Basil ‘n Lime

You know how sometimes you go to a Thai restaurant -- or a restaurant representing any ethnicity, for that matter -- order some tried-and-true dishes and get the clear feeling that the restaurant is just fulfilling a perceived obligation? That wasn't the case at Basil 'n Lime.

Among the dishes we had at the neighborhood strip-center spot were two old standbys, Tom Kha Gai ($7.95 for a bowl that's big enough for two -- which we had -- or $10.95 for a hot pot) and Pad Thai, which is widely dubbed the national dish of Thailand.

First, the soup: Tom Kha Gai usually contains chicken, but sometimes it tastes as though the meat was cooked not with the soup but separately and then thrown in, tasting like nothing so much as an afterthought. Not at Basil 'n Lime, where the chicken benefitted from slow poaching in the broth, in the process picking up subtle shadings of coconut milk, galanga leaf and lemongrass. The end result, which also contained a generous complement of straw mushrooms, was warming and just sufficiently kicked up by the judicious use of dried red pepper.

The Pad Thai was offered, as Pad Thai most always is, in a number of variations. You could get it with vegetables, tofu or chicken ($9.95), pork or beef ($10.95) or shrimp ($11.95). And, because it's most convenient for restaurants to prepare the dish ahead and then toss in the favored addition, said addition usually suffers the same fate as the all-too-common chicken in the Tom Kha Gai example above.

Again, not the case here, where the beef was an integral part of the dish of rice sticks enlivened with fish sauce and tamarind and chili sauce and cilantro, with bean sprouts for crunch and peanuts for both flavor and texture. It was the best Pad Thai we've had in eons.

Lemongrass prawns ($14.95) was a beautiful dish that tasted as good as it looked. The main flavor notes here came, as the name would indicate, from the sliced lemongrass with which the prawns had been sauteed, plus a kiss of curry in the light sauce, but the dish also was graced with broccoli and corn and artfully carved carrot flowers and served with rice. It was under the "Top Secrets" section of the menu, and I understand why.

We'd cleaned our plates but were still up for dessert, which came in the form of a bed or warm sticky/sweet rice topped with a large scoop of ice cream thick with chewy coconut ($6). It was sublime -- simple flavors used to advantage.

The restaurant itself is a very pleasant place, decorated in various shades of green with dark furniture and basic pluses like linen napkins. We were near the open kitchen, and at one point late in the evening, we could faintly smell bleach, which was a heartening feeling.

One thing that I know is of interest to a lot of readers is that the restaurant doesn't serve alcohol, although our waitress suggested the nearby 7-Eleven if we wanted to carry in. Instead, we took in the flavor contrasts of a tall glass of Thai iced tea ($3) and were quite satisfied with the flavors of Basil 'n Lime.

Las Vegas Review-Journal reviews are done anonymously at Review-Journal expense. Contact Heidi Knapp Rinella at 383-0474 or e-mail her at hrinella@ reviewjournal.com.