Sweet Basil

I eat out a lot. I’m not necessarily proud of that fact, it just is. Modern life, y’know? When you work a 9-to-5, the last thing you want to do is hit the supermarket at 5:30 and then come home and have to cook whatever you just bought.

My husband, Toasticles, is home a lot during the day and could very easily shop for food which I would then be happy to cook. But he won’t do it. (He is quite possibly the laziest man this side of Homer Simpson.) And when he does shop he will need to call me six or seven times from the market. Like the time I asked him to get a 28-ounce can of tomatoes and he called to ask, “They don’t have 28-ounce cans. Can I get two 14-ounce cans?” I mean, sheesh!

And forget asking Toasticles to do the cooking. He’s named after his favorite food, toast. It’s the only thing he knows how to cook, and he doesn’t even do that well. He undertoasts the bread and then puts on way too much butter. You know how when you’re feeling sick and they tell you to eat dry toast and weak tea? In our house that becomes weak toast and dry tea.

There’s take-out, but there are only so many times during the week that you can eat Chinese or pizza. And I blush to admit the fast food: Popeye’s chicken. Yum, but so salty you wake up at 3 am and have to drink a quart of water. Taco Bell tacos: Yum again, but sometimes they give me burning diarrhea. Buffalo wings: Good, but if you accidentally drop the whole boxful on yourself, those stains will not come out of your clothes. Ever.

That leaves eating out. Now, I’m not made of money, so I’m always on the lookout for cheap. Cheap but good. I frequently find myself on El Camino between San Bruno Avenue on the north and Millbrae Avenue on the south, and I marvel at the number of restaurants along that stretch. I’ve always thought that it would be so cool to be a restaurant critic and get paid to eat out. Maybe some newspaper will hire me to write a column called “Eating El Camino,” in which I review all of those little hole-in-the-wall places. But that would require me to actually contact newspapers and pitch my idea, and since I am the laziest woman this side of Homer Simpson, that’s not gonna happen any time soon.

Thus this blog. Who knows, maybe someone will actually read it and like it, and maybe I can write a book like that girl who wrote about cooking through Julia Child’s book. That blog became a book and now it’s a Major Motion Picture starring Meryl Streep! And now that Estelle Getty has died, Meryl Streep can play me, too!

So here’s what I’m going to do: eat in as many restaurants as I can along El Camino and the surrounding areas, hopefully without getting sick, and write about it. No chain restaurants. No places with dirty front windows. If I have to park more than a block away, forget it.

The first place I’m going to write about is nowhere near El Camino. It’s in Foster City, which is close to home. It’s a Thai place called Sweet Basil. (Toasty was in the mood for Thai food.) It’s cute, with bamboo paneling on the walls and a TV showing endless pictures of Thai food. They serve the food pretty-style, on modern, angular white plates, decorated with things sticking out and little dabs of sauces around the edges of the plates. Does a good business, too – the place was packed. But I have mixed feelings. The chicken and coconut soup, Tom Kha Gai, wasn’t warm enough and was lacking flavor. I don’t like really spicy food, but this needed some heat in both senses of the word. The Wings of Love (usually known as Angel Wings) were great, in a sweet-and-sour sauce. Pad Thai, Larb salad, and a seafood stir-fry were OK, but not spectacular. I had much better (although searingly hot) Thai food at Pok Pok in Portland. (Portland papers, please copy.) Still, I’ll probably go back to Sweet Basil because it’s close and clean. Or maybe I’ll do take-out…

Sweet Basil
1457 Beach Park Blvd.Foster City, CA 94404
650-212-5788