Holy Basil DTLA

Back to our regular programming, we ventured into DTLA for some highly-recommended eats.  Located along the border of the Fashion District and Skid Row, we found Holy Basil where they are dishing up authentic casual Thai street eats.  The setup tries to emulate the street hawker experience while indoors (including little plastic chairs) There is an ordering window and it took me awhile to get service as they are quite busy in the kitchen.  

To start, we went for the Moo Krob Slab with a cilantro garlic chili sauce.  This featured some pretty crunchy cracklings atop the tender pork belly.  I found it a touch on the firmer side, but it wasn't dense by any means.  The belly itself was a good mix of fat and meat.  It was buttery and tender.  The pork belly wasn't oversalted, so it still had the natural sweetness of pork.  I really enjoyed the sauce where it was bright, spicy and aromatic.

The most impactful dish we had was the Fried Fish & Rice consisting of hand-shredded barramundi, cilantro, chili flakes, chili fish sauce and shallots with jasmine rice.  Wow this was packed with so much flavor and textures!  Definitely lots of umaminess from the fish and the fish sauce, while the mess of things on top provided brightness, sharpness and heat.  I did find the fish a bit dry though, but with the sauce, it really didn't matter.

We also had the Kaeng Kiew Wan (or Green Curry) with Jidori chicken, coconut milk, Thai eggplant, winter melon and Thai sweet basil.  This was a much lighter curry with only a smattering of coconut milk.  However, it was quite fragrant and aromatic.  Lots of impact from the basil as well as some fermented shrimpiness in the background.  Nice amount of sweetness too.  I found the pieces of chicken to be quite moist and not dry at all.

Lastly, we gad the classic Pad Thai with paprika, sweet radish, tiny dried shrimp, egg, tamarind fish sauce, bean sprouts and chives.  This benefited from the hot wok fry and there was caramelization and smokiness as a result.  Plenty of tamarind tang and palm sugar sweetness for impact.  The radish added nice crunch while the dried shrimp did its salty briny thing but only in the background.  Overall, the food at Holy Basil was delicious and full-flavored.  I would love to come back to try more dishes (when I'm in LA next that is...).

The Good:
- Impactful flavors
- Okay pricing
- It has got that interesting location and setup thing going for them

The Bad:
- Hard to get someone's attention to get something or order
- Area is a bit dodgy, but you should be okay