Fried ice-cream to die for
I recently visited Sydney where I was taken into the back reaches of a city pub to sample Sydney’s greatest culinary secret: Holy Basil’s fried ice-cream.
Perhaps I am exaggerating a little when I describe the fried ice-cream as “Sydney’s greatest culinary secret”, but nevertheless I can assure you that there’s no way this Melburnian would have discovered such a delicacy without some local assistance.
Make no mistake – I have had fried ice-cream before. The sort of offering that’s cooked in batter, sprinkled with sesame seeds and caramel sauce and sold as a dessert in local Chinese and Thai restaurants bears no similarity to the magnificence that I sampled in Sydney. No, this was something else altogether.
My sister-in-law has lived in Sydney for quite some time and on our recent visit to Sin City, she was adamant that this dessert had to be sampled. At 5pm on a Saturday afternoon we were lead up Sydney’s Liverpool Street to an unassuming place called the Shark Hotel. To get in, we had to enter a doorway between two other shops and climb a narrow flight of steps up to the first floor, where we were greeted by a somewhat jazzed-up arrangement of tables, chairs and a bar in the corner.
Well, the décor seemed modern and the chandeliers fancy but a pub is a pub, right? Just drunks, coasters, SKY-TV and a smell of beer, right? Wrong!
We were escorted right up to the rear of the venue past a “VIP Lounge” and a multitude of barstools and tables. The size of the venue was considerable but this particular afternoon there was no-one inside except for the bar staff.
As we approached the very back corner, I spotted a line of figurines. This was the entrance to Holy Basil, the famous Laos-themed restaurant that normally draws massive crowds. Apparently the main restaurant is located in a far-flung suburb and this is a new addition to the Shark Hotel.
Either way, it looked promising. The restaurant was beautifully decorated with wall murals and drum lamps in a manner that made it quite distinct from the hotel that we’d left behind.
After we entered, a waitress lead us to a table and we immediately ordered the fried ice-cream. I was hungry but I was assured by my compatriots that two serves (at $13.90 each) would be sufficient for three people. So that’s what we ordered. Within 5 minutes, the waitress had returned with our desserts.
The ice-cream was fried in a fillo/filo/phyllo pastry shell that was about half the size of a sandwich. Inside the warm shell was creamy vanilla ice-cream that had only slightly melted where it had come into contact with the pastry. (It tasted very similar to Weis’ vanilla bean ice-cream). The dessert was served with a strawberry and some sort of grated caramelised coconut and topped with caramel sauce.
It was absolutely delicious! I now understand why this fried ice-cream talked-about so much.
I tried to photograph the fried ice-cream at its best angle but with two salivating companions and a rapidly liquefying desert in front of me, I had other competing priorities!
As it turns out, others have written about their experiences at Holy Basil too (hence this really isn’t a “culinary secret” at all).
Michal Shen of I’m Still Hungry describes having to wait more than an hour to be fed at Holy Basil which just shows how popular the venue is (and why I am grateful that we visited at 5pm and not later). Mina and Benny of My Hunger Will Go On experienced the fried ice-cream at the main restaurant in Canley Heights and were also rather impressed with their dessert. Not Quite Nigella author Lorraine Elliott provides a good review of the many other foods available at Holy Basil, complete with prices and pictures. So too has Tina of Bite Me Show Me.
All of this has made me want to return and sample the other dishes on offer. If nothing else, I know little about Laos and would enjoy seeing how their cuisine compares to that of Thailand and Cambodia of which I am rather more familiar. Sadly, I live 864 kilometres away, so that won’t be happening any time soon.
What might happen instead is a bit of “DIY“. Zozo of On a Food Expedition has published a substitute recipe which involves about 40 minutes of work. It looks good.
Whether I decide to make my own or not, next time I am in Sydney I will definitely add Holy Basil to my “Must Do” list of places to visit.
Comments
3 responses to “Fried ice-cream to die for”
Perhaps the lack of Laos restaurants is as good an indicator as the lack of Filipino restaurants is about what the food might be like.
I am a bit used to the new blog style now and I like it.
What a great blog! I think I would have been daunted by the entry and gone away before I ever reached Holy Basil’s attractive restaurant.
But obviously that would have been a serious mistake, as your description of the fried ice-cream leaves me with a desire to try it. Alas! my travelling days are over, so I will make do with your picture and I may still be able to access a strawberry without venturing far!
Once again, your blog is full of interest—-thank you.
I felt the same, after trying their fried ice cream. I wanted to try their other dishes. But that fried ice cream is definitely one of a kind!