SeaBasil Thai & Seafood: Carolina Forest’s Bold New Restaurant Is Worth the Drive

There is something that happens to a dining room when the person cooking your food also caught it. The fish on the plate was not processed through a warehouse or shipped from a continent away. It came off a hook somewhere past the horizon, out past the sandbars and the inlet, out where the water turns from green to deep blue and the Gulf Stream runs warm. That is the story behind SeaBasil Thai & Seafood, a new restaurant in the Carolina Forest area of Myrtle Beach that opened in mid-February and is now gearing up for a proper grand opening celebration on March 27.

The Grand Strand has no shortage of seafood restaurants, and it certainly has its share of Thai food. But a restaurant where the owner pulls tuna, mahi mahi, wahoo and cobia from the open Atlantic, then serves them at a table in a beautifully renovated dining room with Thai herbs, basil-forward sauces and handcrafted cocktails? That is something genuinely new. SeaBasil is the kind of place that comes along when someone with decades of culinary experience decides to stop doing things halfway and build exactly the restaurant they always wanted.

For visitors staying in North Myrtle Beach or anywhere along the Grand Strand, SeaBasil is a worthy dinner destination. For locals and food-focused travelers, it is already shaping up to be one of the more interesting openings this area has seen in a while. Here is what you need to know before you go.

A New Restaurant with Real Roots in the Grand Strand

SeaBasil Thai & Seafood sits at 4036 River Oaks Drive in the Village Forest plaza in Carolina Forest, sharing a shopping center with a Food Lion. It is not the flashiest address on paper, but the Carolina Forest corridor has grown into one of the most active dining and retail zones in the Myrtle Beach metro, and the Village Forest plaza draws consistent foot traffic from residents throughout the surrounding neighborhoods.

The restaurant soft-opened in mid-February, giving the kitchen time to settle in and the staff time to find their rhythm before the formal grand opening. That is a smart move for any new restaurant, and it shows an owner who understands the business. The March 27 celebration will be the official moment, complete with a ribbon cutting with the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce at 4 p.m. and a full evening of music and cocktails running until midnight.

The Woman Behind SeaBasil: From Fishing Boat to Front of House

Laddawan Fox is not a newcomer to the Myrtle Beach restaurant scene. She has owned and operated a string of well-regarded Thai restaurants over the years, starting with King Kong Sushi, which she ran in both Carolina Forest and at Broadway at the Beach. After selling those, she moved to the Charleston area and built Thai Elephants and Thai Elephants II before eventually returning to Myrtle Beach, where she has spent the past several years running Thai Cuisine in downtown Myrtle Beach.

Through all of those ventures, Fox kept fishing. She owns a boat and regularly heads out to the Gulf Stream off the Grand Strand coast, trolling for pelagic game fish like tuna, mahi mahi, wahoo and cobia. She also does bottom fishing for black sea bass, snapper and grouper, and she goes crabbing and flounder gigging in Murrells Inlet. Fishing was never just a hobby. It was always pointing toward something.

After divesting from her Charleston restaurants, Fox took a short break, about three months, before the itch to cook and create brought her back. The result is SeaBasil. She described the concept simply and directly: she always wanted to sell seafood, and she decided to pair it with herbs and Asian ingredients. That is how SeaBasil came to be. The name itself says it plainly. Sea and basil. Ocean and herb. It is a clear concept executed with the confidence of someone who has been building toward it for years.

Carolina Forest’s Restaurant Scene Has a New Anchor

Carolina Forest has evolved considerably over the past two decades. What was once a sparsely developed area west of Highway 17 Bypass is now a full-scale community with tens of thousands of residents, a growing network of restaurants, and the kind of local dining culture that sustains a great neighborhood spot. The dining options in Carolina Forest have expanded steadily, from fast casual chains to locally owned restaurants that draw diners from across the Grand Strand.

The space that SeaBasil now occupies has a history in the local restaurant world. The location has housed Asian restaurants for years, most recently Hana Teppanyaki House, and before that, an early Asian restaurant tenant that held an exclusive agreement with the property for the category. That history speaks to the demand for this kind of dining in the area. Fox has taken that legacy and built something entirely new in the same footprint.

For visitors renting a vacation home in North Myrtle Beach or staying anywhere along the Grand Strand, a drive to Carolina Forest for dinner at SeaBasil is completely reasonable. The restaurant is close enough to the beach that it works as a dinner excursion without feeling like a long haul, and the food is distinctive enough to be worth the trip.

A Vision for River Oaks Drive That Started Two Decades Ago

Fox has been watching the River Oaks Drive corridor for years. Long before the strip malls and restaurants and subdivisions filled in around it, she drove past what was then mostly woods and empty land and saw something most people did not. She saw what it would become. That kind of long-range vision is rare, and it is one of the things that separates restaurateurs who build lasting places from those who simply open restaurants.

The strip mall where SeaBasil is located was built around 2008. Fox has coveted a location in that area for years, and when the right space finally became available, she moved on it. The restaurant is the fulfillment of a vision she held for a long time, which may be part of why the concept feels so fully formed. This is not a restaurant built out of opportunism. It is one built out of conviction.

Inside SeaBasil: A Completely Reimagined Space

When Fox took over the space, she rebuilt essentially everything except the floor. The bar, the furniture, the kitchen equipment, the entire interior design, all of it is new. The renovation was overseen cooperatively by New Wave Renovations and McKeithan Design Studio, a Tennessee-based design firm. The result is a dining room that feels intentional and finished, not like a rebranded leftover from whatever came before.

The bar is a centerpiece of the new layout, which matters for a restaurant with a serious cocktail program and a liquor license that just came through. A dining room built around a proper bar creates a different energy than one that treats drinking as an afterthought. At SeaBasil, the bar is clearly part of the experience, and the cocktail menu reflects that investment.

The Menu: Where Gulf Stream Catches Meet Thai Tradition

The SeaBasil menu covers a lot of ground, but it does so with a clear organizing principle. Seafood and Thai cooking are the two poles, and the menu finds ways to bring them together while also honoring each tradition independently. The seafood side features scallops, shrimp, clams, mahi mahi, salmon and flounder alongside the kind of proteins that give a menu range, including filet mignon and New York strip steaks.

Seafood Fusion Highlights

The Basil Mixed Seafood is a strong example of what SeaBasil does best. The dish combines shrimp, scallops and clams stir-fried with sweet chili sauce, garlic, bell peppers, onions, basil and a house sauce, served over rice. It is the kind of dish that works precisely because the components are familiar but the combination is not something you find on every menu in town. Seafood with drunken noodles is another standout, bringing Thai noodle tradition into direct contact with fresh catches.

Traditional Thai Offerings

For diners who love traditional Thai food and do not need the fusion angle, SeaBasil delivers there too. The menu includes duck and stir-fried basil, a variety of appetizers and soups, hibachi plates, fried rice dishes, larb, papaya salads and a traditional salad. There is a kids’ menu, which makes it a practical option for families staying in the area. Desserts include coconut custard, which is the kind of thing that ends a meal on a note you remember.

Lunch combo specials are available daily, giving the restaurant a reasonable midday option for diners who want something more interesting than the usual strip mall lunch. The range of the menu means SeaBasil can serve a quick weekday lunch and a serious weekend dinner without feeling like it is trying to be two different things at once.

Cocktails, Sake, and Something a Little Different

The drink program at SeaBasil reflects the same blending instinct as the food menu. Specialty cocktails carry Thailand-related names and themes, and the bar offers a selection of wines, hot and cold sakes, and several bottled beers. The cocktail that is already drawing attention is a riff on an Old Fashioned, built with whisky, charcoal powder, lemon juice, house-made ginger and simple syrup, finished with a flaming orange peel on the rim. It is a confident cocktail that shows the bar program is serious without being pretentious.

SeaBasil also carries High Rise THC-infused fruit seltzers, a nod to where the beverage market is heading. For non-drinkers, the restaurant offers bubble teas and several other teas, which fits naturally with the Thai identity of the place. Happy hour runs from 4 to 6:30 p.m. daily, giving early diners a reason to settle in before the dinner rush.

Grand Opening Celebration: March 27

The formal grand opening for SeaBasil is scheduled for Thursday, March 27. The Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce will be present for a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 4 p.m., joined by local dignitaries. The celebration then shifts into full gear at 5 p.m. with live music and signature cocktails running through midnight. A liquor license was secured just this week, meaning the bar will be fully operational for the event.

Grand opening nights at good restaurants have an energy that is difficult to replicate. The kitchen is firing on all cylinders, the staff is genuinely excited, and the crowd that shows up tends to be the kind of people who pay attention to what is new and interesting in their city. If you are in the Myrtle Beach area on March 27, SeaBasil is the event worth putting on the calendar.

Hours, Happy Hour, and What to Expect

SeaBasil Thai & Seafood is located at 4036 River Oaks Drive in the Village Forest plaza in Carolina Forest. The restaurant is open Monday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Lunch combo specials are available during daytime hours, and happy hour runs from 4 to 6:30 p.m. daily.

For visitors exploring things to do in Myrtle Beach beyond the oceanfront strip, Carolina Forest is a neighborhood worth discovering. SeaBasil sits in the middle of a busy dining corridor that reflects how much the area has grown, and it brings something genuinely original to the table. It is a destination restaurant in a location that happens to be convenient for locals, and for visitors staying in North Myrtle Beach, it is an easy drive down Highway 17 that rewards the effort. Keep an eye on this one as it hits its stride after the grand opening.

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