Page 46 - South Mississippi Living - December, 2018

ADDRESS:
5130 Beatline Rd., Unit B, Long Beach
PHONE:
228.357.5269
HOURS:
Mon. - Sun. 10:30 a.m. - 9:00 p.m.
BASIL’S
story and photos by Julian Brunt
Basil’s Café in Long Beach offers the interesting combination of Thai and Vietnamese food. If you’re in the mood for a great bowl of house made pho, please dive in, but good Thai food is so hard to find that when I visit Basil’s, I am all in for the Thai menu.
Thai food is in a category all its own. It’s all about the fine balance of sweet, sour, spicy, salty, and bitter, unlike any other food culture that I know of. It takes an educated palette to understand how important this concept is, but once you have Thai food prepared the way it’s supposed to be prepared, a culinary epiphany will be yours.
To begin, there are four appetizers. If you’ve had the good fortune of visiting Thailand and are familiar
with Thai street food, then you
just might want to order all four.
I went with the stuffed shrimp: steamed shrimp, wrapped in egg
roll wrapper, deep fried crispy and served with a classic spicy and sweet Thai dipping sauce. The chicken satay with peanut sauce earns a worthy mention as well.
It’s hard not to order one of the curries (red, green, yellow and panang) at first glance, but take your time and consider the other offerings. The curries are great — creamy, spicy, with contrasting veggie textures — and such a beautiful pairing with steamed jasmine rice, but there is a lot more to offer here that deserves careful consideration.
I suffer a mild addiction to noodles
46 SOUTH MISSISSIPPI Living • December 2018 FOR MORE REFLECTIONS OF THE GULF COAST >> www.smliving.net
ABOVE: RED SHRIMP curry
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