Holy Basil, Canley Heights

A frequented place by locals like me, Holy Basil boasts value, atmosphere and good Thai food. This place is quite the popular blonde chick, so popular that they've opened another chain in Shark Hotel in the CBD. The Holy Basil in Canley Heights is always extremely packed, you'd still see a long line of people waiting at 9pm for dinner on Friday and Saturday nights. Unfortunately, no bookings, but apparently my friend C, claims that she's booked this place before...either the worker on the phone was new, or she was un poco loco. So, two Fridays ago, we celebrated J's birthday here before she left to Brissy for some damn fine work experience at Rio Tinto...I know Rio Tinto...that girl is also un poco loco. We had a group of 20, and all was good when some of our trusty friends arrived at 5-ish to hold a table for us.


Some boys started off with chicken skewers. I didn't eat this but I'm sure the photo is doing all the talking right now, hopefully.


Many of us opted for the Salt and Pepper Calamari, which had a very nice crisp and crunchy batter, though I would have preferred if the coat was thinner and lighter.

This Pad Kee Mao is made up of thick rice noodles with chilli sauce and veges (or whatever you order it with). Honestly, there was an overload of chilli sauce, especially since the sauce tasted like it was mixed with the artificial tasting ones in the bottles. Definitely have had better. I didn't catch what others were eating but from experience, I do dare say the curries are quite delish.


Now, the notorious deep-fried ice-cream was certainly perhaps (excuse the oxymoron) the best of the night. Unlike the normal scooped icecream rolled in cake crumbs, frozen, then deep-fried, this triangular heaven is, I believe, wrapped in filo pastry, and when deep-fried, produces a very nice thin and crunchy coat. It's paired with toasted coconut and caramel sauce making it just divine to indulge in. But really, I am sincerely impressed at the quality and dense texture of the icecream after deep-frying. I would LOVE to learn how to make this.


This was J's (you can probably guess her name by now) Cookies & Cream ice-cream cake that some girls bought from Wendy's. Very yummy! Though, complaining AGAIN, I do like my icecream as creamy as it was, but just more hard and dense. But that's just me.


We ordered some fruit shakes to get some sugary goodness inside our systems. This is the strawberry shake but watermelon shake is my fav. I'd be sipping on these all day if I had a blender that could handle ice (yep, my blades broke when I tried to blend ice).

Despite the usual long lines, try to hop in early for a short wait as Holy Basil is definitely worth trying.

Posted in: