Golden Basil

I have been here on a few occasions and it started out as ‘OK, not too bad to ugh.’
My initial visit back in early 2014 I found the food to be nicely seasoned and flavourful. I enjoyed their Thai Iced Tea along with their pork noodle soup. It had that nice distinct Thai flavour that I like.
The following visits however, got more and more disappointing. The once pork noodle soup that I enjoyed just keeps getting worse. Either the chef was lazy or they ran out of broth as I felt it had a distinct taste of another noodle soup. The noodles used was also inconsistent and I felt it was not right that they did not tell me ahead of time about the changes.

I’d really love to give this place 3.5 stars, but unfortunately that’s not possible.
I’m not really sure why it’s been rated so badly. My only thought is that perhaps the quality wasn’t very good a few years ago and no one has reviewed it recently. Either that, or we just happened to have a really good experience here.
It’s a fairly large restaurant with plenty of tables and booths. The dining room was clean and bright and the washrooms were also clean.
The service was very good. We were shown to a table shortly after we walked in and were given menus. We were offered drinks right away and the tea was brought to us within a minute or two.
Our order was taken by a very friendly waitress and the food arrived within 5 minutes. Our waitress and another waitress each visited the table to ask how our food was and to see if we needed anything else.
My husband ordered the rice platter with grilled chicken, fried egg and vegetable spring roll. It also came with a bowl of beef broth on the side which was quite tasty. He really enjoyed the dish and said the spring roll was excellent. The egg was still nice and runny and the chicken was good, but not the best Vietnamese grilled chicken he’d had.
I ordered the spicy Thai noodle soup with roast pork. It was a very spicy green curry/​coconut broth and was so tasty. The roast pork was actually slices of bbq pork, but there was LOTS of it. There were also slices of bamboo shoot and some green beans in the soup. My only complaint was that the green beans were really overcooked. I’m guessing they were previously frozen. Otherwise, the dish was great. I had to take half home as it was a very large portion. A word of caution, when it said it was ‘2 chili pepper’ hot, it really meant it. I LOVE spicy food and it was even spicy for me.
As I said, I’m not sure why the reviews were bad before, but I’d love to see some more Unilocalers review this place and help get the rating up as it really deserves better than 1.5 stars.

Personally, the Golden Basil is my absolute favourite Thai place. I’ve been a regular since they replaced the Red Papaya years ago. The service is wonderful and speedy, the food is delicious and the setting is comfortable. I recommend the Golden Platter and the Tom Yum soup as a meal together — it’s my usual and has always been my favourite.

Do NOT go here! Do NOT order the chicken satay unless you plan on doing some experiments to see if it’s really chicken! Just look at the corn starch paste! Or maybe you should in order to brace yourself for the main dish. After you see, taste, and spit out your chicken satay, your main course will actually tastes good.
As for the noodle soups, they were not the worst we’ve had. Just imagine a bowl of noodles with a few bite size pieces of meat. Mine was the Thai spicy soup noodles with beef, it also came with a few over cooked and oily eggplants along with a couple of soggy untrimmed peas. Perhaps thanks to the chicken satay, I don’t have too many bad things to say about the main dishes.
The good thing I can say about this place is that hubby and I didn’t puke or get stomach aches, maybe we just got lucky! If you really are craving for Thai food, take a drive and go to the food court Thai express in the mall across the street. Better yet, buy a can of curry soup, a bag of dry noodles and some frozen meat and veggies, then go home and make your own in 10 mins!
There should be an option of NO star for this restaurant!

Ate chicken pad thai. It had veggies in it, and it was delicious. Quite different from the other local pad thai spots, but in a good way.

I won’t go back to this restaurant. Pat L review is exactly what I received yesterday, its not a mistake. If this place is struggling to pay the bills I feel bad and know its tough but wow it can’t cost that much more to fill a bowl of PHO properly.

Terrible. The phở only have 2 slices of meat! 2 halfs of beef ball and soup that taste like water. Won’t be coming back not

Lately, I’ve been trying out a bunch of different lunch spots in Guelph. Today, I tried the Golden Basil.
I figured that since it was close to both the Stone Road Mall and the University campus that it would be busy… and if I know anything about Thai food it’s that a busy restaurant equals tasty food.
I was right; the place was busy at 2pm in the afternoon. Maybe 6 tables (of ~15) were occupied. However, in this case I was disappointed.
I ordered a Chicken Pad Thai to go. The portion size was typical for Thai take-​out — big enough for 2 full meals. However, at $ 14 it was a little more expensive than what I’m use to.
The service was fast (~10min) and friendly.
My biggest problem (and the reason why I won’t go back) is that the Pad Thai simply wasn’t very flavourful. Fresh, crunchy vegetables and obviously high quality chicken were used, but the Pad Thai sauce that makes every Thai chef unique was watery and dull.

Went to Golden Basil on a whim, because my bf and I were looking for some Thai food.
Ordered the Pad Thai and crab & cheese wontons. They both tasted pretty good, however, within a couple of hours, I was feeling quite unwell, and was physically ill.
I’m not 100% sure that the restaurant gave me food poisoning, but I would say that it’s likely, because I hadn’t eaten anything else, and it came on quite suddenly and strongly.
So, overall — going down, the food was pretty good. It just sucks that it came back up ;)