Saan

We needed a place for that for a group of work colleagues. It felt a bit romantic but the varied menu gave us plenty to speak about. We had great service from the young man making cocktails and the head maitre d’hôtel were passionate and wonderful.
We started with the satay leu, boar skewers. Everyone gobbled these down, quickly. The boar tasted like pork, so don’t get scared. We couldn’t resist ordering the soft shell crab, which was crispy but perfectly garnished to break up the grease. Based on the recommendation of the mature d’hôtel we also ordered the duck, which was good but wasn’t as crispy as I would have liked. The pickled eggplant was quite creamy. The grilled chicken takes about 25 mins but is well worth the wait, as the was perfectly charred without being ashy and delightfully seasoned with a very tangy and moorish dipping sauce.
For dessert we had the Thai shortbread with coconut Caramel, perfect for sharing. We also shared the Caramelised chestnuts with various fruit, which was the runaway hit of the night. Order it!

Hot new restaurant on Ponsonby Rd with an interesting menu and two cooking stations. Exciting menu drew us in. Dishes are on the spicy side (which can be s good thing) and we probably needed to balance out all the meat dishes with something fresh! The whole fish was my favourite. Dessert was battered bananas with a coconut caramel and sesame seeds, sounded delicious but the bananas were not a sweet variety and although the sauce was nice, overall it wasn’t a pleasing dessert. Won’t stop me from coming back, great place for a shared meal.

The new Asian kid on the SPQR block, Saan is a rattan and cream colored space infused with the aroma of spices and lemongrass that will transport you to a bungalow by the paddy fields. Drawing on its Café Hanoi (and Chef’s) ancestry, it offers small and large plates of varying hotness that are good to share. These include taro cakes and tofu with a delicious spicy sauce, pork crackling, home made sausage served with ginger, cashew nuts, chili and onion garnish, a fab deep fried fish with fleshy coujons and crispy bony backdrop (yes it’s almost all edible including the cheek that one is supposed to share with ones lover), and succulent sticky pork belly and green peppercorns on the stem. There are only three desserts, a sago pudding with mango, a water chestnut, mango and coconut desert with crushed ice and banana fritters (green bananas) served with a caramel coconut sauce. The service is friendly and the wine list is reasonably priced and well matched with the menu. All in all, it’s bound to be a popular affair.

Saan, from the people behind Hanoi Kitchen is brand new to Ponsonby Road on the newly refurbished Video Ezy site and what a welcome addition to the neighbourhood it is!
My partner Ryan’s mum was in town with a friend. Being a Saturday and given the restaurant had been open less than a week I went in mid-​afternoon to book. It turns up they only take walk ins but I was assured we would be fine if we came before 7 pm. We did just that and were fine. The place is large and spacious and exquisitely decorated in simple beige colours with interesting textiles and fittings. There is a selection of interesting looking booths, small and large tables. There are two open kitchens, a grill and the main kitchen where you can see the chefs at work. It’s style all the way. Sit down the back — it had the best atmosphere.
The staff were professional, fast and friendly and soon we were looking through the impressive drinks list. Always a fan of something sparkling we chose a rather delicious Gustave Lorentz Cremate d’Alsace which it turns out would compliment the food perfectly. The wine was very well priced at $ 11 a glass and it wasn’t long before we were onto a bottle of the stuff at $ 53 a bottle.
The rest of the drinks list has a great range of predominantly New Zealand and French wines, cocktails and craft beers — plenty of interesting things to try including a Thai beer.
The menu is very interesting, made up of small, medium and large sharing plates. Each item in each section is listed by heat scale. Not a chilli emoji in site, simply listed mild to spicy down the page. We selected a selection from each and none of the dishes were uncomfortably hot.
The food was quite simply sensational. We selected two items from the small plates and four from the large and a pickled vegetable side dish. The waiter informed us that he would send the dishes out over time which happened without a hitch.
First up came the small plates and the side — deep fried taro cakes and tofu, pork sausages and the picked vegetables. The taro cakes and tofu came with an amazing chilli dipping sauce but it was the sausages that would turn out to be the highlight of the night and gave us a new ‘go back for’ dish to add to our list. The pickled veg was mainly cabbage; mild and refreshing and plenty of it.
Next came a mains. First to arrive was rather spectacular looking fried fish. All of the flesh had been removed, chunked and deep fried, then piled back onto the also fried head, bones and tail. It looked amazing, the only problem was we hadn’t ordered it. The waiter had confused the order — we’d ordered chargrilled chicken. Once the confusion was sorted we were gifted the dish anyway by the maître d’ or owner who told us «we have a no waste policy here, the fish is on the house». Impressive, as I’ve seen these sorts of situations handled poorly in the past at other places.
The fish was great and next up came twice cooked beef cheeks, crispy pork belly, braised beef neck and the chargrilled chicken with a single side of rice we ordered. We barely touched the rice as there were too many tasty delights that simply didn’t need the accompaniment.
Of the two styles of beef we ordered, the beef checks in tamarind and chilli were by far the best — melt in you mouth stuff. The beef neck came with large egg noodles and a coconut broth. Everyone raved about the egg noodles. The crispy pork belly by nature of the dish would never be crispy. It’s done in a red curry paste with snake beans, chilli, kaffir lime and a sprig of young peppercorns — the latter the kind of thing that just adds something interesting sight wise to the dish. The grilled chicken with lemongrass and Thai spices was simple but good. Boned out apart from the wings and legs it was tasty and plentiful.
Completely satisfied, the bill came. Split four ways including tip we each parted with $ 70 — great value for what we received.
Another simple but impressive touch were the needle fine, cinnamon flavoured bamboo toothpicks that were delivered with the bill.
There was no room for dessert but we’ll most certainly be back!
Saan, welcome to Ponsonby!