Thai restaurant’s menu features traditional recipes as well as ostrich, mussels and squid
Alfie Lau
Sun
Daniel Chow, manager at Green Basil Thai Restaurant, displays a red curry with chicken and sliced coconut served in coconut (left) and green beans with prawns and lime leaves. Photograph by : Glenn Baglo, Vancouver Sun
You know you’re in for a good meal when it takes more than 30 minutes for three people to order five entrees.
That’s the case at the Green Basil Thai Restaurant in Burnaby, where more than 70 dishes featuring choices such as ostrich, duck, squid and New Zealand mussels can be served with curry, noodles or varying degrees of hot chili sauce.
Manager Daniel Chow and chef Ming Zheng have parlayed their decades of experience in Thai restaurants to craft a menu that allows diners to experiment and enjoy a wide variety of Thai dishes.
“We have tried Thai restaurants all across the world, including in Thailand and Hong Kong,” said Chow. “Any time we find something that we like, we’ll put it on the menu and give it a try.”
For example, Chow tried ostrich recently and once he found a reliable and affordable supplier, he couldn’t wait to put it on the menu.
“Ostrich is not as fatty as other white meats and it’s got a really nice taste,” said Chow. “Our customers are really enjoying it.”
Our appetizer was an easy choice: the lettuce wrap with ground ostrich and house green basil ($10.50). The ostrich meat was almost perfectly done, not too spicy and with just enough of a flavour kick. The cool refreshing lettuce was the perfect complement.
Three of our dishes came straight from the Green Basil specialties list — Chow and Zheng’s signature dishes.
These include roasted duck with Thai chili sauce ($11.95); the seafood medley featuring tiger prawns, clams, mussels, scallops, squid and fresh cod ($13.95); and the green beans and prawns with lime leaves, green basil and homemade spicy sauce ($13.95).
No meal is complete without traditional pad Thai served with shrimp, scallops and tamarind sauce ($10.50) and a Thai curry, which for us was the yellow curry paste with pork, carrots, potatoes, pineapple and coconut milk ($11.50).
“The duck is delectable,” said my Irish neighbour, one of my dining partners. His wife couldn’t get enough of the seafood medley, but she had to fight me off for the large New Zealand mussels that put Atlantic mussels to shame.
Surprisingly, my second favourite dish was the pad Thai, perhaps because it was the least spicy dish we ordered. A nice touch was the bean sprouts and peanuts coming on a separate plate for us to spread as we desired.
While not a huge fan of curry, I enjoyed our yellow curry, if only because the pineapple and coconut alleviated some of the spiciness from our seafood dish.
The green beans were perhaps the weakest dish of the night, if only because it didn’t sparkle like the other dishes.
Somewhat surprisingly, the three of us finished all five dishes with enough room for some homemade mango ice cream.
Green Basil has been open since November 2006 and its classy decor goes well with the food. On the weeknight we went, the place was packed with diners young and old.
“It wasn’t easy the first two months but our lunch specials, which are $6.95, brought in a lot of customers and they’ve liked us enough to come back for dinner,” Chow said.
With so many dishes to choose from, Chow was pretty quick when asked which one he likes most.
“You should have tried the chicken with cashew nuts,” Chow said the day after our meal.
“I think that’s one of our most favourite dishes. Next time, you have to order that.”
I have a feeling that may be happening soon because I’ve got another 60-plus dishes to sample.
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GREEN BASIL THAI RESTAURANT
4623 Kingsway, Burnaby
604-439-1919, www.greenbasilthai.com
$50 – $100
Open 11 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Sunday to Thursday and 11 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.
© The Vancouver Sun 2007
