Jasmyne Tea: November 2012

"Wow, it's so easy to find parking in Canley Heights!" said no one ever. It's seriously abysmal. 8 o'clock on a Tuesday night, and we had to park a massive distance from the restaurant in a residential area. However, if you bring your walking shoes you can enjoy an amazing dinner at Holy Basil.

You really have to be lucky to turn up without a booking and not have to line up, and lucky we were; we got in with no fuss and sat inside to avoid the smoking area outside. We were furnished with menus and left to order.

Pineapple & Lychee Mocktails - $5.50 each

Ok, so these drinks are not so much mocktails as fruit-shakes - they're pretty one dimensional as far as drinks go. However, they're cool and refreshing, they're strong in flavour and come in pretty funky glasses.

Marinated Dried Beef - $10.90

I imagine this dish to be something similar to jerky - the beef was sliced super-thinly, marinated in a sweet sauce, then dried until crispy and slightly chewy. Apparently it's a traditional dish, which is why I ordered it; even if it's not though, it's pretty damned tasty.

Gang Masaman - $16.90

We ordered a couple of classic Thai dishes - after all, what better way is there to ascertain how good a restaurant is than by seeing how they interpret the basics?

The Massaman Curry had a complexity of flavour that's pretty rare - clearly there's more at play here than the usual bland, stodgy offerings; the beef was melt-in-your-mouth tender.

Pad Thai with Chicken - $12.90

Yesssss, gimme them bean sprouts. There's no such thing as too many bean sprouts in my book. The rest of the dish was excellent as well - the noodles were pliable but still had a slight bite, and the chicken was simply saturated with the sweet, sticky combination of tamarind paste and palm sugar.

Holy Basil Fried Ice Cream - $13.90

This dish is so famous I almost asked for a photo with it! It's a unique take on the usual soggy ball of ice cream and batter; a triangular brick of vanilla ice cream wrapped in a flaky, buttery pastry and then deep fried and served with toasted coconut was served to us after a short wait. We only ordered the one, and trust me, one is enough for two people after the scrumptious meal we had.