by The Great Foodini
It is so refreshing to have a chef in the back of the house working on traditional Vietnamese and Thai items on the menu that come out authentic and delicious.
With a pretty extensive menu, the staff at Basil’s are able to crank out a bevy of culinary concoctions that are all at once exotic and comfort food at the same time.
Starting with appetizers, the crispy ginger garlic chicken wings are as appealing as they sound. The tangy ginger and the savory sweet garlic draped with caramelized onions is a wonderful treat to start off a meal.
The next item on the menu that turned my head was the Pho Dac Biet – This Noodle Soup (Pho, pronounced Fuh) is a warm steamy broth of rice noodles with a combination of eye of round steak, brisket, beef meatballs, soft tendon meat and tripe. For those of you who have followed the Great Foodini for years, will know of my affection for tripe. Don’t google it, just try it. I like to call it beef calamari.
My personal favorite comfort food Thai dish is pad Thai. You can really lose me here if you don’t have a tasty well done pad Thai. Fortunately, Basil’s did not disappoint. For those of you that do not know what pad Thai is; it is a rice noodle stir fry with chicken, shrimp, egg, bean sprouts, scallions and crushed peanuts…lots of crushed peanuts are important. Hopefully you aren’t allergic.
A surprise dish out of left field for me was the basil duck. I typically stay away from duck in restaurants because it is not usually something I crave when I am sitting at home looking longingly into my fridge since I am terrible at planning meals. Duck is never at the top of my list of a run out and grab item.
So, here I am ordering the Basil Duck. I expected it to be drenched in a sickly sweet sauce like normal Chinese restaurants. I was very surprised at the wonderful savory, but light tasting boneless deep fried crispy duck shards adorned with a basil and garlic sauce, mixed with bell peppers, onion, snow peas, broccoli and carrots.
This is the dish for me when I go back. A nice chicken satay of skewered chicken meat with a peanut sauce and the basil duck will be enough to satisfy me for the night.
Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or comments at (228)224-6781 or editor@thegazebogazette.com.
