Basil Thai Bistro

Ordered takeout here about a month ago. Had I reviewed then I would have given 4 – 5 stars. When I ordered to-​go it was delicious. I got the shrimp pad Thai and pad ke Mao with chicken and fresh shrimp spring rolls. All was very tasty and flavored very well. The staff even gave us extra chili sauce (they knew we liked spicy). I was so excited I thought I found my new Thai place…2 weeks later I ordered takeout again and it was HORRIBLE. This time I ordered the red curry. It was the worst red curry I have ever had. Bland, flavorless, the mushrooms tasted rotted and I asked for a spicy 7, tasted like a spicy 2. I had 3 bites and threw it out. The pad ke Mao this time was extremely overcooked and very bland. Also, a spicy 7 and probably spicy 2 was given to us. So disappointing. They must have 2 different chefs — 1 really good and 1 is horrible. I will not go back since I do not want to risk awful food for the price.

Asked for a #9 on their Hot Scale and recieved about a 4… Tried to salvage my food with their «Hot Plate», but no amount of jalapenos or Spices could up the ante.
Servers seemed unfriendly, and refills for drinks were ZERO!!!
Food was So-​So, a bit pricier for a strip mall.
So skip this place and find a better tasting Thai Restaurant… With friendlier servers!!!

I have eaten here many times, have picked up food, and had food delivered. My favorites are the Tom Kha soup, pad Thai, and pad see you. Parking is usually easy. The food is usually made quickly. The ambiance is nice but the place can get a bit loud at peak hours. I wish they gave a bigger portion in the pad see you.

Consistently good food and service. Gave it four stars because we ordered the mango Sticky rice today and it was the worst I’ve had. The mango tasted almost rotten and the rice had a sickly sweet sauce that overpowered the flavor of the rice. However I tried the cream cheese wontons (which I don’t normally like) and thought they were excellent. Just the right balance of flavors and not greasy at all.

The Spicy Noodle is the BEST that I have experienced so far. Absolutely delicious. The Pad See Ew and Panang Curry are very good also. I have had lots of Thai food in San Diego and this Restaurant is my favorite.

This is my second favorite thai place. It has a quaint cozy feel to it. And the food is delicious, most often I pick up and eat at home and they always send good amounts. I think I orderd it 5 days in a row. Deff. Try their mock duck with the hot basil. It is Soo good

Ordered Tom Yum Shrimp for dinner tonight. Ordering was easy and food was ready quickly. Taste was pretty good as well and I loved that it was very hot which is very unusual for takeout. Since this is the only thing I have ordered I cannot comment on the rest of the menu. I will definitely be back to try the rest of the menu.

Although my order did not arrive on time (30 minutes late), I was MORE than satisfied with my order. I got the spicy noodles with chicken and a bowl of the Tom YUM soup (which was perfect for me on a cold night). The noodles were phenomenal; cooked to perfection and tasted amazing in the sauce combined with perfectly cooked chicken and veggie. The soup was delicious; the broth was not too spicy and not too sweet, with a variety of vegetables to make it a very hearty starter. I was overall very pleased with Basil Thai, it being my first dinner experience with them. I will be sure to order from them again!

We’ve ordered from Basil Thai several times with satisfactory results. However, tonight we ordered delivery and I am super disappointed in their customer service. I was told when we ordered that it would take 45 minutes. An hour and a half later, I’m still waiting. I just called only to have then tell me that it will be another 20 minutes. They have already run my card. All they had to say was that they’re super busy. I am extremely frustrated.

I placed a delivery order. It took a little over an hr to get my food. The food was room temperature, sweeter than traditional tom yum and they used canned mushrooms. I think the thing that upset me the most was the fact that before I could offer the driver a tip, he asked me for his tip, like it’s required to tip him. Not a fan!

This place is a hit or miss. They do deliver which is usually when I order from here but you never know what kind of quality you will be getting.

Surprisingly good! We ordered the Pad Thai, Som Tum soup, and Masaman Curry. All of the food we ordered was delicious! Slightly different taste than the typical Thai restaurant. The prices were reasonable and portion size was perfect. The ambience and service was very good. We found our new favorite Thai place!

I love this place!!! I was first introduced to Thai food at this restaurant and it is so delicious I have came back many times after and I continue to send them new customers because I love it so much! If it is your first time trying this place out I would definitely recommend their tom yum soup for appetizer and they also have these chicken skewers with some type of peanut sauce not sure of the name but that is very delicious also and you can never go wrong with just ordering fried calamari! For the entrée I always order pad see ew but I’ve had their pad Thai and also their fried rice that they serve in a half sliced pineapple those are other delicious options on their menu. Also the restaurant inside is very romantic perfect place for date night!

The food is pretty good, however the last few times we ordered our dishes at a spicy level 3 and 4 and both times they came out at least a 6 or 7 and almost inedible at one point… a lot of Thai food places over spice the food but I expect better from this place. On the upside they use very good tofu in the Tom yum soup. Maybe next time, if there is a next time I’ll try and order a 1 spicy and see how badly they over spice that.

Tonight’s entrée was the hot basil with tofu, spicy # 5. Excellent with brown rice. My spouse had the spicy noodles with tofu, his favorite. Another excellent meal!
Had garlic pepper with tofu and brown rice tonight. My spouse had pad Thai with tofu. We always have crispy tofu appetizer. Another delicious meal!

I was really looking forward to this dining experience but I was rather disappointed.
I came here with 3 friends got some appetizers and each one of us got an entrée as well.
My one friend ordered the green curry and both others got curry plates as well and I got the Pad Thai.
When the food came out, My friend did not get the Green curry he had ordered which he really had his heart set on. The server straight up argued with all 4 of us that that’s not what he ordered. Him being a timid guy and not trying to create a scene told her not to worry about it even though that’s not what he ordered even though he really really was looking forward to green curry.
My other friend got the duck curry and the meat was just all wrong, it had a bubblegum type of texture going on and he just was over it after a few bites and declared ’ it sucks’ Him also being a guy who did not want to create a scene even moreso after the green curry fiasco just took it in stride.
My Pad Thai was good and our other friends curry was fine.
I won’t be going back here, it was unbelievable that the server argued with us like that and the fact our other friends meal tasted like day old shoelaces was a huge turnoff. There’s better Thai options around and you should probably check those out instead.

We’ve been to Thail Basil several times now and every time the food has been delicious. My personal favorites are the green and yellow curries, chicken pad thai and their tea, my boyfriend loves the larb.
This is a mom and pop type restaurant, which I appreciate. The service here is fantastic, but sometimes a little slow depending on how busy it is, which is why we often call our order in. :)

Great ambiance, great place… good is wonderful service is great had the hot thai basil and it was soooo delicious. Then for dessert had sweet rice with coconut ice cream! Amazing!!! Dining here is def a must you’ll love it!

I decided to give TB a try after some cardio on Cowles Mountain. I ordered it to-​go but the tranquility of the restaurant begged me to stay. I ordered 2 Singha Thai beers and the Green Curry chicken ($ 11.00). The curry was made with Coconut milk, bamboo shoot, red & green bell pepper, basil leaves and eggplant. The heat level I chose was a 7 out of 10. The curry was nicely presented and the chicken was tender, but for $ 11 I felt the portion was a tad small.
The food was a 3.5 stars, but since I experienced outstanding service from my waitress, I bumped up my review to 4 stars.

Last night was an «order in» kind of night. I was comfortable. I hadn’t put on pants since Friday. There was no need, as my beloved is out of town, and the animals and I spent yesterday laying around, sucking up the air conditioning.
Few restaurants in my San Carlos neighborhood deliver, so I’m stuck ordering typical suburban fare: Thai, pizza, subs and Americanized Chinese food. Three Thai places come to my house, and I quickly decided on Basil Thai.
I tried to place my order online, but was rejected by a notice that BT doesn’t deliver to my address. Since they’ve done so twice before, I knew that wasn’t right, so I called the restaurant and ordered from a person. Forty minutes later, dinner arrived, hot and mostly correct (missing the limes I’d requested, but no big), and the driver recognized me from before. She advised me to skip the online ordering thingy next time and just call for service.
Dinner itself? Good, not great. I had Satay Chicken, Pad Thai, and Kai Yang Som Tum.
SATAY CHICKEN
The satay is billed on BT’s menu as «Skewered slice of marinated chicken served with peanut sauce and cucumber sauce.» It was indeed skewered, but…
The chicken was on the dry side. The yellow curry BT used to flavor it was hard to miss, as it colored everything it touched, but otherwise, I detected no marinade.
The peanut sauce was thin and oily, without the succulence added by sufficient coconut milk and red curry paste.
The cucumber sauce was unappealing. The cucumber dice tasted strong, not clean and refreshing as it ought to have. I suspected that the cukes had been allowed to dry out or that they were cut from Persian cukes, which have a faint creosote-​y flavor.
PAD THAI
I’ve been spoiled, having eaten this dish all over Thailand, including twice at a stall near Bangkok’s Grand Palace recommended to me by an editor of the Bangkok Post. Among the things I eat, this is one I understand well, one for which I have expectations.
Pad Thai, which I order moderately spiced and with extra shrimp, should use the noodles as a means of combining a complex mixture of ingredients, including fish sauce, tamarind paste, dried shrimp and lime, which, enjoyed together, offer a deep, rich, slightly funky taste and aroma. The noodles are not the star, any more than pappardelle is the star of a plate of lamb ragu.
Basil Thai’s Pad Thai was just adequate. The noodles were bland, as though the cook was nervous about how American palates might deal with traditional flavors, and since those flavors were largely missing, the noodles were the «star» of a boring plate of food. The shrimp were overcooked, but we might blame that on the delivery containers. The dish was oily but not greasy, a problem I’d have been able to address had BT remembered my limes.
It seems to me that since Pad Thai is the benchmark dish by which most Americans judge Thai restaurants, it would be important for them to improve this one.
KAI YANG SOM TUM
Great choice, and a definite reorder.
Basil Thai explains that this is a dish of roasted chicken, served with papaya salad and sticky rice. Their rendition was tasty.
The chicken was rubbed with the same yellow curry found in the satay, but presumably because it was roasted vs. grilled, it was much more tender, moist and flavorful than the appetizer.
Note: the chicken came with a portion of sweet Thai chili sauce called Nam Jim Gai, and to my disappointment, BT’s version of this usually enjoyable sauce relied on waaay too much corn or potato starch for thickening. The result was an odd, glutinous serving that I pushed to the side.
I love green papaya salad, and this one was delectable, the fruit being thinly julienned and mixed with small tomato wedges, carrot, spring onion and chili flake, and dressed with lime, fish sauce, sugar and (maybe) garlic.
Sticky rice is the usual accompaniment. I believe it’s hard to mess up. Basil Thai didn’t mess it up.
Overall, this meal earned one star, with another thrown in because once I’d imagined dinner and put my desire out into the universe, dinner just showed up at my door. The universe charged me $ 45, including tip, but the universe is an expensive place to eat.