Holy Basil

finally made the trek down to canley heights. i've been wanting to go for so long, and since my cousin said the one in the city wasn't as good, we decided to trek down south.

waited for about 20mins for a table of 4. called up earlier and they said they didn't take bookings, on the website it said "limited bookings", so i guess that they only took bookings of large tables. we were the 25th group on the list tonight, and there were heaps of people after me. i expected it to be busy, since everyone's on holidays etc. the gelato place next door is also their's, so a lot of couples who didn't mind a different ambience also had dinner there.

originally got seated outside, at the end of the restaurant. so no ambience etc. 

left: lychee fruit shake, right: custard apple fruit shake-$5.90. the guy who gave it to use couldn't tell the difference, and had to ask this other guy...

it got really windy, so we asked them if we could sit inside, and after a while, we could! i noticed that when we were ordering stuff outside, once we pressed it, they came out immediately, and we pressed it a few times when we were outside, so service was really good for outside people. inside, you pressed it, they don't come as often, but they walk past as often since it's not a big restaurant, so that makes up for it. and they did not mess up any orders! even though we kept on adding stuff to our orders and swapped tables.

i had the custard apple. tasted like the fruit. my bro chose, lychee-why would you choose such an artificial taste? yes it does taste like lychee, but with tons of added sugar. the straws are about an inch too short. a lot of people don't bother finishing their drinks-but we did.

thai fried rice w/ lamb-$13.90, roast duck in holy basil plum sauce-$18.90, pad thai w/ chicken-$13.90

should've have ordered the fried rice, but i wanted to try it, it wasn't bad, not too oily, and the lamb wasn't too dried out. the plum sauce was amazing! worth the money. you could see at least 4 whole cinnamon sticks, heaps of star anise and other spices. a packet of about 3 cinnamon sticks cost a few bucks, and the other spices they used isn't cheap, and neither is duck, so i think it's worth the money. kept on having the sauce with my rice. the steamed rice was really good as well. pad thai had more of a chilli kick, but it didn't have any visible chilli flakes. it didn't have tofu and not enough chicken, but it was quite nice (:

soft wheel crab-$17.90 and masaman beef curry-$16.90

the crab was so soft, and not overly seasoned. the one at kinn thai t towers was nice but it was refs on the salty side. the sweet chilli sauce was good, but i dipped my fork into the chilli sauce and that was the chilliest thing i had all night. the curry was good-smelt so lovely! you can see the oil etc in it, but it didn't linger on your lips. i kept on having that sauce with my rice as well. slightly spicy, but a nice spicy (yes, i actually did say that. although for most readers it would not be spicy for you).

infamous holy basil fried ice cream-$13.90

it's just as good as everyone says! the first time i had fried ice cream when i was younger i thought it was amazing. but now i think back, and it wasn't that great. normal ones at chinese places are your spherical doughy balls which heaps of desiccated coconut and dough with soaked oil, and inside the ice cream was already melting by the time you've had your first bite. this is the best so far. the pastry is so thin and the ice cream is so very cold inside. it's quite hard when you cut into it, but the pastry is so thin and delicious. i guess it's ordinary ice cream inside, but the vanilla ice cream didn't feel like the super cheap buffet-style vanilla ice cream. loved the touch of toasted coconut on the side.

my first time shouting my whole family, all those boring hours of filing and picking up phone calls came to use. tonight was so delicious and not too expensive since we did order a lot. or maybe i just felt like i could oder whatever/whenever since i was paying and didn't have to feel too restricted if i was getting the "expensive" stuff. can't believe the year has almost come to an end. twas a good last dinner with the fam tonight (: