Thai Basil Altoona — Restaurant in Altoona

2023 Update Review: My daughter and I had a solo dinner night and she wanted some fried rice. I gave her two options and this was the plave selected. When we arrived there was a fair amount of tables in use but our wait to be seated was pretty short. Willem came over and was very polite and asked how many in our party then quickly cleared a recently vacated table. Cleaned and dried, then seated us and brought water amd asked if we would like anything more. The water was very clean tasting, which is a big factor for me. Since that is all I drink at restaurants. I noticed the $2 sticker for our previous visit was now gone and prices was as expected. Since I don't recall pre-pandemic/inflation pricing this was within the now normal prices. As we read the menu and figured out our meals I did see Willem and the other guy (I wish I got his name) hussle around and attended each table. The didn’t rush when they were talking to the customers. Which is always impressive. Running around but giving individual attention like each table was the only one. 5 stars 🌟 all the way for service. I also noticed both gentlemen were collaborating on the work load. Now that was amazing. I never see this anywhere. It's usually "this is my work area and that's it" mentality. Here it was a team effort. They even thanked each other for helping where needed. This was another amazing things to see. When Willem came back for our order he was really pleasant and showed no rush. Even though I knew he was very busy. I did have a question about an allergy being in meal and he quickly had an answer and assured me he would double check with the cook. Our food arrived fairly soon after ordering and I was very good. My daughter decided to go with the Yakisoba with pork instead of rice. A rare change for her. Her first words were "Mmm, no regrets here. This is good" My Japanese BBQ pork was also delicious. Presentation looked good on arrival and the food was nice and hot. The portion size was also plentiful. Overall an excellent experience. The service was exceptional and the food was excellent. So much better than a year ago.

Last year's review: The food tasted pretty good and was on par with other restaurants of the same variety. The service was a little lacking since there was only one other table with people and drinks were not replenished for awhile. We did notice through the added pricing stickers on the menu that everything is $2 higher than before. Again, this could be a supply chain increase due to the economy. Unfortunately it felt like we received a lunch sized portion for a dinner sized price. Perhaps things will be better in a few months. Perhaps it's because of the current economic situation or maybe it is the new...

My husband and I were in Altoona to get pedicures at our favorite salon spa Signatures.

While we were getting our pedicures we were talking about where we could go and eat some delicious Chinese and Altoona and we asked the people that were doing our pedicures where they would recommend.

The very first thing out of both of their mouths was to go to Thai Basil which was just down the street from the salon.

We looked it up. Got in the car. Mapped our way there and as soon as we got there we were greeted very nicely and quickly by the girl at the front desk.

We got seated and before we even got sat down, our waitress was at our table asking us what we would like to drink and bringing us the menus.

She returned with our drinks and took our order for our appetizers and while we were looking at the menus to figure out what we wanted for our entrees she brought our appetizers out.

We had the fried wontons and the fried potstickers and my husband and I both decided that they were some of the best ones that we have ever had and we have traveled many many places and had many different options.

The waitress was right on point coming back and checking on us regularly. She had a smile every time. Very very kind, very efficient and always brought what we asked. Came back to refill our drinks. She was just an excellent waitress.

I had the Mongolian beef and the beef was some of the most tender beef that I have ever had in a Chinese food dish before and my husband had the sesame chicken which was very perfectly crispy and the best sauce ever.

My husband also had a Des Moines roll that was sushi. I can tell you that the serving size is there are double wherever you're going to get them and the price is about half.

The restaurant was also very clean. It smelled good in there. Everything was set up nice. It had good Decor. I would not hesitate for a minute to go back to this place.

Highly highly recommend going here. You would not be...

We have eaten at this restaurant over a dozen times in the past few years. We have never been wowed with the food or the service but Asian restaurants are scarce on this side of town so we kept going back. Tonight was the last time. Our call in order was supposed to be ready in 20 minutes. I was at the restaurant in about 25 minutes and the food was already luke warm so it had been sitting for a while or was never thoroughly heated. I paid for a large hot and sour soup, mongolian beef and garlic pepper chicken. The bill came to $37 and change. I handed the cashier two $20s and she asked if I wanted change back. I had no idea tipping for carry-out is a thing now. I'm blaming Starbucks. If I had said that I wanted my change I would have seemed like a cheapskate so I let her keep it. Our home is about five minutes from the restaurant. By the time I got home the food was room temp and had to be microwaved to heat it up. The plastic containers were less than half full of the entrees. The food did not even cover the bottom of either container. The soup container was 3/4 full and also semi-cold. My food was very good after I heated it but it was unlike any Mongolian beef I have ever had, with lots of peppers and carrots and almost no onion, so I am not sure I got what I ordered. Also, there were only 10 pieces of beef about an inch square. Yes, I was so frustrated that I counted! Also, when my husband called in the order he asked to substitute brown rice for white rice. He was told that they do not have brown rice even though their menu has brown rice dishes. We try to support local businesses and know that the restaurant industry has been struggling for a while but really, there is no reason to pay $40 for very small portions of room temperature food that has to be picked up and still requires a tip. This restaurant could do much better and needs to try a...