Basil Thai Review

Basil Thai

People have been telling me to go to Basil Thai for the past three years. I love good Thai food, and people constantly raved that Basil Thai was the most authentic and delicious Thai food in town. 

The restaurant itself is small and quirky--the floors are white and black, which I found reminiscent of a 50's diner. The orange walls were a strange contrast to the checkered floors, but I just decided that the bizarre decor was part of the experience. The first thing we ate were the garden rolls with shrimp. Garden rolls are basically spring rolls healthier younger sibling because they're wrapped in rice paper and they aren't deep fried.

The steamed rice paper contained lettuce, basil, and shrimp (there were originally four rolls but I inhaled one before I remembered to take a picture). The best part of this dish was, by far, the sweet and sour dipping sauce. It was tangy without being cloyingly sweet and overwhelming, and the earthiness of fresh basil in the garden rolls complimented the sauce perfectly.

Next up were the entrees, drunken noodles with vegetables and a green chicken curry dish with rice.

The drunken noodles were definitely the stand out for the entree course because of the freshness of the rice noodles. Noodle dishes, especially noodle dishes that don't feature a protein, can be a little shaky because there's nothing else but the noodles--so if the noodles are bad, the whole thing is bad. Surprisingly, though, these noodles didn't need any other components to help bolster or even mask their flavor, because they were absolutely incredible. The dish was also laced with small little pieces of basil throughout, which gave the whole thing a little extra kick.

The green curry was less impressive, mostly because the chicken was overcooked and the curry was a tad too spicy. Next time, I think we'll go with a second noodle dish.

Overall, I liked basil thai, but I wouldn't give it a stellar rating. The decor was bizarre and they overcooked chicken, which is a cardinal food sin. I would definitely still order the drunken noodles and garden rolls as take-out in the future, but I won't be back to their brick and mortar anytime soon.

Visit Basil Thai at 1608 Wisconsin Ave, NW 

Washington, DC 20007