Oh, man, that was a good dinner last night. We met Steve and friends Chris and Susan to celebrate Steve’s birthday at Sabor! in Schaumburg.
It’s described (a little over-enthusiastically by the waiter) as Nuevo Latino, which he chose to pronounce “New-Wavo” Latino. That’s a minor lapse on his part; he’s right to let his enthusiasm for the food run away with him, because the appetizers and entrees we chose with his help and advice totally rocked our worlds.
A final note – Sabor’s decor is interesting and modern, yet comfortable. If you’re a non-smoker, request seats at the back of the restaurant, as the tiny bar is in the front (it’s long and narrow). As mentioned in the link article, it’s in the plaza area of Schaumburg near the library and part of it overlooks the park and fountain in the center. Since Schaumburg and Hoffman Estates are kind of gerrymandered around each other, I tend to consider anything in Schaumburg “in town” as well.
At one point Steve was moaning and groaning with pleasure because he had a bite of Susan’s pato (duck breast) dish. And yes, it was that good. Steve started talking to us last year about the “Slow Food” concept… yes, there are points about it, but it can be taken too far when you’re hungry, and we were hungry last night. So it didn’t take us long to totally wipe our plates clean.
David and Chris had “xinxim,” a Brazilian stew that had ginger and lime leaves in it – tasted a little like a Thai curry that I like, quite yummy in fact. I had pollo de coco, a coconut-crusted chicken breast that was quartered and stacked up around a piped mound of purple Peruvian mashed potatoes and a simple (but delicious) pico de gallo scattered liberally all around. Steve had a plantain crusted mahi-mahi. The duck had a glaze sauce that would have tasted good on ice cream – it was cinnamon and brown sugar and a few spices. I thought at first it was some sore of mole’ but was taken by surprise by the taste… oh, it was good. It was gooooood. And we shared 3 different yummy appetizers.
We had told Steve about Sabor before, but a friend of his that is a local foodie/reviewer told him about it more recently and he decided he wanted to go there for his birdy dinner. We actually all dressed up, and Susan and I had nice little gifts for Steve – I gave him a lucky bamboo in a pretty glass vase with an orchid (as a reminder of Maui, and also good for prosperity). Susan gave him 3 little tea-light lanterns that were meant to go with his decor, but also they were colored red, green, and blue, so they were a reference to RGB lights (a tech joke – must get David to ‘splain it).
It was a fun time and we’ll happily go to Sabor again soon. And this time, we can advise the waiter (we had him the other time, too) that he won’t have to go through the entire menu with us…. 😉
just to know, what kind of food can you eat at Sabor?. I mean, from wich country of Latin America?. I´m from Argentina, and I have to say that no mexican food can do as well as our meat!!! I like your blog´s title, it sounds like mine. Neat.
I think they have foods and influences from many Latin American countries – there was a Costa Rican dish, a couple of Cuban dishes, Brazilian, and from a few other countries. And my dish was partly Peruvian and so on. Also, they had a seafood paella, so that would be Spanish, too. I don’t remember anything specifically Argentinian on the menu, but would not be surprised to find it.
I don’t think there was anything Mexican on the menu at all, except perhaps little things, like the pico de gallo on my plate. Or if they did, it was a regional specialty that wasn’t the ordinary “Tex-Mex” we normally get here.
Thank you so much for your comments!