Holy Basil

233A Canley Vale Road

Canley Heights NSW 216

After enjoying a dinner here a month or so ago, here i am again, having lunch with an old friend. She has driven past the joint, and always seeing lines for dinner, but hadn't ever tried, so i suggested based on my past experience.

Avocado & Durian Shake

Lychee Shake

The shakes here are really nice, they don't stinge on the main fruits, and its not just a lot of ice either. These are REAL fruit shakes, and i almost always order one whenever i'm here.

Cute take away box - no plastic containers in sight!

After our orders have been taken, i ask for a take away box. & explain that i need it right now (and not after the meal) because i'm on a portion control diet, and need to half my meals haha. So this cute chinese movie style take out box is presented, the first i've ever seen out in my area!

Seafood Pad Thai

Kim likes the pad thai, and so does her two year old daughter Gemma. Who is happily eating on her own! No assistance from Mommy at all.

Stir fry basil rice noodles

My rice noodles were drenched in oil, my lips were extremely glossy while eating this dish. It was a little bit sickening having so much oil.. even on the basil it was too overwhelming. Halving my meal was a definite need, had wayy too much calories.

* * * * *

A few weeks after, Richard wanted to go back to holy basil for dinner, and we had to wait about half an hour outside (on a seat thank goodness) before getting a table.

The first time we ate at Holy Basil they didn't have a proper drinks menu. But now they have shiny new A4 fold up menu's for both food & drinks separately, which was nice to see :)

It took forever to flag down some menu's so Richard just walked up and got one himself. It was also hard to get someone to take down our order. The restaurant was really busy that night, but we had to wait a really long time for everything and we were so hungry.

I ordered a coconut drink this time. The coconut flesh in it, was really soft, and there was not much of it at all :(

Som Tam (Papaya Salad Thai Style) $9.90

For $9.90 this dish was good value. Richard was suffering from mouth burn as soon as he started eating, as there was so much chilli in this. I had only a few strands of the papaya & my mouth was burning like anything (yeah i'm really weak when it comes to chilli eating).

Khao Pad Sapparot (thai fried rice with fresh pineapple) $12.90

My thai fried rice, disappointingly, was not served in a pineapple halve (as pictured in the menu). It was quite plain, nothing real special about it. I had asked for an extra fried egg on top (which they forgot) but quickly came back with on a separate plate. But the YOLK had been broken at the bottom noooo..... yolk wastage :(

Extra fried egg $3

While we were eating, a couple who were sitting down for about 5-10 minutes, was asked by staff to stand up while they re-arrange some tables. I thought this was really rude .. they were left standing for about 5 minutes, and seated again not far from where they were sitting originally. & then shockingly, were asked to stand up again so staff could move some more tables around. I thought this was ridiculous.. Once a patron has sat down, why would you ask them to stand up again, unless they were leaving?? I would've left to be honest.. not to be difficult, but we came here to sit & eat, not to be asked to stand up and wait around while they co-ordinate the furniture.

When it came to the end of our meal, we didn't want to wait for someone to get our bill so we just walked up to pay. And were left waiting another 10 minutes (seriously, i hate waiting so much). They didn't charge us for the glass of wine that Richard had, and we weren't bothered to say anything so just pretended we didn't know.

I'm not sure if i want to come back here again? Maybe if i was eating meat again, i'd come back & try the duck curry (so far everyone i know who has tried it, really liked it) but chances are that will be never..

I would like to come back here one more time, to see if they have cleaned up their act (and maybe gotten a new kitchen manager?) But that won't be anytime soon. For now.. my next thai restaurant to try is the one on St Johns Road (does anyone know the name?) I drive past it alot, its got hairdressers & grocery stores next to it.

Would you have mentioned a missing item on the bill - if the restaurant wasn't that great? OR, would you mention it at all?

Cafe Macaw

155 The Entrance Rd The Entrance NSW 2261

ph: (02) 4334 1724

A day trip to Port Stephens one weekend, and wanting to visit the Entrance on the way up, landed us here on a gorgeous Saturday, hungry for lunch.

Cafe Macaw had lovely outdoor seating, why would you want to sit inside on a day like this? We were greeted & taken to our seats, menu's were given shortly after. So far, the service was good. Until after we ordered our food. We were waiting & waiting ... for what seemed an eternity..

From the time on my photo's, we were seated at 11.35am. Coffee served at 11.40am. Food came out at 12.02pm. This seemed a long time for us cos we were hungry but really, we were waiting too long :( & they forgot my extra serving of aoili sauce (which came out quickly thank goodness).

Our soy cap came in a generously large mug ($3.80), and was full bodied tasting, perfect i'd say, and i'm not even a coffee drinker.

Grilled vegetarian burger $13

My burger buns were slightly dry, but had a nice crunch to every bite i took. Inside there was grilled zucchini & pumpkin, roast capsicum, sautéed onions, mushrooms, cheddar cheese, lettuce tomato, home made pesto & aoili sauce.

I took the huge lettuce leaf out, as most of it was the hard part of the leaf (i prefer the soft), everything else in the burger was yummy, had all of my favorite fillings, but i wish they had buttered my buns haha. I'll have to remember to specify these things next time.

The thick cut chips were.. hollow! Didn't have much potato in them, but were still crunchy and good, especially dipped i n my extra serve of aioli sauce.

Grilled Mediterranean Vegetable Penne $13

Richard's penne was a little bit on the dry side. But that's me, i prefer heavily sauced & flavored meals. I think he liked it. It had zucchini, pumpkin, capsicum, sun-dried tomato, basil pesto & olives, topped with freshly shaved parmasen.

Before lunch we had a walk around the beach - the Entrance is a beautiful place with lovely beaches & clear blue water. Took some non food photo's below, enjoy!

Bagan

Shop 4, 41 The Boulevarde

Strathfield NSW 2135

Phone (02) 8746 0666

Bagan is apparently the only Burmese restaurant in Sydney (correct me if i'm wrong hehe). So when a good friend of mine wanted to take Richard & I here, i straight away checked my diary for the first availability :)

The name Bagan is named after an ancient city in Burma, and the country is bordered by China, Laos, Thailand, India & Bangladesh. You can see parts of these countries foods on the menu (which is picturised by the way, giving a new comer to eating Burmese food a little idea of what it will look like before ordering).

It is located far from the main centre of Strathfield (where all the restaurants are), and is across the road from an Indian Mart (i think). There is outdoor seating but it was a windy night so we opted for a table inside. The place was busy, with a group of young girls sitting behind us (i think it was someone's birthday cos i saw presents hehe).

We ordered a few small sized dishes, and two larger dishes. I had two guys with me, who were both hungry, and can eat a lot :)

Nungyi Thoke $5

This dish is a cold rice noodle salad, but tasted like pasta noodles. The noodles were thouroughly coated with a a cheesy parmesan-like dressing, very flavoury i really liked this dish - garnished with fresh coriander.

Burmese fried rice w/ chicken $9.50

Heavily garnished with fresh chilli - this fried rice was damn spicy. But Richard could handle it - he's the chilli eating king as far as i know. Fresh spring onions were also tossed through before serving. For $9.50 this rice dish is very reasonably priced, great value for money i'd say.

Century egg salad $5.50

This salad had a whole lot of Spanish onions in it, but i like onion so i didn't mind it. Also mixed with chunks of tomato, fresh chilli, this is the first time i've had century egg is a cold salad. Normally at home my mom cooks it in sweetened soy sauce & we eat it hot with rice. This was totally different, but still just as good.

Samosa Salad (vegetarian option) $5.50

This is probably my favourite dish. Small samosa's drenched in a mild yellow curry sauce, with thinly sliced cabbage strips. The samosa's on top were crisp, but the ones underneath were what i were going for, slightly soggy from the curry but still with some crisp to it, i really couldn't get enough of this dish.

Pan thay kaut sware $9.50

It's great they have picture menus, otherwise we would really have no clue of what each dish was. This one was fried egg noodles with curry chicken (also available in vegetarian) but i thought the boys might want a bit of meat in their dinner that night hehe. This dish was again mildly hot, & very saucy & flavorsome.

Basil seed drink $3.50

This is one of my favourite drinks. I love trying to bite the seeds, only to have the chewy skin around each seed - stop me from doing so.

We were still hungry for another dish, so ordered this

Kaw sware thoki $5

A cold egg noodle salad, with a great amount of fried onion bits on top - my favourite! They have these onion bits in mi-goreng packets- but its hardly enough i always pile more on top it's so unhealthy but i only eat mi-goreng a few times a year so i can splurge on the extra calories!

Ku fee

I'm not sure of the price, must be $4-$5. But it totally looked homemade. COndensed milk ice spiced with cardamom flavour. I wasn't impressed, as it was rock hard and so hard to cut through. Once it thawed a little, it was alright. WOuldn't of ordered this if the picture didn't make it look yummy.

Cheese cake

Again i didn't note down the price, but it seemed like another frozen desert it was really hard to cut through, like it was not quite defrosted yet.

Being the only Burmese place in Sydney to dine at, i'd imagine they'd get pretty busy on the weekends. Luckily though we were there on a Tuesday night.

The fusions of food really interested me, and i like it a lot more then just eating at a Thai, Indian or Chinese restaurant. Simple fusion food, with a cheap price tag, i'd love to take my friends back here, so we can order a lot more food to share around.