Blue Basil raises the South Bay’s Chinese cuisine
Whenever a new Chinese restaurant opens near me I visit with hope but with low expectations. The standard in the South Bay is mysteriously low, and most local places offer a bland, Americanized version of one of the world’s greatest cuisines. The meals are enjoyable for what they are, but usually unmemorable and marked by brusque, unhelpful service.
This was not the case with our experience at Blue Basil, a Torrance newcomer that offered excellent food with moments of chaos and comedy. The former Polly’s Pies on Carson Street was remodeled into a pretty place with a menu that is mainly Chinese but also includes Vietnamese, Indonesian, and Thai items. A stuffed chicken dish was listed, so I asked if the chef was from Hong Kong, as that’s where that delicacy comes from. I was delighted when our server confirmed this, and since we had someone with an allergy at the table I asked what it was stuffed with.
“I don’t know,” she replied. “You’re the first one to order it, and we don’t make it in the part of China that I’m from.” She volunteered to go ask the chef, but when she came back she could only tell us that there was rice mixed with “vegetables and other things.”
Given the gigantic menu and the regional diversity of Chinese food, we decided that there was no shame in not knowing everything, so we ordered it along with an array of appetizers while we studied the menu. Our server returned with vegetarian eggrolls, stuffed tofu, chicken wings tossed with salt, honey, and jalapenos, and the news that the chef was out of something that was needed to make the stuffed chicken, she wasn’t sure what, but we should order something else. She was chatty and happy to give her opinions about what dishes would make a balanced meal by Chinese standards. We proceeded to order too much food, then turned our attention to the appetizers.
The eggrolls were a standard item well-executed, the tofu fried so it was like eating a cloud wrapped in batter, but it was stuffed with only a tiny dab of shrimp paste. The chicken was listed on the menu just as wings with spicy salt, but there was much more going on here, with sweet, salty, and peppery flavors vying for attention. This dish is native to the area near Hong Kong, and perhaps it was exceptional because it was made by someone who grew up with the recipe.
Or maybe he is just very good at what he does, because the hot and sour soup was very fine, and that’s a Sichuan dish. It was a bit less meaty than many versions I’ve had locally, more packed with vegetables and mushrooms, and it had a healthy shot of vinegar and both red and white pepper.
On a whim a member of our party had ordered fruit tea, a Taiwanese brew of black tea with chunks of fresh mango and orange and some shaved ginger. This was so delicious that we kept getting refills, and if you visit Blue Basil I highly recommend it.
The first items we ordered arrived fairly quickly, but as the meal progressed the restaurant got extremely busy and the delivery of food slowed to a crawl. Our friendly and fairly fluent server was assisted by helpers we presume were kitchen staff pressed into service, and their command of English was somewhat shaky. At one point someone came to our table with a plate of food and asked, “Did you order this?” I asked what it was and he responded, “I don’t know.” The people at a nearby table recognized and claimed it, and we never did find out.
When the things we ordered did show up they were worth the wait. The eggplant in hot garlic sauce was a fine blend of sweet and spicy, and the fish filet in black bean sauce had a pleasant smoky overtone. At some restaurants the fish is overwhelmed with bell pepper and drowned in sauce, but here the fried filets were presented simply with green chillies and onions with the sauce caramelized in a thin layer. I’d order this again, and the same is true of the Singapore-style fried noodles – a mix of pork, shrimp, and Chinese sausage tossed with green and white onions in a mild curry.
One of the standout dishes was the Cantonese-style fried chicken that is poached in spices and then coated with vinegar and sugar before deep frying. This complicated process flavors the meat while rendering the fat so the skin becomes extremely crisp, and it is fantastic. The chicken is served topped with brightly colored shrimp chips that give it a festive look, and you can see why this is a favorite at weddings.
The only item we weren’t happy with was the pork chops in Peking sauce, and that wasn’t about the flavor but the raw materials. The Chinese have a casual approach toward cutting meat so we expected pieces of irregular size with some bones, but that was at an extreme level here. There was about as much bone as meat, with many small bone splinters, and it had to be eaten very carefully. It may be that the restaurant got an unusually bony delivery of meat – such things do happen – but this was the only item that we wouldn’t order again.
Our meal for six people ran only $105, a bargain for food of this caliber. The hiccups in service may have been the sort that happen with a relatively new restaurant, but the assured cooking was no accident. Blue Basil raises the standard of Chinese cooking in the South Bay, and though we’re still not at the standard of Monterey Park and other Chinese neighborhoods, it’s a step in that direction.
Blue Basil is at 819 West Carson in Torrance, close to the 110 Freeway. Open daily 11 a.m. – 10 p.m., parking lot in rear. Wheelchair access good, beer and wine served, many vegetarian/vegan items. No online menu, phone 310-212-7633.
