I just came back from dinner at Sanbanto in SS2 with Cheryl, Kah Wheng and Lainey. Cheryl is in town for the holidays, the last time we met was earlier this month in Penang at Agua Mediterranean Restaurant.
Well, Cheryl’s been wanting to go to Sanbanto forever. I bought a voucher from MilkADeal specifically for the SS2 branch (which has very limited seating). The original branch at SS2 is the genesis of the Sanbanto story – a cafe and purveyor of fine pork products. They have their own farm and there’s a deli in front that offers everything you’ll want from a pig.
The most interesting thing about Sanbanto is that they have a butchery right on the premises. Discard your notions of the dirty ones you’ve seen – the one is Sanbanto is almost like a clean room – it’s highly sanitized and super chilled to keep the pork fresh.
Sanbanto is one of those places that prides itself on high quality pork – they rear their own pigs and the dishes they cook at their restaurants is made with love. In fact, most of the stuff is freshly made – I can see where my pork meatballs came from just a few minutes ago.
Pork Belly Salad (RM 13)
This lettuce, onion and cherry tomato salad is liberally sprinkled with pieces of crispy pork belly. It’s delicious when dipped in the honey mustard sauce.
Cheese Baked Pork Meat Balls (RM 10)
Divine is perhaps the best adjective to describe this appetizer. The cheese is so thick that it leaves a sticky trail like what you see when you pull a slice of pizza apart.
The pork meat balls are really delicious too – it’s firm and goes very well with the cheesy sauce. I saw the waitress cum butcher work on a new batch of pork balls when this dish was ordered – you just gotta love freshly prepared meals.
Sanbanto Double Bacon & Cheese Burger (RM 32)
The one we got in the voucher has a double patty instead of a single one – the beauty about this gigantic burger is that the patty is home-made. It’s flavored nicely too – I expected to be disappointed with this (it is after all just a burger) but it surprised me by being one of the best dishes that we had. It’s the juicy and well-marinated patties combined with the bacon that elevated this common menu item into something special. I highly recommend this.
Pork BBQ Ribs (RM 38)
Heavenly. Yes, I know I’ve used two celestial adjectives in this post but there’s no other way to describe it. It’s high on the fat content (as all good pork ribs should be) – don’t worry about getting a drab piece of lean meat when you order this in Sanbanto. It’s amazingly tender and practically falls right off the bone and the sauce that goes with it?
Mouth-watering nirvana!
Sanbanto, SS2 also has the benefit of having excellent service in addition to all the porcine delights you would want. The seating is very limited but I think that’s a plus point – it maintains the ambiance of a small cafe with great service and delicious food! Thanks for the dinner Cheryl and Kah Wheng! 🙂
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This looks really good. I actually get the vouchers that I find interesting so you’ll hear from me soon! You just can’t argue with RM 25 for an all-you-can-eat buffet at Siam 62 – it’s one of the few authentic Thai cuisine places out there!
…now can someone tell me what the Chinese words for Sanbanto mean? We’ve been wondering but forgot to ask the people there.
Well, if my guess is correct then SanBanTo should mean head of a sampan, san 三(three) ban 板 (plank) = three planks = sampan. I’m not sure whether Malay word follow Chinese or Chinese translate Malay, I’ll be it’s the former because the sampan is said to be build with 3 planks. As for the To 头 (correct pinyin will be Tou). So putting together the characters means head of a sampan.
Thanks for the explaination bro! 🙂
We were wondering what it meant – various suggestions were put out – including san (as in mountain). My personal contribution was “san ban tou” as in “upper body” e.g. the upper body of a pig.
I don’t read Chinese but regardless, Sanbanto is an awesome place to eat – loved the food there – everything pork you could possibly want. 🙂
Update on the name but not sure whether the owner mean this or not. Sanbantou is actually the Chinese name for Jemaluang, a town in Johor. So maybe the owner came from Jemaluang or totally meant head of a sampan lol. http://travelingluck.com/Asia/Malaysia/Johor/_1732828_Jemaluang.html#local_map
Interesting! Cheers mate! 🙂
How big is the burger? it looks big in the 7th pic with spoon and your fren’s hand. oh and you remember my sis? she likes eating at siam 62. she says it’s spicy so i think you’ll like it too. 🙂
Hello Diana! 🙂
Well, it’s pretty huge. I certainly can’t finish it by myself. They were kind enough to cut it into quarters coz there were four of us and stick those club sandwich toothpicks into it too.
Okay, yeah of course I remember! Spicy eh? I love spicy! 😀
Ooooo….I wanna go to this place. Yum! Yum! Hey! Just realised that there’s no (western) place in Sibu where I can get pork chop – never mind, nice or not. Tsk! Tsk!
Yeah, it’s pretty good – probably the best pork specialty restaurant around town. There’s three branches but the SS2 one is arguably the best.
Hmm…pork chop in Sibu. I can’t remember having any, come to think of it…
What about the usual suspects? Tanahmas, Cafe Cafe, Premier, Garden Hotel? 🙂
P.S. Sam pa too in Foochow means jungle/country pig. LOL!!!
Heh! Yeah, now that you mention it, it does sound like that in Foochow.
The interesting thing about Chinese words is that if you don’t understand the characters or pinyin (like me) but you can speak Mandarin, you can come up with all sorts of wierd translations. Heh! 🙂
Ooh high quality pork. Me loves. :))))
Yeah, it’s the best Michelle! 🙂
Sanbanto prides itself in quality end-to-end pork – they rear the pigs well, butcher it and store it in a cold room, ready to cook fresh in their restaurant. 😀
Omg!! I was there once, the ribs, omg!! So juicily good! Absolutely delicious. Lol..
Yeah it’s awesome right! 🙂
I loved the BBQ pork ribs. The sauce is amazing.
I was surprised by the burger too – coz it’s just a burger – but the home made patties were seasoned well, very peppery and flavorful. 😀
Heh! Oh, you just reminded me, that’s a good one. I sneaked in a “nirvana” making it the third “celestial” reference, and OMG would be perfect as the fourth. I didn’t think of it at the time. Cheers Fiona! 🙂
Dayummmm ~~~~~~~
When penang is going to have this gooding stuffs >.<
The food looks good ~
Heh! Cheryl is from Penang, and she wanted to come down to KL to eat at Sanbanto so I guess there’s a lack of a dedicated pork speciality restaurant in Penang. 😡
…but then you guys have good stuff too – the char kueh tiaw and assam laksa in Penang is the best in Malaysia!
Yup, the food is really good, loved every single one that we ordered. We could barely finish it coz the portions were quite big. 😀
Yup ~ In penang , so far the best pork I can get is from Healy Macs’ Pork Knuckle .
Big and good . Other than that , it’s hard to get pork here .
Nice! I haven’t been to that place before, will check it out next time I’m up north!
Thanks Ian! 🙂
Please don’t go Siam 62, my friends went and the food was horrible. One of my friend even vomitted after the dinner and the other had diarrhea throughout the next day. Save ur tummy for smth else.
Hello Sarah!
Sorry to hear about your bad experience!
Hmm…a friend of mine actually loves Siam 62. She’s a big fan of spicy food.
I love spicy food too, and I’ve never eaten there before, so I’m going to check it out. 🙂
HB, I now got to create a recipe for pork meatballs. That was a nice dish to make and ground pork is low cost in price in San Francisco. Instead of ground beef for hamburger pork is good also.
Yeah, pork burger patties actually tastes pretty good. 🙂
McDonald’s in Thailand has pork burgers too, wrote about it when I went there during the early days of the blog, it’s not too bad, but of course, it can’t compare to the pork burger in Sanbanto, where the patties are homemade.
Yup, I guess it all depends on where you live – the price of various meat differs. 😀
Dude, if that BBQ pork rib is “heavenly”….you’ll die when you come over for BBQ ribs. ( Not in California of course).
Yeah, I can’t wait to check out authentic Tex-Mex food when I head over the the states.
There’s gotta be some awesome pork ribs over there.
I’m planning for a 2012 trip bro, but toward the second quarter, have to save up for it first – the two nearly back-to-back Europe trips earlier this year used up a lot of my vacation funds. 🙂
seriously, $32 for a burger?
It’s actually only RM 17 on the menu, mate. 🙂
This is the pork burger with all the bells and whistles – double patties, bacon, etc etc.
You can customize your burger with additional ingredients or toppings – that’s the best part, the normal Sanbanto Bacon & Cheese Burger is RM 17 and you can add stuff to it, depending on what you like. 😀
Hellooos!! Went there once when it was newly opened. So long ago!
Well, I wasn’t impressed with it so guess its time to head back, since they mz have improved since then, as you used 2 celestial words to desc the food 😛
Hello Becky! 🙂
Haha! I used 3 (divine, heavenly, nirvana) in the end. It really was awesome, I loved the pork there.
Check out the BBQ pork ribs. The sauce is really good, and as the waitress warned – there’s a lot of fat in the pork ribs.
Just the way I like it! 😀
i just about clogged my arteries bad eating there!
..BUT I WANNA GO AGAIN, BFF 😀
Yeah I wanna go again too bff!
It’s great stuff eh? 😀
Wow.. now this Sanbanto is in my list.. the next time I go KL.. I must try this.. hehehe..
Yup, the place serves really good pork! I’ll bring you there next time you come over. 🙂
I am your boss Mr. goh from Lian York Farm JB friend name goh too and wish him to get me a call to h/p:012-3113615 when his is at KL
Today i visited your restaurant at lunch time with five of my friends and colleagues together. Since we are quite long time never meet each other. We may have a cup of coffee to chit chat when we meet. If not you can provide your boss h/p so that i can contact him. thanks .
Went to SS2 branch.
Service is bad. Staff is rude.
Tried to buy some fresh pork too. Got scolded for asking them to cut up for me.