Sweet Basil
“Menu highlights include the drunken noodle, the pad thai, and the red curry.”
“Their red curry soup (Gang Dang) is better than SriPraPhai's and a good assortment of apps.”
Sweet Basil
Takes Reservations: Yes
Delivery: Yes
Take-out: Yes
Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
Bike Parking: Yes
Wheelchair Accessible: Yes
Good for Kids: Yes
Good for Groups: Yes
Waiter Service: Yes
Price range.
$$ Price range $11-30
8 reviews
Rate and write a review Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Pad see ew has a wonderful flavor, like it's right out of the wok! Drunken noodles have the same noodles, but it's spicy. Dancing noodles have the same noodles, but no spice, and sesame oil and seeds.
The steamed mussels would simply make a wonderful soup on a cold day. There are many flavor layers to the broth and the mussels are HUGE!
Chicken larb salad is my favorite, and if you drink coffee, then the Thai iced coffee is for you. Good place on a budget, good place for a date.
You really can hit the trifecta eating on this block. Next door, the Indian restaurant is my favorite for Indian food, and there is a Mexican place next door to that. All great Woodside restaurants.
I've been ordering from this place more often than I wanted to. There's another thai restaurant about 3 blocks away and it's definitely tastier, but I end up here because of my history with this restaurant and its location. My first time having thai food was right here many years ago and it still feels right to me. It's also conveniently located by the Woodside train station so this is where I go if it's cold outside and I'd much rather walk one block than 5.
I'd recommend getting their curry. You can't go wrong with thai curries. I've had better pad thai and pad see ew, but it's decent here. One thing though if you're delivering, the noodle dishes don't travel well cuz it tends to dry out with each passing minute. So make sure you get these dishes when you're eating AT the restaurant and eat it fast. Works best when you're starving.
The best part is the lunch specials. It comes with one spring roll and a salad that has an addictive ginger/peanut dressing. The salad is the first salad dish i was able to tolerate growing up even though I never ate my vegetables. So give it a try! The papaya salad is good too if you're thinking appetizers! SPRING ROLLS ARE A MUST
I barely read the main courses on the menu since I was in the mood for salad, and the papaya version was a winner. It didn't have a zillion ingredients and didn't need them, but it did have a great lime kick to it. This may not be an ideal adjective for November but I'd say the fresh papaya had a summery feeling to it.
I also had the shrimp tom yum soup, which was fine but you could probably find a better one elsewhere. I have no quarrel with broth itself, a delightfully sour concoction, but aside from a few shrimp and mushrooms, it was somewhat lacking in mass.
There are so many excellent Thai restaurants in the area, you wonder how they all stay in business! My favorites are Sripraphai (yelp.com/biz/sripraphai-…), Playground Thai (yelp.com/biz/playground-…), and Zabb Elee (yelp.com/biz/zabb-elee-w…).
Sadly, Sweet Basil takes home the medal for the worst. Once, for a delivery order, they ignored a specific request I'd made to call a different phone number, AND then wrote MY number incorrectly. So we didn't get the order until everything was sorted out and our food had a thin layer of failure coagulated over it.
I'm not going to judge them by our cold dinner that time, but I am disappointed I gave them another shot. This time, my tom yum was terribly balanced, came with sad, limp veggies (mostly discolored snowpeas and napa cabbage stems!), and tasted like a sour version of the watery tomato broth you'd get at a hospital following an operation. I get that tom yum is hard to make well, but if you're going to do it that badly, just leave it off the menu. (Note: Sripraphai's tom yum is quite good)
The red curry noodle soup was too heavy on the coconut milk and will make you feel about 5 years closer to a cardiac event. An appetizer of nurr yang (sliced grilled beef with a fish sauce and garlic dipping sauce) was nothing special.
Prices are the same as other Thai in the area, except getting anything other than vegetable or tofu in your entree costs extra.
This rendition of Thai cuisine is maybe average for Wichita or something, but completely subpar for Queens. For great Thai close by, try Sripraphai. Or, Playground and Zabb Elee both deliver. If you're standing in front of Sweet Basil and just want your belly filled with something worthwhile, walk into Masala next door for great Indian food. Emphasis on worthwhile.
This local Thai place is tasty, inexpensive, and a strangely calming atmosphere. Stopped in for dinner with my sister this weekend and we picked a couple of appetizers and a main to share. Went with the steamed veggie dumplings, crispy spring rolls, and a chicken pad Thai. She doesn't have the most adventurous palate, so when I return I'll be trying dishes from all over the menu! They have a great selection of hot and cold appetizers, rice dishes, noodle dishes, and curries that all looked incredibly tasty.
The crunchy spring rolls had a nice little kick to them thanks to a healthy dose of black pepper. They paired well with the provided dipping sauce, which was very similar to duck sauce, which I've always had a weakness for. The veggie dumplings were tasty, but a bit bland. The chicken pad Thai was plentiful and had a delectable sauce. I definitely could have and should have ordered one of my own.
Even though it's located on Roosevelt Ave in Queens, it is quiet and calming inside. A nice urban oasis where you can eat and visit in a relaxed environment.
Our bill came to $21, which is beyond reasonable! Good value, delicious food…can't be beat.
It's tough finding a good spot for take out or lunch in Woodside. It's pretty slim pickings out here. That said, desperate times call for desperate measures, and when lunchtime hunger calls and you realize your lunch has been thrown out by the cleaning staff, you get desperate.
I had saved up this menu on my walks through the neighborhood and thought it was a good time to deploy the lunch special. It's about $7+change and has a pretty good selection, but oof, that portion is pretty small. Normally when you're getting take out you expect a big enough portion to last you through solidly one meal with a little bit left over for a bit of an afternoon snack. I can eat a pretty good deal and while this was really tasty, it was just not enough for me.
If you like to eat, skip the lunch special and go for the full size.
The panang curry is my favorite dish from here. I usually get it with shrimp or mixed seafood. One of my favorite thai curries thus far. I have had it here and another restuarant and both have won me over. It is a great place for take out I learned about this place from grubhub. Especially with the past winter we had take out/delivery has become more of a frequent thing.
Sweet Basil is one of my go-to places for lunch whenever I'm in the vicinity of Woodside and have the craving for Thai food. Of course, if you search Yelp for Thai restaurants in this neighborhood, you'll probably find at least a dozen other options. But I like Sweet Basil because the food here is delicious and unpretentious. Love the Drunken Noodles – so flavorful with the right amount of spice blended with the sweet aroma from fresh basil. Lunch orders usually come with crispy spring roll (fried spring roll stuffed with vegetables and glass noodles, served with plum sauce) and Thai Salad (green salad with peanut dressing), all for under $10.