Green Basil Thai

Restaurant: Green Thai Basil
Cuisine: Thai
Last visited: August 1, 09

Area: Burnaby
4326 Kingsway
Price Range: $10-20

1: Poor 2: OK 3: Good 4: Very good 5: Excellent 6: Tres Excellent!!

Food: 2
Service: 2
Ambiance: 2
Overall: 2
Additional comments:

• Not the best Thai in Vancouver, it's ok
• I'm not Thai, neither was the clientele
• More Chinese Thai food than authentic Thai food
• Nothing looks like the pictures on the menu
• No presentation
  
• Lunch specials available M-F: 11-3pm @ $6.95
  
• Spiciness levels are pre-set
• Food comes quickly

**Recommendation: I can't really recommend anything because it was all ok, but out of the things I had, the Khaoo Phat Sap-Bpa-Roht (Fried rice with pineapples, peanuts, raisins & pork floss) was the best...actually quite tasty.

Alright so I'm not Thai and neither was the clientele. I have Thai friends and they've never heard of this restaurant, so I really question its authenticity to traditional Thia food. I felt like it was more on the Chinese side. It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't great. Just average Thai food, and if I was in the area and really craving Thai food I would go here. But I wouldn't plan a dinner just to go here again. The owner/waiter was also kind of rude, but the rest of the staff was ok. The food also came very fast, which usually means it's all pre-made sitting on heaters or stove tops in the back all day. Because you can't adjust the spiciness to your liking, you know it's all somewhat pre-made and reheated. Yes, some curries cannot be adjusted because the curry paste is spicy on its own - but you can just tell it's probably a buffet style set-up in the kitchen...which is out of sight.

On the table:

• Tom Yum - Soup 2/6
• Hot and sour soup with mushroom, tomato, lemongrass, and Thai herbs.
• I had it with prawns. I've had better, this was actually kind of disappointing. it doesn't look like the picture and they could have been more generous with the ingredients. The care wasn't there, everything was more or less just thrown in.
• The waiter/owner was really poor at serving the soup equally - some people had no prawns, some has no mushrooms, some had more soup...bad job.
• Gaaeng Ka-Ri - Yellow Thai curry in a hot pot 3/6
  
• Yellow curry paste with carrots, potato, pineapple and coconut milk
• I ordered it with seafood and it did come with a reasonable amount of seafood for $14.50. Good amount of seafood to sauce ratio. It was better than the green Thai curry we ordered. It was more flavourful and their were some fresh green and red peppers that were probably sauteed in before serving. I feel that the potatoes, carrots and curry sauce were all precooked though.
• Gaaeng Kiew Waan - Green Thai curry 2/6
• Green curry paste with basil, eggplant, green beans and coconut milk
  
• I ordered it with chicken - which was slices of chicken breasts. It doesn't look like the picture and I feel like they could have gone heavier on the green curry paste. For 3 chili peppers, it wasn't that spicy either. Nothing really rave about, it wasn't bad it wasn't really good...just meh.
• Khaoo Phat Sap-Bpa-Roht - Thai fried rice 5/6
  
• Fried rice with fresh pineapple, peanuts, and raisins topped with dried pork floss
• Does not look like the pictures again! But it's pretty good, so I guess it's ok. It needed more cashews and raisins, we barely had any. It also had no dried pork floss when it was served, so we told the waiter and his excuse was lame. He tried to convince us that they purposely don't serve it with pork floss because we already ordered it with chicken and that most people don't like pork floss on it etc. It was a stupid excuse.
• The pineapples were fresh, plentiful and there were pretty big chunks of them which is nice. The chef did a good job frying the rice as well - each rice grain is separate (a skill to master) and it took longer to come out, which means it was made upon order. I like the sweet, salty, tangy and hint of spicy flavour this rice has. Hits all the taste buds in the right way.
  
• It was the best thing out of everything we ordered. I like it with the dried pork floss, even though it was the cheap kind...which is still good though. The pork floss, to me, is a Chinese influence, Thai style fried rice anywhere else doesn't come with this. I liked it though, even if it made it less Thai...I'd call this a Thai/Chinese style fried rice for sure. The chef is probably Chinese, hence why this was the best dish - I'm only assuming though so don't take my word for it!