Cafe Saba

Craving a Vietnamese roll as we work 2 mins away.
These rolls were tasty but little filling and quite expensive.
Next time I will make the drive to Goodwood Road and stand online at Roll In Saigon.
The best i have had hands down and great value for money…
Sorry Café Saba but you need to lift your game…

I live in Norwood so this a convenient eatery when I’m after a quick bite and craving Vietnamese. I only found out about this venue when I was researching for somewhere close by besides the city for noodle soup. It is not easy to find as it is hidden away at the back in a group of collective shops.
Café Saba has been featured in the paper previously for their good food so I was glad they were close by and were priced very reasonably. I have tried various items on the menu and none have been disappointing.
Talking about it now is building my craving even though I just had dinner an hour ago in this cold weather.

This place is a nice dinner option if you’re sick of the usual carb laden food of The Parade, especially in the heat of summer.
The viet salad is really nice and fresh, and servings really rather large. If you’re able to get through a whole XL phó, then you are an eating machine.
The seating in the court yard to the side is nice, and generally pretty quiet.
In the case where you’re feeling more like some pork and prawn cold rolls, you can get this sort of thing take away too.
Parking available along the Parade, but plenty of space out the back also.

Tucked away at the end of the Parade Pavilion, Café Saba is easy to miss.
Formerly an unobtrusive luncheonette, Café Saba has changed its cultural identity and now offers a fantastic Vietnamese menu.
Still retaining something of its former character (including the cakes) the Vietnamese decorations within Café Saba sit slightly uneasily and one is almost inclined to order something with gravy merely from the aspect of the building.
However, the food is really food and there are no other Vietnamese places in the local area. I can highly recommend both the phở and the laksa.

Café Saba is a new addition to the Norwood area and let me tell you: I was excited to hear there would be BANH MI in my immediate vicinity.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, for shame! Act like you know and then read this to get up to speed
In short, it’s a Vietnamese sandwich that is all kinds of addictive and delicious — not to mention also pretty healthy. I’ve been getting my banh mi fix from Zen House, the Central Markets, Hanson Road or Southern Cross food arcade, so I was stoked to hear there would be somewhere a little more local to get my hands on the goods.
The verdict? It was good: fresh and tasty with just the right amount of chili. Yet, I won’t be going back to Saba for my banh mi fix anytime soon, and here’s why: at $ 7.50 for a combination roll, I paid almost double what I pay elsewhere for the same quality of product. A bottle of sparkling water also set me back $ 3.80.
Service was also disappointing. Despite being the only customer in the café, the rolls took a really long time to arrive. When I went to pay on EFTPOS, the staff member told me he didn’t know how to operate the machine, so I needed to wait another 10 minutes for another staff member to return. I wouldn’t normally be so pedantic but I was in a bit of rush that day so was really aware of how long it was taking. Hopefully this was a just a first week road bump and will improve as they go along.
While I have only tried the banh mi so far, the rest of the menu is a haphazard combination of Asian and café food, with a sandwich bar, coffee machine, cakes, curries and roasts on offer as well as Vietnamese dishes. Personally I think the all-​things-​to-​all-​people approach is generally not as successful as doing one thing really well.
The location in a plaza at 47 The Parade is a little hidden, you probably wouldn’t find the place unless you knew to go there. The plaza itself is very pleasant though, green and airy with lots of seating.