) love the food. Second, the prices of almost everything we order is below $7.25. Third, it's on one of the alternate routes home. Fourth, our favorite dishes there hold up well on the 15-20 minute drive home. The place is rather small, so sometimes doing take-out works out better as well. It does help that the place serves one of my "last request" dishes. Without further ado……
Yep, it's Sab E Lee of course. I guess now that Koby has sold the place to the staff, they've gone ahead and called themselves "The Original" Sab E Lee. And though I've been doing most of my recent postings on Sab E Lee in Santee, and god knows we adore Koby. I thought I'd just dig out a few take-out photos cluttering my folders.
If you're a regular reader, you know my "last meal" dish is the Koi Soi, the raw beef salad.
I love the texture of the raw beef. And though it is not as refined as the version at Lotus of Siam (which is $6.70 more expensive), I just love the melding of flavors, the biting heat, the nuttiness of the roasted rice powder, pungent onions, scallions, and raw garlic slices, and biting into an occasional Thai chili! I know…yada-yada-yada….. just make sure you give me a spoonful before you pull the plug.
That's not say that any of the other dishes take a back seat. Whether it's the mild sourness of the Issan Sausage, with bits of pork skin adding a nice chew. Wrapped in a slice of cabbage with a peanut or two, or perhaps a chili or slice of raw garlic, and you've got a symphony of flavors.
Or the somewhat stinky, but so savory Salted Fish Fried Rice:
The Missus recently took a bunch of folks She works with to Sab E Lee. The coworkers weren't really familiar with Thai Food aside from Tom Yum and Pad Thai. When this dish arrived, folks pulled away from the plate…. once they tasted this, you couldn't get them away from the plate.
Well 'nuff said…. I'm sure all the SEL regulars have their favorite dishes…… I know of one one Food Blogger who can't get enough of this.
While building links, I just realized that this is my seventh post on SEL….. so maybe I should back off a bit.
But man, do I have tons of SEL photos.
And not only take-out either…..
OK, enough of that……
Most importantly, I'd like to know what your "go to" take-out places are, and why. Is it convenience? Prices perhaps? I'd really like to know…….
And in case you like to check out my other posts on Sab E Lee, you can find links on our "Rotation Page".