A week ago, my family and I went to Sables, a fine dining restaurant in Dragon Hill Lodge, located on the Yongsan military base in Seoul. I adore this restaurant, but it’s super pricey, and I only go there on special occasions. Sables is a quiet, intimate restaurant that focuses on various steak and seafood dishes. The interior design of the restaurant is elegant, and there’s a great outside view of the fountain, both of which gives a peaceful ambience to the whole restaurant. The waitstaff here are always so courteous, and I always experience great service.
While we looked through the menu, we were first given a complimentary bread basket with three different spread — butter, a salmon spread, and a garlic cheese spread. The breads, all baked in Dragon Hill Lodge’s bakery, were great! My personal favourites were the foccacia bread with olives and the whole grain bread with nuts and seeds. I didn’t like the salmon or the garlic cheese spread, so I mainly stuck to butter.
For our starters, we ordered Caesar salad and French onion soup. The Caesar salad was crisp and perfectly seasoned with the dressing. The garlic croutons were the highlight of the salad, and the most interesting part was the anchovies that came on the side. The French onion soup had a nice cheese top, and the broth with the caramelised onions were both full of flavour. Normally, I am not a soup person, but I do like Sables’ French onion soup.
Two of my family members ordered a t-bone steak, another ordered a New York steak, and my mum ordered a whole live Maine lobster. My dad didn’t care for his t-bone steak, saying that it didn’t taste like they’d seasoned the meat before it was cooked. My aunt and uncle didn’t criticise on their steaks, but they weren’t raving about it, either. Although, my uncle did note that meat for his New York steak was softer than the t-bone steak. As for my mum, she was the one who got the humongous lobster, which was priced at $120. It tasted fine to me, but I am not a lobster fan, so I wasn’t particularly impressed by it.
As for my own meal — I wasn’t in a steak or seafood mood that day — so I was the oddball who requested three side dishes. I chose the mushroom medley, grilled fresh vegetables, and fresh green beans with bacon and almonds. I really enjoyed my side dishes. The mushroom medley came with two or three different mushrooms, and they were all nicely seasoned with pepper. The fresh grilled vegetables had bell peppers/capsicum, zucchinis, onions, and baby broccolis, and it was seasoned with salt, but I didn’t find it overly salty. Then there’s the green beans with bacon and almonds — one of my favourite side dishes there — and it was delicious. The green beans were cooked until tender, and the crushed bacon and slices of almonds complement the beans well.
My family also ordered the grilled asparagus with hollandaise sauce, another order of fresh green beans with bacon and almonds, and Idaho baked potatoes with the works. I didn’t try the Idaho baked potato. However, I did try the asparagus with hollandaise sauce, and I can’t say I liked the sauce at all. As the Koreans would say, the sauce on the asparagus was very 느끼하다, meaning it had a repetitive greasy taste.
We were all very stuffed by the end of our meal. We had to doggy bag some of our food, and we couldn’t even do Sables dessert buffet! We were just too full! All in all, I left feeling satisfied, and so did everyone else, despite some of the food being a hit or a miss. At the least, the waitstaff were great, and so was the restaurant’s ambience.
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Business Info
02-7918-2222 Extension 6710
Yongsan-dong 4-ga, Yongsan-Gu, Seoul, Korea
서울특별시 용산구 용산동 4-가
Sables is located on the ground floor of Dragon Hill Lodge on the US Yongsan military base.
20.00 ~ 120.00+ dollars budget per person
The Lobster looks amazing. Was it char grilled?
It’s steamed! At least that’s what their menu says XD