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| - Cross-eyed after an intense essay-writing session, I walked along Bloor looking for some place with table service, a/c, some healthy food, and a pleasant ambiance.
Thai Basil was busy, but not too busy, so I though I'd give it a try. Their prices are reasonable, and I ordered the prawn pad thai (so much for the healthy options, but it's my benchmark dish).
Ho-hum. The starting salad was chunks of iceberg lettuce in a tasty yellow peanut dressing; surprisingly good. The salad arrived with what looked like spring roll sweet chili sauce; I decided not to apply it to the salad.
It was rapidly followed by soup and a spring roll (aha!). The hot and sour soup was so sour and salty it grabbed at the back of my throat - it was flavourful, but not worth the grief, not to mention the sodium intake. Some cilantro leaves & button mushrooms swam in the broth.
Before I got to the spring roll (nice flavour, quite mushroom-y) my pad thai arrived. It was the intense orange colour of middle-of-the-road pad thai, but it did come with a lime wedge, a little pile of crushed peanuts, and some spring onion cooked in. Where's my cilantro? The noodle texture was nice : delicate, firm, and not gummy. It may have been due to all the grease.
Have you ever suspected that Toronto has a city bylaw requiring all shrimp dishes to be served with exactly four shrimp? I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen it raised to five or (bastards) lowered to three.
Ech. You can do better, but it's a nice ambiance, and the service was quick.
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