T'basil

I've only eaten here once for takeout. My workplace ordered lunch from here on a Saturday. The general consensus from the staff was that the food smelled and tasted odd - aside from me none of the staff finished their meals and some wouldn't even take more than one bite. My meal was alright but definitely had an odd taste to it and I found the sauce to be a bit more of a liquid consistency than I would like. Thankfully my meal did not upset my stomach - but the whole experience was enough for me to decide not to eat here again.

A couple of Saturdays ago, we ordered lunch for eight hard working people who were starving. Appetizer of A9 - wontons - those little pockets of fried flavour goodness with thai dipping sauce. We followed that up with 3 orders of V13 - Vegetarian Spicy Noodle with soy bits (they even made one extra spicy as we requested); 2 order of X8 - Spicy noodle with chicken; one X7 - Grilled Salmon; one order of V18 - NEUA TOD KROB (served with rice); and X12 - PAD TOA LUUN TAO (served with rice). The order was ready for pickup in 25 minutes. All was hot, delicious, fresh ingredients and plentiful. All the bellies were full and even a few leftovers. Though we did takeout, there is a patio in front andplenty of free parking. Thank you for the most excellent lunc T-Basil - we'll be baaaaaaack. :-)

Picked up take out dinner for 4 from T'Basil which has been a preferred location for weekday lunches on occasion with my daughter for a long time. Tonight was a celebration dinner with friends. We ordered & picked up the meals & returned home. The food was nice and hot. Guest 1 selected the V7 Veg w tofu & crispy noodle + V2 veg rolls; 2nd guest selected the C2 Panang curry with shrimp and V2 Veg rolls. Both of these meals looked good and smelled great although I noticed the C2 guest left pretty much all of her rice & sauce. Hubby & I both ordered the X2 Pad Thai. I ordered mine with only shrimp and he ordered his with shrimp and chicken. That was the first problem. When I was placing that part of the order I had to repeat that it was "one X2 with shrimp and one X2 with chicken & shrimp" a couple of times. What we got was anything but that. Yes, it was Pad Thai but it had mystery meat (sorry I'm not really sure whether it was beef or pork or both), chicken, shrimp, and tofu. That was a bit disappointing for me as I'm strictly a shrimp person and my husband is not a fan of tofu and then asked me what the mystery meat was. Our A1 spring rolls were excellent with a nice crispy golden wrap and hot tasty stuffing so that was a promising start however the rest of the meal not quite so pleasing. There was what appeared to be crumbled or finely chopped peanuts on top and a few bean sprouts but the overall dishes, aside from having the wrong toppings, merited a better flavour/taste as it was quite bland, plus a bit of chopped cilantro for colour & fresh flavour was sorely missing. I wasn't looking for hot/spicy but some flavour that was a bit more distinctive would have made it better. I would also recommend the lime wedges be sent in a separate bag as they were also hot to the touch. Our V7 crispy noodle guest enjoyed her meal and her V2 rolls and had no comment except she was satisfied with her meal. As we had expectations for good food we were disappointed in the quality of the X2 and more so with the error of the pad thai topping of the mixed meat/shrimp product instead of what we ordered. I truly enjoyed my last lunch take out from T'Basil of delicious won ton soup and fresh roll with shrimp, and may just stick to lunch from them for now.

I have never seen such polarizing reviews for a restaurant. In the end I join the ranks of those who did not have a good experience. I ordered the Vietnamese vermicelli. The grilled pork was actually bland. The meat was not tender. Everything else in the dish was fine. In terms of service, when I walked in the man stared at me like he couldn't figure out why I was there. Given that it was lunch hour on a weekday, you'd think it's obvious I'm there to order food. I had to to greet HIM to get the ball rolling.