It's rare that you come out of a restaurant rhapsodizing about a side dish, but that's what happened when I visited Thai Sweet Basil, the 6-month-old Thai restaurant that took over the space formerly occupied by Donato's at Manoa Marketplace. For me, that meal was all about the pineapple fried rice with chicken ($8.95; you can get beef or pork, too; shrimp is $1.50 more).

This generous plate of mahogany-colored jasmine rice was studded with stir-fried vegetables, chunks of tangy pineapple and pieces of tender chicken and garnished with cucumbers and a sprig of — what else? — sweet basil. Background notes of dark soy sauce played against the sweet-tart pineapple, garlic and a subtle bit of spicy heat. I could happily have made a meal of just this dish, turning a blind eye to the carb consequences.

Someday I'm going to write a column outlining my perfect Thai meal: the different dishes I enjoyed at each of the Thai restaurants I've visited over the years. Seems every place has one or two dishes they do exceptionally well. Sweet Basil fried rice will be on that list.

I should point out that this Sweet Basil is no relation to the restaurant of the same name in Chinatown; the owners — a young couple who are both camera shy and media shy and declined to have their names in the paper — just liked the name. Their cook is a Laotian man they respectfully address as "Uncle."

The Laotian chef explains a dish you don't always find on Thai menus: larb ($8.95), a spicy entree salad of finely chopped chicken, beef or pork (beef is traditional, but we chose pork and were glad of it) with mint, green onion, cilantro and red onion, laced with both hot and sweet peppers and tossed with a tangy citrus and dressing. This, too, could have been a meal and personified what is so interesting about Southeast Asian food — the interplay of disparate but harmonious textures and flavors singing on the palate.

To start our meal, we had ordered kai yut sai, stuffed chicken wings with spicy peanut sauce ($7.95), as a sort of nostalgic nod to my earliest encounters with Thai food 20 or so years ago. At the time, I was all but addicted to Keo's version of these deep-fried morsels stuffed with chopped long rice, vegetables and meats. Shoulda stuck with Keo's: These contained some herb or other ingredient that didn't appeal to me, and the breading had more crunch than flavor.

Another day at lunch, I ordered pad kra pao, a stir-fry of chicken, pork or beef with Thai sweet basil, bamboo shoots, green beans and bell peppers with a side order of sticky rice ($1.50). I chose beef and asked for "medium" spice, since it was my first visit and I wanted to calibrate their hotness scale before venturing into hot. Medium proved an accurate description: My lips tingled a bit, briefly, but there were no palate-searing pyrotechnics. While I enjoyed the flavors in this dish and would order it again, I would definitely choose chicken or pork, instead of the beef, which developed an unpleasant mushy texture as I chewed.

When I saw pla ma kum, tamarind fish, on the menu, I had to order it; I love the contrast of sweet with sour. You can order a fillet ($9.95) or the whole fish (market price — $25 for a Thai snapper that would easily have served four). The fish arrived on a platter, deep-fried and sizzling hot, dressed in a layer of reddish sauce thick with vegetables and red peppers. The skin had been scored in deep diamonds to assure that the thick loin was fully cooked. It was a bit of a hassle to deconstruct — a fish fork would have been nice to help cut through the fish and serve it in attractive pieces, rather than hacked about with a pair of serving spoons in my inexpert hands. But the result was worth it: the fish was tender and moist and the sauce rich, tangy and just a trace spicy.

As my companion and I lingered in conversation after a long, filling dinner, the host came by and dropped off a couple of desserts — Thai red ruby chestnut morsels in fresh, sweet coconut milk ($3.25), and we gamely dug in despite not being very hungry. The dessert is a sort of float, and the chestnut bits were a hit, meaty and sweet, against the background of the rich coconut.

One unusual feature for a Thai restaurant is that Sweet Basil has retained the full bar from Donato's days, though the bar itself appears a bit neglected, used only for overflow when the dining room is full. Service here is fast almost to a fault; at dinner, everything arrived at once, rather than appetizer first, then salad and so on. Ask the server to slow down.

Reach Wanda A. Adams at wadams@honoluluadvertiser.com.