Basilic Essentially Thai — Restaurant in Seattle

I ordered take out of Pad Thai with extra broccoli (+ $3.00) and 3 vegetable rolls. I picked it up around 8:30 p.m. By the time I got home to eat, it was after 9:30pm. The restaurant closes at 9:30 p.m. so I couldn't call them.

There were only 5 pieces of broccoli added to Pad Thai! By ordering extra broccoli, I wanted more broccoli to take the place of the mound of rice noodles, not be merely a slight texture & color variation. Also the tofu was big & chunky, not asthetically pleasing & unappetizing. See the photo- if it uploads.

I called the next day and explained everything very clearly to a woman. Without telling me, she walked away from the phone. Some other woman picked up the phone & I started to explain the same thing to her. She stopped listening to me and spoke to someone else at the restaurant, then came back on to say my order was Pad Thai. Then without telling me, that woman walked away from the phone for about 5 minutes.

The first woman came to the phone & said she talked to the chef; if I called last night I could have either come back for more broccoli or got a refund. I repeated I couldn't call last night because they were closed, and while doing so, she interrupted and tried to talk over me.

I told her all I ate was half a veggie roll & a few bites of the Pad Thai. I saved the food with full intention of bringing it back for a refund. I told her this is not a scam; I'm not trying to eat food and not pay for it; I'm an unsatisfied customer and I can bring the food back right now.

She repeated that if I called the same day I could come back and get more broccoli or maybe a refund. I asked if she was the manager? She said yes.

I asked her to please be quiet and listen to me because she seemed to be missing the main point. I repeated that I could not call the same night because they were closed, and while doing so, she interrupted me again.

I told her this is not the way to make good customer relations in the area; that I want my money back so I can try another Thai restaurant and see if they give me better food and service. And by refunding me & promoting good customer service, maybe I would give Basilic another try.

Once again I heard no response. She walked away from the phone without telling me. Then she hung up the phone.

I called back and told her I would give Basilic the worst review on Google and she is poor excuse of a manager who cares nothing about customers or customer service.

Instead of doing the right thing, this restaurant is cold and cheap in its customer relations. By simply refunding me, I could very well have come back and been a long time customer. Basilic Essentially Thai obviously doesn't...

On Wednesday August 3rd I ordered 2 orders of Pad See Ew with tofu. I am vegetarian. I ordered 2 because I had just got off work and I have a young baby so I was going to take the 2nd one for lunch to work the next day. I pick up my order and go home and begin to eat. Very shortly after I began I found a piece of chicken in my food. I haven't eaten meat in over 20 years. I call and say hey there's meat in my food I can't eat this. They say ok they'll make two more for me. No problem so far. When I show up with my baby to pick up the new order without meat they just stand there and say where's the food? Where's the food? It's at my house. They say they can't give me my new order until I bring the food back... ok I say. This is very weird, but I go back to my house grab the food and come back. All with my baby. I come back and say here you go. They start to open the food and say where's the meat? I don't see any meat. They won't give me my new order. Basically calling me a liar. I'm very upset by this point and say give it to me. I pulled out a bit piece or chicken and said there's more smaller pieces in there. I can't eat this. Then the lady says you already ate from this. I can't give you new order (This is where I realize the reason they wanted the food back. I believe they were going to resell it to someone else. Super unsanitary and having worked in restaurants in the past you cannot do this). By this point I'm very frustrated and ask for a refund. I don't want to do this anymore, they hadn't even starting my new order yet. They say no. They refuse to give me a refund. My baby is crying in her car seat by this point and I'm furious. They made me dig out a piece of meat out of their food and I haven't touched meat in over 20 years and now they're saying they won't remake my food or give me a refund. The final straw was when the woman came out from the kitchen holding a 5$ bill and giving me a look like here, this is all you get. Obviously I don't take the 5$ and leave. We live super close to this place and have gone all the time. The food is good. It's not great, but it's convenient. Now I will never go back there again. And if you're vegetarian I highly recommend you find somewhere else to eat that actually cares about your lifestyle. And I am still worried this place is taking back old food and reselling it. One of the worst restaurant experiences I've ever had. Would not...

Food was okay.....service staff was overloaded and made for a bad experience.

We decided to try this place out last night (3/15/25) before a ballet performance at nearby McCaw Hall. We planned to eat a little over an hour beforehand as we've done at many other restaurants in the past without any issues.

I called ahead and made a 6:15pm reservation and when we got there I dropped my wife off at the restaurant while I parked. By the time I got into the restaurant I found that my wife still hadn't been seated. She told me that there was only 1 server who was also acting as hostess and online order pickup cashier. So, it took us like 5+ minutes to be seated even though we had a reservation, and then it took almost another 15 minutes before the lone server/hostess/cashier took our order. Long story short....we barely had enough time to scarf down our food before having to head out so that we could get to the performance in time. We couldn't even take our leftovers to the car (as was part of our original plan) as we were cutting it too close on time now. So like $65 for a rushed, half-eaten dinner.

To be clear, I'm not blaming the staff for this poor experience. It seems that management (or the owner) decided that a single server in a popular restaurant on a Saturday night is fine. I'm sure they just don't want to pay more to actually have the right number of people working. I feel bad for the staff but management is 100% to blame for this....and I saw that we weren't the only annoyed...