Basil Bowl features Thai, pho, and grill, including other Vietnamese dishes. It is located at 1302 Centaur Village Dr., at the SE corner of Centaur Village and S. Boulder Road. We made a dinner date with some friends who were also interested in this restaurant, and we brought a takeout order to their house.
Online ordering shows up as an option on the website, but it was turned off, and I couldn’t reach the restaurant by phone. After trying for about 20 minutes and alternately receiving a busy signal and “Your call cannot be completed as dialed,” I checked the website and Facebook page to make sure it was open and finally drove over to place the takeout order in person. I never found out why the phone wasn’t working, so I don’t know whether that is a common problem. I have encountered similar issues with other restaurants in the past few months owing to staffing shortages, so maybe they were just busy. The restaurant is quite small and had five occupied tables (out of six) when I arrived. The man whom I spoke to, who was the only employee in sight, was very nice, put the order in immediately, and brought the food out to my car when it was ready. The wait was about 25 minutes.
It turned out to be worth the extra effort, as we all thought the food was very good! Here’s what we had. G asked me to surprise him, so I got him green curry with beef, which he said was delicious. He always wants the highest spice level, so I requested level 4, “fire” (there are actually five levels, but “no spice” is 0), and it definitely pushed his boundaries a bit. But he ate two helpings and finished off the leftovers the next day. M had Vietnamese egg rolls and ginger chicken (mild). She said the fresh ginger flavor was very strong, which she liked because she loves ginger, and the egg rolls were good too. S had the tofu veggie and peanut sauce (medium), and she said there was a nice assortment of fresh-tasting vegetables, and the texture of the tofu was excellent. I had the pad thai with chicken at a medium spice level, which was just about the right spice level for me—maybe at the high end of my tolerance. The noodles were cooked just right, not too chewy or mushy, and the flavors were great. It reheated well the next day too. G and I split an order of chicken dumplings, which were also tasty.
I wanted to try the mango sticky rice, but they had run out. Fortunately, S had made some scrumptious peanut-butter cookies (not pictured).
As it happened, none of us tried anything from the Vietnamese side of the menu, but we would definitely sample those dishes another time. G likes pho, but when you order it as takeout, it requires some assembly, so I opted for something simpler this time.
* Lafayette Restaurant Project Redux: visiting all the new places that have opened since the ending of the previous round of the LRP.
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| Basil Bowl on Centaur Village Drive |
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| Green curry with beef |
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| Tofu veggie and peanut sauce |
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| Vietnamese egg rolls and ginger chicken |
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| Pad thai with chicken and a side of chicken dumplings |
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| With my pad Thai and dumplings |
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