Hot Basil Thai Cuisine — Restaurant in Overland Park

I accidently went to this restaurant twice. The first time was about 5 years ago and the last time was a couple days ago. I forgot that I had been to this restaurant, and when I arrived, I knew I had been there before but didn't remember how the food was. The salad dressing was a sugar dressing, the dip for the spring rolls was a sugar sauce with peanuts, the panang curry had probably 1/2 cup sugar in the sauce, and the pad Thai had much too much sugar. Their food is too sweet. Many Thai restaurants in the Kansas City area make the pad Thai too sweet, so I almost never order it, but my friend always orders it, even though it's completely different and not sweet in Florida, where she's from. I love Thai food and eat it often, but this restaurant puts so much sugar in their food that I couldn't eat it. I hate sending food back, but I literally couldn't eat another bite. The sugar sauce ruined the curry, the salad, and the spring rolls. I didn't send everything back, just the curry. The waitress asked if I ever had panang curry, as if it's always sweet. I have had Thai about once every few months for the past 5 years and about once every month or more before I moved out this way from Lawrence because the Thai food west of here is really not sweet and tastes great. I've never had panang curry as sweet as they make it here. The panang curry I'm used to, and enjoy, is savory and delicious. Their curry was not good at all. As a replacement meal, I got the pad kee mow, as they assured me it wasn't sweet. They were right, it wasn't sweet, but it wasn't great, either. The noodles were too soft. I ate it without complaint because I'm not the complaining type, unless something is real terrible. I will have to remember never to go back to this restaurant. I gave a 2-star review because their staff was patient with my friend taking a long time to order and answering all of her questions, and they brought me a replacement meal...

Hot Basil may not need another glowing review, but they get one anyway. I will start of with WOW! Try it!

For something a bit more explanatory, three of us dined recently. We each got a different dish and shared so we could get a good taste of the menu. Then I dropped by for lunch to try something else. At this point I've tried four dishes, the eggrolls, and the hot and sour soup. Everything I have tried has been pretty amazing. Anything I didn't love I still liked, and felt like not loving something was more about me not preferring the taste than it was about it not being extremely well done. All and all Hot Basil with its strong, well formed flavors is going down as one of my personal great restaurant experiences, and for whatever it's worth, I give it as hardy a recommendation as I can give for a restaurant.

In the interest of being balanced and informative, I will say the food may be most agreeable for spicy food lovers. They will accommodate mild spice levels to a degree(you get to pick your spice level), though some may wish to stay away from any of the dishes that use large ginger sticks for the dish.

Pricing is also a bit more than some Asian style restaurants often are around the lunch hours. This is due more to the lack of lunch discounts more than anything. Plates are around 10$ which is still quite reasonable and more than justified by the quality of the food while many cheaper places suffer in quality in comparison. Though I will say for a good lunch deal the excellent Master Wok is right down the road which does not suffer from that flaw. If you did Master Wok for lunch and Hot Basil for dinner I think you would have one tasty day...

This was my first time trying Hot Basil Thai Cuisine, I ordered around 8:30 (close is 9), and was still able to place a to-go order. My favorite Thai dish is Tom Yum soup with shrimp, and I was pleasantly surprised I did not have to pay extra for any protein except the "seafood" option.

Once I got to the restaurant and entered the front door I noticed the layout was mindful of dine-in guests AND takeout guests, the main dining room is in an adjacent room. The front desk area is straight across from the front door, but far enough back that it could accommodate multiple people waiting. The staff greeted me and I was given the soup I had ordered.

After I got back to my car I could tell the container was not filled all the way, which concerned me as I had paid about $12 for to-go soup. Upon opening my to-go bag I found that I was right, it was not filled all the way, and the color seemed off for "Thai hot", so I became concerned it would not be spicy. It did not have the classic red peppers saturating the soup.

I was wrong! I don't know how they are able to achieve such great heat with almost no red peppers in the broth. It was a wonderful building heat that burns hotter over time, perfect. There were plenty of shrimp about 7-8, they were cleaned, deveined, and perfectly cooked. The soup had a beautiful balance of ingredients and flavor. It did not have mushrooms in it, and that did not bother me, and I hardly noticed.

I highly recommend Hot Basil Thai Cuisine, and I will be a returning customer. They are open later than my normal place and the food is less expensive, and if consistent they could easily...