Archive for the 'Thai' Category
Monday, June 16th, 2008
We had a team lunch the other day and as is often the case, I was tasked with picking the restaurant. It had been a while since I was last at Green Basil and after a quick consultation with my teammates, we decided that Green Basil would be the location of our lunch outing. I was first alerted about Green Basil when it opened about a year ago and have always enjoyed its convenient location near Metrotown and its yummy lunch specials.
For only $6.95, you can get a lunch special, which includes a spring roll, a small (and I mean small!) salad, soup, rice, and your choice of entree. There are quite a few eligible entrees to choose from, including curries and a variety or meat and vegetarian dishes.
Almost everyone in our party decided to go with the lunch special. Before the entrees came, we were presented with a plate of spring rolls. As you can see, the size of the salad is pretty meagre but I really enjoyed the slightly tangy dressing on the salad. The spring roll was a bit greasy on the outside but was very crispy.
I’m not sure what the name of this soup was but it was hot and slightly tangy. It came with some carrot and cabbage pieces as well.
I really enjoy the green curry with chicken at Green Basil. Green curry is one of my favourite items to order at any Thai restaurant but what I like about the dish here is that it’s very spicy but has a slightly sweet taste to it as well. There were quite a few pieces of chicken with my dish and a lot of curry for me to drizzle all over my rice. I also liked how the vegetables in this dish were not overcooked and provided a nice crunch.
Christina sat next to me so I was able to snap a picture of her lunch special as well. :) She had the black bean chicken, which came with a lot of veggies as well. This is a good alternative for someone who is not in the mood for a spicy dish. Christina also noted that this dish had just the right amount of sauce to go with her rice without having everything swimming in sauce.
This was quite an enjoyable lunch. At $6.95, it’s pretty comparable to what you can get in the cafeteria at our building and this definitely beats cafeteria food any day. 
Details:
4623 Kingsway, Burnaby
Tel: 604-439-1919
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Price: $
Posted in Thai, Asian, Reviews | 1 Comment »
Monday, December 24th, 2007
It was my last evening in San Francisco and I met up with Thu for dinner. She took me to Straits Cafe over in Palo Alto, which is a Asian fusion restaurant. Thu told me that there are actually several Straits restaurants in the Bay area but the one we went to in Palo Alto was the original one.
We started off with an appetizer sampler. It had a good sampling of the more popular appetizers on the menu. Sorry for the dark and blurry pictures. I really need to learn how to take better pictures in dim lighting with my camera.
I can’t really remember what this was but I think it was a fish carpaccio on a potato wafer. What I do remember is that it was very tasty with the carpaccio contrasting with the crunchy potato.
The fresh oyster was dressed with a light Thai chilli sauce which added some spiciness. This was very good and I only wished that there was more than one per person.
The vegetable samosa was also great. The vegetable curry inside was very tasty and the crunchy outside was not greasy at all. I usually find samosas too heavy but this one was just right.
The chicken satay was very juicy and went well with the peanut satay sauce. As far as taste goes, there was nothing special about this but I still enjoyed it.
For our main course, we shared a couple of dishes. First was a pan-fried tilapia with an Indian yellow curry. This was my favourite dish of the evening. The tilapia was crispy on the outside but very moist and juicy inside. The curry was quite spicy and much of the taste was absorbed by the fish and veggies. This dish came with quite a bit of sauce and would have gone great with rice.
We also ordered some Hokkien Bee Hoon, which was vermicelli noodles with shrimp, fish cake, and chillis. This dish was pretty bland and did not have much taste. In a way though, this worked out ok for us because we spooned the gravy from the fish dish over the noodles.
Overall, I was pretty impressed with Straits Cafe. With the exception of the noodles, most of the items we tried were very tasty (especially the fish!). I am usually a bit skeptical when it comes to Asian fusion places but Straits Cafe did a good job with it. I wouldn’t mind coming back to try the other dishes the next time I am in town.
Well, this concludes my California trip. It was fun to try out some new and different restaurants from what I am used to in Vancouver. This will probably be my last post before the new year, so happy holidays and Merry Christmas to everyone!
Details:
3295 El Camino Real, Palo Alto, CA
Tel: 650-494-7168
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Price: $$
Posted in Other Cities, San Francisco, Singaporean, Thai, Asian, Reviews | 2 Comments »
Friday, October 19th, 2007
A bunch of us met up for dinner one day at Grillage BBQ. It is a Thai place 3885 Rupert St right by E. 23rd Ave. Derek had been giving it rave reviews for the longest time, so we figured we should check it out and see what the fuss was all about.
Before we ordered, we were served a basket of crusty rolls with butter…yum.
Dustin and John both tried the thai iced tea, which came highly recommended by our server. They commented that it was interesting tasting…tangy but sweet.
I chose the pad thai with chicken. This also came highly recommended by our server. I asked for medium spicy (you get to pick mild, medium, or spicy) but the noodles turned out to be much spicier than I anticipated! It was still very good though. The serving size was quite large and it was loaded with chicken, crunchy sprouts, green peppers, and other yummy veggies. Cedric had the same thing but with beef…and he commented that he liked his pad thai on the drier side with less sauce.
Dustin and John shared some potato skins for appies. They looked quite tasty and were not too oily.
Miguel had a braised beef dish served with rice and carrots. He is quite picky when it comes to beef but he enjoyed this dish quite a bit.
Dustin went for the chicken abodo, which I think is a braised Filipino dish. It came with rice, egg, tomatoes, and beans.
Derek had paella, which took 30 minutes to make since they had to do it from scratch. This looked delicious and Derek said it tasted great. There was a generous spread of mixed seafood over the rice. It is definitely a dish to try if you can wait the 30 minutes.
John went for a skewer of prawns and scallops. They were grilled nicely and also quite tasty.
Connie had to go somewhere else for dinner later so she just came for a snack. She ordered prawns and mushrooms which came in a little cast iron skillet. It looked quite good but was a bit on the oily side.
The dinner here was not bad…the server was very friendly and attentive. The food was also interesting and tasty for the most part. It was also pretty different from the food I normally ate, which made for a nice change.
Details:
3885 Rupert St, Vancouver
Tel: 604-873-5300
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Price: $$
Posted in Thai, Asian, Reviews | No Comments »
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