Thai Basil

Recently I found myself in Brownsburg at lunch time, and this is not an area I am familiar with, so I took to the twitterverse and asked for help. I got several good recommendations, but settled on Thai Basil, as recommended by @thejoeball. There were actually several spots that were tempting, which I was surprised by, but Thai food sounded good. 

It’s a cute little place with table service—although for some reason, it took quite a while to place my order and get my drink. They were decently busy, but not super busy. But eventually I put my order in for my very favorite Thai dish—the sautéed eggplant with chicken. Here they call it “Tasty Eggplant” ($11.99). They have a bunch of lunch specials that run $8.99 and come with soup and an eggroll, but no tasty eggplant on the lunch menu, so I just ordered off the dinner menu. 

They first brought me a small bowl of Tom Yum soup—it had a great lemongrass flavor and a hit of spiciness from red chili. There were some hunks of carrot and some fresh cilantro on top. I really liked it and had a hard time not eating every last drop. It did have a spicy kick to it. 

When the tasty eggplant came out, the first thing I noticed was how much like a rainbow it looked when they placed the dish in front of me—the purple eggplant, red bell peppers, green bell peppers, and orange carrots. There were also big leaves of basil mixed in. The other thing I noticed with my first bite is that it was smoking hot! Not spicy, but temperature-wise. It was crazy how hot it was. I had to let each bite cool before I could eat it—but when I did eat it, it was delicious. The chicken was nice and tender, and the sauce had a lot of flavor from the basil and the gingery brown sauce.  Again, I had a hard time not eating all of it, but trying to be somewhat healthy, I restrained myself. The veggies were crisp but tender and I love the way eggplant soaks up all the flavor in the stir fry.

All in all, this was a tasty lunch and if this were my town, I would probably put it in the rotation and try some other things as well.  All you Brownsburg, folks, what do you think? And what are your favorite places?

Thai Basil

814 E. Main Street

Brownsburg, IN 46112

317/286-7545

http://thaibasilindy.com/

Tegry Bisto

I know there is really good sushi, and sushi that is just okay, but this was my first experience with bad sushi. Hubby and I were going to a party near Brownsburg and thought trying a new sushi place was a good idea so we didn’t eat too much for dinner so we could partake in the hors d'oeuvres that would be served at the party as well.

I was happy to find an independent restaurant on this side of town, amongst what looks like a lot of chains. I was impressed with how crowded the restaurant was as well; especially considering it was pretty early still. I was a little nervous about service after reading some things online, but our server was prompt and brought us drinks right away. I ordered a bowl of miso soup ($2.50) and she brought it quickly. The broth was one of the better ones I have had, a little more depth to it, not just a clear broth. The stuff in it was weak though. Very few very teeny cubes of tofu and just a couple of pieces of seaweed and scallions.

We had already ordered our sushi at the same time and this was the part where I started to realize what people were talking about with service. It wasn’t our actual server; it was the length of time it took to get our sushi. And then after looking around, I realized most people had not gotten their food yet either and they were here before us. So we settled in for a wait.  It was probably a good 45-55 minutes before we got the sushi.

I guess the best of what we ordered was probably the caterpillar roll ($8.75) but probably because it actually had the least amount of fish in it. It was a roll that had eel on the outside and was topped with thinly sliced avocado and eel sauce. It was fairly simple and not bad. Not great, but not bad.

So yeah, the other rolls just weren’t very good. I wouldn’t say the fish wasn’t fresh, but it wasn’t the level of quality I have had nearly everywhere else. One roll, the crunch rainbow ($12.99) was particularly bad. The varying types of fish across the top were off. There were at least two pieces of fish that I had to actually remove from my mouth because they were so chewy. The inside of that roll was shrimp tempura, spring mix and avocado. It was really chewy inside too, which was pretty off-putting as well. The shrimp had clearly been fried quite a while ago and the tempura coating on it was soggy. I have seen sushi places use panko-crusted shrimp that were pre-fried, but if you are using tempura, they need to be fresh. And crisp on the edges.

The last roll we had was the cherry blossom roll ($11.99), which was spicy tuna, cilantro and jalapeno inside and tuna on the outside with 3 sauces. Again, the tuna on top wasn’t very good and the herbs and jalapeno, which should have given it crispness, did not. 

Hubby also had a couple of pieces of salmon nigiri ($4.99). This really tells you about the fish quality because, in general, sushi places seem to save the best cuts for this type of presentation since it is really just the fish. These pieces of salmon were practically flavorless and were not as tender as nigiri should be.

Part of the problem was every part of the experience was off somehow, not just the fish. The nori inside the roll was too chewy, the rice was crumbly and the rolls were just put together very sloppily. And it sort of seemed like one of them may have been sitting awhile before they brought it to us (which is crazy considering how long it took). Even the soy sauce tasted funny. Almost too salty or something. It tasted cheap. And I am pretty sure they store the wine in the same fridge with the fish. At least it tastes like it.

Needless to say, this is a place that we will not be repeating and to be quite frank, between the quality of the food, and the length of time it takes to get it, I am quite surprised the place is so busy.

Tegry Bistro

1521 North Green Street

Indianapolis, IN 46112

317/858-9505

www.tegrybistro.net