I tend to agree with MaryTran, they have so many staff on that no one knows whats going on. On my first visit we asked 3 different staff members for the bill and no one noticed that we were finished and ready to go.

Whilst people are nice, the timing of delivery is very poor. Stir fries coming out before appetisers, rice coming out well after the mains (what do we eat the savouries with?) and drinks at the end? Good to see a licensed restaurant in the area though.

Grr

Just to clarify, my blog post was based on only one visit to Holy Basil. If I ever go back (which is likely, I live in the area), I’ll be sure to go in with an open mind and try a few other dishes so I can get a better picture of what the food is like.

There are obviously some minor issues floating around in regards to waiting times and the claims of the food being not authentic Lao/Thai is debatable no matter what restaurant it is. For anyone curious on comparing, please check out a few restaurants in Fairfield for a different Thai/Lao food experience. I’ll be posting a few of my experiences in the next few weeks.

Holy Basil is new, I’ll give them that, hopefully they sort out the issues regarding coffee and dessert because to be honest the first thing that attracted me to this place was the Toby’s Estate flags!

Anyway to sum up, thanks for the active discussions. If anything, it has given Holy Basil a bit of exposure and I encourage everyone to visit them and form their own opinion on the restaurant.

PS : The comment about the Mayor Nick Lalich calling the restaurant the wrong name at the opening was hilarious, though … we expect these slip ups from Politicians don’t we ? George Bush anyone?

I actually thought the place wasn’t that bad, DESPITE waiting one hour (no jokes) for our first dish to come out (the green curry). My bf and i got seated straight away though, and there were people waiting before us. The place looked nice and we were really excited to try the difference flavours and compare them to other places. Not bad at all. The waiting was the worst, hopefully it has improved by now. The second dish (a stir fried dish) came out maybe 15-20mins after the first dish. We were seated right in front of the kitchen so we kept checking to see where our order was and how long it might take for our food to come out. One of the workers realised that we had been waiting a while so he did offer us a free drink but we declined. He did end up giving us a free plate of fried chicken though, which i thought was very nice of him (the chicken…well the pieces were quite small and not what i expected). No one else had paid attention to how long other customers were waiting for. We waited a good 10mins or so just for the bill alone. Best of luck to them though, i’d definitely go back. Also it’s close to home =)

From your comments, I was going to ask you if you worked at ‘Holy Basil’, but our friend ‘coffeeaddict’ has already cleared that up. (I also find it humourous that our friend’s nickname is ‘coffeeaddict’ because this all started over coffee and dessert haha)

Wow, I can’t believe you had to resort to calling me an “unsophisticated tosser”, “bogan” and “whinging viet”. Who said I was vietnamese? I had to read your comments a few times before I could understand it, and it isn’t because I’m unsophisticated, more so that your english and grammar is poor.

Now look suzie, how can you go and insult every Thai/Laos restaurant in Cabramatta and Fairfield? Have you been to all of them? I haven’t, but my friends and I have been to many, and not once have we ever had a problem with diarrhoea from them. Also, I’ve experienced very good Authentic Thai/Laos food from them, and found it to be a lot better than “Holy Basil’. So do my friends, however, that is a matter of opinion.
Susan, you do realise that labelling all the other Thai/Laos restaurants in the Cabramatta and Fairfield area “dirrrrrrrrrrty joints”, whereby you end up with “diarrhoea” is actually defamation? Although I can’t blame you for your attempt at defaming the other restaurants in a bid to steer customers to yours.
Nice try (Sarcasm was implied there).
By the way, I’ll be nice and give you some advice (that rhymes!); since no one else seems to be having diarrhoea issues at the other Thai/Laos restaurants in the surrounding area, maybe you should wash your hands before you eat. =)

Suz, maybe you should have approached your comments in a more constructive way, like Lex did. If you like the food, no one is stopping you and your feet from going back, hell your family owns the place so go ahead!
If you were to read the very first comment on this blog, I said “hey where’s the grilled chicken? and booo to no coffee and dessert. maybe they’ll have it now after being opened for a little bit.”. I was actually being nice about the place despite the bad experience I had there and I wanted to give it a chance. However, you have inspired me to speak out about my experience here and what I thought about the food and service.

We had made a booking at 7.45pm for 6 people yet we were seated on a table for 4. It was very cramp and we ordered a lot of food, there wasn’t not enough room at all. It was very crowded inside the restaurant as it seemed that the owners wanted to fit everyone in regardless of the comfortability of patrons. Inside, the decor seemed nice though and very mod-thai. The drinks we ordered WHICH WERE NOT COFFEE came out very quick which was pleasant, the food on the other hand took a VERY LONG TIME. The chicken feet salad was a nice start, nothing special but it was good. The pawpaw salad was very hot and good. Once again not bad but nothing to boast about. The same could be said for the ox-tongue, I found it to be cooked well. The deep fried coral trout was nice to eat, a nice flavoured sauce, and it came with vegetables. A LOT OF VEGETABLES. It seemed as if we had ordered a large plate of vegetables with a side of fish, as there did not seem to be much meat on the fish. The deep fried basil on top was nice but unfortunately the only good thing about the dish and I’m not the biggest fan of basil either.
The roast duck red curry was very creamy, a little too creamy, and was more curry than duck. The duck seemed to be more skin than meat. Disappointing to say the least. The soft-shelled crab was ok, it was like a lot of soft-shelled crab i’ve eaten before, so it wasn’t something I’d brag about. The grilled chicken was over-cooked and quite tough. There wasn’t much flavour through the chicken and like the soft-shelled crab and ox-tongue, it was served with a side of grated carrots and radish which were terrible. Most other asian places, whether it be chinese, vietnamese or thai/laos, usually serve this pickled. Then it seemed like an eternity before our pineapple fried rice came out. We ordered because in the photo it was served in a pineapple which, seems to be misleading when it was brought out to us (as you can see from Howard’s photos). The rice like most things we ordered wasn’t anything special, its seemed to remind me of fried rice you get at asian weddings but it wasn’t bad.
We then ordered dessert and Howard is a big fan of Toby’s Estate Coffee, SO HE ORDERED IT (NOT ME) and we waited for about 10 minutes before being told there was no coffee or dessert. How dissappointing =(.
Throughout the night, due to the over-crowding of the restaurant we were constantly being bumped by waiters and waitresses with plates of food almost hitting our heads. It took ages for our food to come out yet we were being delivered food by mistake that was meant for other tables, this wouldn’t have bothered us much if we got our food instead of everyone else’s.

Overall, the food was good and edible. It wasn’t fantastic but the people who worked there seemed nice enough and the place looked really cool! The food could’ve came out better and it would have been nice if the waiter had told us at the start of the evening what was not available on the menu, its false advertising really.

So sue, I think I’ll also vote with my feet and not return to Holy Basil, ever. You’ve done the worst thing that you could’ve possibly done for this restaurant by making the comments you did, because I’ll also vote via word of mouth and ensure my friends know about this place. Not to eat here of course, but to avoid this place at all cost. There are many other Thai/Laos restaurants in the area, all cheaper, better and more ‘Authentic’. That or we could just walk straight pass the joint and eat at Fat Panda, where the service and food is great.

ohhh and Suzes, you said “The Thai chef they used are ex- 1 hat in the city”. What restaurant did this 1-hat Chef come from? What’s his name? I’m curious … Also, “used” ? So does that mean they don’t have that chef anymore?

Pete, you’re a soft boiled egg =P

(apologies for it being so long hahaha)