Review Basil Thai Restaurant - Auckland Central

Basil Thai Restaurant's Green Curry is very good. Before we get into why, let's talk about Thai Green Curry in Auckland: why do so many Thai Green Curries taste EXACTLY the same? And not good the same, boring the same. And why are they always stacked with bamboo shoot after bamboo shoot then a measly chunk of broccoli stalk? Very annoying. But Basil Thai? No no no. Basil Thai doesn’t do boring bamboo only plain green curry. They stand proudly above the plebeians. Clearly they graduated with first class curry honours. Precisely how? We couldn’t tell you - we may be high level Google Reviewers but we’re not professional curry critics. But what we can tell you… is that Basil Thai’s Thai Green Curry is better than most Thai Green Curries. It’s more… dynamic. Is it the type of green chili they use, or perhaps the way they crush their white peppercorns… maybe it’s the coriander seeds, cilantro roots? We don’t know but whatever they’re doing it’s very good. Is it cumin?? Chili oil?? Is it coconut tears instead of coconut milk? Who knows. Who cares. Yum. So yes. We loved the flavour. PLUS - an actual good range of vegetables. And a silky cream texture with a good touch of an oily finish. - Special mention to the amount of satay sauce added to the chicken satay. Take note everyone else - it’s not called chicken SATAY for nothing. Well done Thai Basil. Now we know where to get our Green Curry.

This restaurant is a hidden gem. An authentic Thai restaurant with vegan options. The red curry I tried was easily the best I’ve had. One minor gripe though, the current doesn’t come with rice, which you have to pay extra for. Vegan food needs to be asked for as it is not labelled in the menu, however staff are very friendly and willing to assist.

Wonderful food and the staff were great. They made some adjustments for food sensitivities which I greatly appreciated. I was bummed that my travel schedule didn't allow for a return visit because I would've happily gone back for another dinner!

Great Thai food. Fresh ingredients, good flavours and quantity. Def one of the better Thai resturants for quality and flavour. We dined in. Not really a resturant. More so a bunch of tables in a takeaway. A little old and rundown. Service was pretty mych non existent. But the food was really good.

Lovely little restaurant, with exceptional food and great service. Dined with family (2 adults, 2 kids) and every option we chose was full of flavour, and full of fresh veges and well cooked meat.

Delicious food & reasonably priced,very friendly customer service.small restaurant but very busy.

Although this community restaurant is relatively small, it certainly made up for that in quality. The food selection was very good as were the flavours and presentation. The prices were mid range at an average of $34 pp for our table of six. Thai is my personal favourite cuisine and Basil Thai did not disappoint. The only slight difficulty was finding a park in what is a busy restaurant precinct but once that was sorted it was a most enjoyable evening.

Excellent food ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐friendly and professional service We highly recommend

Delicious thai food served by a lovely family. Very busy football night - dinner was excellent and all done in time for the game!

AMAZING food, we have been going here for a while and love it. We are creatures of habit so we usually get the same things but can highly recommend (if you are vege) the Tow Hoo Kra Pao, rest of the family like the chicken Massaman. Only downside is that you have to pay extra for rice as it is not included but that seems to be an increasing trend making the meal quite expensive overall, especially as a takeaway . . . .

Fantastic Thai restaurant with exceptionally good food and service. Recommended.

It was really pleasant experience. Service was very sweet and food was delicious. I loved the little decorations in the restaurant. Authentic Thai decorations and food.

Excellent Thai cuisine. All very fresh. Great Tom Yam.

It's hard to find a perfect thai restaurant in auckland-central for picky eaters. My childrens & i loved there food lastnight 18/05/2023 Surprised at how much we ate at this restaurant. Food was just to damm mouth-watering, flavors, hot & fresh! Service was amazing😍🥰, she went the extra mile by asking my young childrens if they would prefer there kids size spork, offered some lollipops after dinner. Will definitely be back again. 😁🫡

This was perfect for our whanau catch-up.Lots of talk and laughter.

Great fresh food that was absolutely devine

Delicious food at reasonable prices. The interior is neat and everything is very well-presented. Staff are friendly. Will definitely be visiting again!

Great food. Reasonably priced. The service is very good (specially one the ladies, she's lovely!). I always come back. Highly recommed!

Superb food. Very authentic. Cooked Thai Hot, just as I asked. Full menu selection. Can't get better than that

Friendly staff , awesome food ,highly recommended

Amazing food. Great service. I've been to Thailand a few times and this tasted so authentic. Thank you �

Thanks so much for still serving right before closing! Much appreciated! Curry was excellent

Awesome

Very friendly owner and delicious food for a very good price

Really good food however their portion size is small compared to the price charged. Especially when taking out, I think they need to increase the portion size when it comes to rice and noddles dishes.

A small restaurant on busy dominion rd. It has good view towards outside while you eat. Service is good. Food are mediocre. Nothing is too special compared to other thai restaurants, I would say.

This restaurant has the worse thai food I ever experienced. The food taste very bad with overwhelming salt and sugar. I found hair in one of my entree. The portion is very small as well. The restaurant is very stufffy and dirty. I would prefer getting frozen food from dairy store.<br/>Awhile I was to toilet I saw them washing dishes by hand, without machine. Where is the hygiene in this place, people? I dont think they deserve A grade. I'm very disappointed and will not come back again.

One of my favourite spots on Dominion Road. So far they have the best Pad Thai that I have tried hands down. Their other dishes are also great Cashew chicken is another favourite. Definitely recommended. Cute setting, love the decor and how they set up the tables. Ambience is nice, and service is good

Extremely poor quality Thai. Waste of my money. Won't be returning. Lacking in vegetables and flavour, felt like I was eating a supermarket microwave meal.We ordered a curry chicken and a fried chicken with ginger, both are too sweet and too little for us. We strongly do not recommend this restaurant. It's the worst restaurant I have ever been. Poor service,very dirty, hairy in the food and food is very slow despite no customers. I saw them spraying mosquitoes in the kitchen while cooking OMG!!.

Dined in with my friend at around 6pm on a Friday evening, it wasn't that busy. Surprised by the nice decoration, proper tablesetting. We ordered two popular Thai dishes, sweet and sour whole snapper and Tom yum soup. <br/><br/>It was a pleasant experience, nothing to critize about food, service and ambieance. A well deserved five stars rating for this visit.

Great service and great food. We visit this place every week for work lunch $12.50. Recommend green curry, pad Thai and tom yum. Friendly staff and don’t generally have to wait for long for the food which is great for work lunch.

Such a great deal! Their Lunch special!! Only $12.50 💕💕💕 Great food, spicy and very tasty! Definitely recommend coming here. My family comes here all the time. The decor is very colorful pretty.

Fresh and delicious! Friendly staff. Dine in or takeaway. One of our local favourites. Green curry prawns with vegetables and coconut milk yum!

Best Thai food ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️<br/>This place is best stop for ones who loves Thai 🥘 food. I visited this place first time yesterday and was so impressed with their fabulous service and delicious food. I did Takeway and they didn't put me on hold for long, and the lady on counter was very friendly as well. Basil Thai is now my favourite for Thai food. If anyone is looking for cheap and tasty Thai food ..I think you should visit this place once. Thanks

Basil Thai has a very nice traditional Thai decor with a touch of assimilation to the Kiwi culture too. The waiter is always very pleasant there, albeit not having the best English. Their lunch meals are amazing, I come here fortnightly on my lunch breaks to try their delicious food, my favourite would be their Tom Kah Gai.

Quiet for a Tuesday evening dinner. <br/><br/>Place is not that big, but table setup were very nicely done. Cutleries were unique. <br/><br/><br/>The staff was friendly and always had smile on her face. <br/><br/>Food---good. All the dishes have a sweet taste on it which was perfectly balance. <br/>Roti was different from the usual roti that i had before. <br/><br/>Great 👍🏻

Sunday Night out with Mum. Group of 5.<br/><br/>We have been going to this cafe for many  years and it has always been good, except tonight they really disappointed. <br/><br/>We arrived as per our booking at 6.15pm and  ordered our meal fairly promptly as we wanted to beat the rush, my 94 year old mother likes to eat early,  there were 2 other tables occupied and they already had their meals.<br/><br/>We order mixed entree set and a variety of other meals, red duck curry, steamed snapper, tom yum soup, chicken with cashew nuts etc<br/>The entree came and  disappointingly didn't have our favorite chicken satay, but they had 5 pieces of entree, so no biggie. But the Money bags were dry filled with a small amount of something that was hard to distinguish what it was, seemed stale and dehydrated. Spring roll was ok, prawn toast was very oily and not nice, chicken wing was ok.<br/>Then we waited, the rush hour came and went, people who came after us got their meals and we didn't... we waited and waited, then finally after an hour and quarter we asked the waitress why our meal was so slow, when others had come, ordered eaten, paid and gone! Her answer was "sorry". <br/>Then another person came ordered takeaways  got their takeaways and left and we still hadn't got our meals! By this stage I was getting really annoyed.<br/><br/>Finally the Tom Yum soup came and the rest of the meals at the same time, the waitress had to be flagged down again for bowls the drink the soup from, and again for spoons to drink the soup with. The rest of the food was tasty, but not worth waiting over an hour for between courses.<br/><br/> Our appetite was ruined by the very long wait between first course and the rest. We cancelled one dish as it still hadn't come and we were over it by this stage.<br/> <br/> We arrived a 6.15 and left at 8.20pm <br/>We paid full price for the meal and received a "Sorry" when we complained twice. No discount was offered. We paid $182.00 for 5.<br/><br/>Looks like the business has been sold recently.<br/> We won't be coming back. This ruined our weekly night out with Mum.

■ Fast service<br/>■ Straightforward menu<br/>■ Yummy food<br/><br/>This place is right on the main road so it's  bang smack next to a busy intersection but inside, it's a quiet and clean restaurant with a handful of tables with a lotta colourful decor. A big group of us all had the lunch special which is super reasonable, especially since the portion sizes were quite generous too.<br/><br/>The pad thai was pretty good, however most of us were full pretty quickly coz the portion sizes looked small when they first arrived, but then actually turned out to be pretty darn big as we dug into them. We had starters and drinks as well as part of the special and overall, there was no complaints at all. The staff were polite and food arrived within minutes. Would recommend for a quiet, cosy restaurant with quality Thai!

We are regular customers, never disappointed with the food and service. We always order chicken stay for Entree and Yum Nua with Red Duck curry for main course. Nice and clean place, recommend to everyone<br/>

I went to the restaurant in weekend and enjoyed with my friends, staff pretty friendly and pretty good service us.<br/><br/>But foods very slowly and too much salty <br/>and one thing we're frightened, we walked pass kitchen and saw inside they don't use machine for clean dishes,,,too dirty

This is a bright and cheerful restaurant in the middle of busy Dominion Road. The service was friendly and efficient. The decor was pretty fancy. The food was amazing- I especially recommend the curry with beef- yum! IT was just the right amount of spice for me!<br/>I will be returning to Basil Thai again very soon!

Amazing Thai, great service, very friendly staff. I can highly recommend the pad kee mao and curry puffs! We dine here at least once a week!

I was craving for Thai after a long day at work, luckily Basil Thai was still open at 9pm.<br/><br/>The two of us has decided to dine in since there were still a few customers just placed their orders. <br/><br/>We've ordered a pad Thai and stirfry beef & vege in black bean sauce with a bowl of jasmine rice. Both dishes were absolutely delicious! No wonder there were more local customers walked in after 9pm.<br/><br/>It was more than enough for the two of us but next time I'll definitely consider ordering their dessert after we saw the cheesecake they served to the table next to us :)<br/><br/><br/>

Came here for dinner with friends, was pretty delicious. Ordered three entree & three main, all of which we enjoyed. The stir fried duck is pretty exceptional. Would definitely come back again.

Being big fans of Thai food we found ourselves a little disappointed with Basil Thai to be honest. The dishes were less authentic than other restaurants and not as good value compared to the completion on dominion road. The food was still good and well presented. The service was decent - staff where nicely dressed in traditional Thai outfits.

Tiny little place , but really nice food. Tried the pad Thai not the best I've ever had but still really good. The $15.00 lunch special is a good deal . Good service too 😊

One of the best Thai restaurants I have been to in Auckland. If you want elegant traditional Thai cuisine Basil Thai is perfect. I visited Basil Thai with my partner on valentines day and enjoyed it very much. The food was quick, and prices reasonable, my waitress was lovely, very welcoming and she wore traditional Thai uniform! The atmosphere was on point! Absolutely loved it! Took me back to Thailand.<br/>No complaints!

I have absolutely no complaints. The food came out incredibly fast - even though I was there quite late and there were only two other diners it took about 5 minutes to come out. Amazing! And it was absolutely scrumptious. The waitress was lovely. The atmosphere was lovely. Only thing is prices are a bit high.

Good was tasty and portions were Ok. The ambience could have been better for the prices and the quantity of food. Service could definitely be more personal. Could go again but will find elsewhere for value for money.

Fabulous Thai Food !!!<br/><br/>I went to have dinner with my friends. We really enjoyed our dinner here, the food was so good, fresh ingredients and quite reasonable prices for every menus.<br/><br/>Also, such a gorgeous dish ! especially carved carrot flower besides our foods. Service is excellent; waitress is very nice, polite and attentive. <br/><br/>Awesome place to eat Thai food in Auckland ! <br/><br/>We will definitely return again.<br/><br/>A highly recommended Thai Restaurant.

Really great service, we had a very lovely waitress. Great fresh yummy food with a generous amount of veges, rice and meat! I had a really great night here :)

My Family used to go to this place when it was Bangkok Cafe almost every week, such friendly people and great service but now it has changed owners, the food is not as nice and it is just not the same.

I was impressed initially by the clean, colourful setting. This is a classy little restaurant with friendly, professional service. <br/>Attention to little things eg water, smiling, waitress and waiters dressed in Thai clothes etc.<br/>And the food was the best Thai meal I have had in a long time. I had pork stir fry with peanut sauce-superb and just the right 'hotness'<br/>Mate of mine had scallops which he said were first class too.<br/>Price was very reasonable-about 18 for the main although rice a bit extra<br/>Overall-highly recommended for a quiet, clean restaurant with first class food.

Excellent food !!! Geeat service and the most amazing Thai restaurant that we'v been . Very lovly !!! Highly recommend if you want to try Thai food , this is the place to go :)))

Used to be Bangkok Cafe, we used to go for the $15 lunch nearly every week. We went for lunch last week and it wasn't as good. The Thai food was to europeanised. We have travelled to Thailand 6 times and eat Thai all the time. This wasn't a tasty and tangy as real thai food.<br/><br/>It was ok, but I wouldn't rave.<br/><br/> I prefer Thai friends or Me Glong.

Former Bangkok Cafe. Super friendly efficient staff. Great food. We had fish cakes, green vegetarian curry, sizzling beef strips with chilli and chicken with basil. All meals were delicious. The restaurant is licensed and offers take-aways. O