Holy Basil in Canley Vale

So a few weeks ago Joey insisted that we must check this place out west. It's called Holy Basil situated in Sydney's west. Quite out of the way and in one of Sydney's most Vietnamese heavy suburbs I was honestly not expecting this. I parked on Canley Vale road and while strolling down the streets, passing shops that had many heavy Vietnamese names i could not pronounce came this busy little restaurant. At first I though it was a new shek modern bar for the young western locals but no, it was indeed what i was looking for.


The drinks we ordered were all fruit juices blends. Very nice actually, there was a list of fruits that we could choose from and we were told that we could choose up to 3 different fruits to be blended into one drink. I got pinapple, watermelon and lychee boy it was good. I could taste each individual fruit and it wasn't too overly sweet too. The other guys also got different blends and each tasting unique and refreshing and also all our drinks were dashed with a leaf of mint, simple, unnecessary but a very nice elegant touch to it.
It did take a little while for the drinks to arrive after we ordered. It also did come out one at a time which meant that the first few drinks that came out got taste tested by everyone on our table. =)

Tom yum soup. I totes forgot the name of this dish. I don't usually get this because I'm scared of the spice, but this wasn't spicy on the throat at all.

Chicken satay skewers. I always get satay skewers cause they are just so easy to eat and everyone loves them, so no one ever complains about getting it. But these ones are a first, I don't want to say this but "OMG" these skewers are by far the best satay chicken skewers I have ever had. Usually people make these skewers thin and so the chicken is most of the time overcooked and dry, and so it's the satay sauce that makes up for it. But here the satay chicken skewers here are a bit pudgy, juicy, tender and plentiful. Amazing!


Vegetarian curry puffs.

Tiger Salad ( I think). This was just a nice warm beef salad, with a hint of chilli. Quite refreshing and despite my fear of chilli sometimes, this was ok. It was only until i didn't eat anything to accompany it did i realise that the salad had hints of chilli in it.
Chicken pad thai. The bean sprouts should of been tossed in together with it but because of a certain someone who dislikes sprouts, we requested it to be put on the side. This pad thai was a bit different to how i would usually have it, the noodles were round/tubular as opposed to the flat long noodles. It was a nice change actually.
Red duck curry. Always a favorite of mine, with the added goodness of not only lychees but pineapples!
Massman Beef Curry. Curry was scrumptious but the serving size i was a bit disappointing, there was only one piece of pumpkin and .. I canot even remember if there were potatoes in it, the cashew nuts was a nice surprise though.

Ox tongue. Not something i would of order, but I'm glad someone did (surprisingly it was the only white guy on our table who did). Grilled lightly, tender and sliced just right.
Salt and pepper calamari. This was a bit disappointing to be honest, they went too heavy on the batter and not enough calamari. It felt like i was just eating over fried batter.

Deep fried ice-cream. Holy ..... shiet this was good. Once again very different to how I've had it before. Instead of sponge cake or coconut shreds protecting the ice-cream they used i think spring roll pastry. Devilishly good!

Black Sesame sticky rice. So good, sticky rice soo filling, the croutons extra kick!

Coconut sticky rice with mango and passion fruit. The mango was a bit unripened and by this time our stomachs was quite stuffed and so the sticky rice was proving difficult to down. Even with that delicious shot of coconut cream on the side.
So at $180 between 5 people makes out to be about $37 pp. It wasn't the cheapest but it was indeed affordable! Not to mention enjoyable too!