Cool Basil

Not impressed at all. The service was poor, waitress was rude and not very accommodating. Food was cold and very subpar. The one in West Des Moines is GREAT, this one not so much! Will never return again, gross!

This place sucks a door says open until 9 p.m. and they chased me out at 8:40 pm. We lived right across the street and we barely go there because they are so rude.

Always great food, friendly service everytime I have been there! I am not a big sushi fan but like the Altoona Roll.

Great food and service. All The Time!

Really good job of making a role I have never had with no rice. Clean, professional, and the sushi tasted great. Another great place to get sushi. I will come here again. Tables were clean. Had the game playing.

I really enjoyed my experience at their Clive location, but I was pretty disappointed with this location. We came in late afternoon on a Sunday and it was very empty. We ordered the appetizer sampler and it was a combination of 5 different fried items, all were lacking in flavor and had this weird watery sauce to go with it. We ordered 4 sushi rolls and 2 entrees and it took about half an hour to get the food to our table… Our waiter was sitting in the back of the restaurant not really doing anything, and we ended up having a different waiter bring us the check and 2 boxes! That took him 10 minutes from the time we asked until the time he delivered the check and boxes, and the restaurant was completely empty! Chances of returning are pretty slim.

Came here again. I should have read my prior review. This time I ordered Green Curry, and again, I ordered «5» on the spicy scale of 1 — 6. This is why I should have read my prior review. I’ve been known to order «4» and say «meh…» but I ordered «5» again and WISHED I had cut it down to 4 or even 3! I waffled between Chicken or Pork, finally decided on Pork, but lets just say, the sauce was so spicy I couldn’t tell whether I got Pork or Chicken, they are both white meat!
If you put the curry on the rice, it does tone it down some, but you still get «kickback» on the spice thing. «Kickback» happens at about 1.5 seconds.
Let’s just say, I could have used two scoops of rice to tone down the curry sauce, but they only give you one scoop.
This time it was quiet as there weren’t many in at the time I went.

VERY VERY VERY GOOD! I was amazed at the size of the menu and usually am wary of that… as it signifies a restaurant can’t find their niche… But the meal was awesome and everyone at the table with me was THRILLED with their choice! Try it out!

This place was pretty good. Ordered a veggie stir fry dish. They are just a little tad pricey for a place such as this in a strip mall, hence why I didn’t give the full 5 stars. The food was really good though. Service was average. Nothing outstanding, but not bad either.

Its the first time I couldn’t finish my Tom Yum. I love Thai hot and sour soup with a passion and I just couldn’t do it… Maybe their love for fish sauce is what did it in for me or lack of spice when I asked for a 6 on a 1 to 6 scale. We also got the BBQ fried rice and it was a soggy texture that had a sweet BBQ sauce like flavor. The food really hit us in the stomach with distaste. They will definitely have to switch up the menu or cooking methods a bit to see us come back. The only semi-​tasty think we got was the Chicken Satay, but I think it would be really hard to mess up chicken on a stick… Good Luck guys! Hope you find this review to change your methods.

I’ve had take-​out from here and it was just okay. I enjoyed it much better dining in. The basil chicken stir fry was fantastic! I didn’t get any sushi this time but i could see it looked great when other people ordered. The atmosphere is warm and comfortable.

Was craving some phở soup so I decided to stop in turns out they have a similar soup they call noodle soup still in that same big bowl couldn’t even finish it all. But in all, great service, I enjoyed will be back if in the area.

Updating now because I’ve since come back here several times purely for convenience reasons, and then discovered the magic that is the green curry here. It is heaven. Far and away the best curry dish I’ve ever had (and add avocado to it!) So so good. And their service has improved in the past year, so I forgive their previous transgressions.

Food was delicious and in spite of previous reviews the service was good. It is located in a strip mall so my expectations were not very high. It was actually quite nice. Clean and quiet.

This place is great for some tasty, great, relatively cheap Asian food. It presents itself as Thai restaurant but has a fusion of Japanese and Chinese cuisine in there as well. It’s really fast and the servers were really friendly. Really clean restaurant and a great ambiance. I’ve had the Pad Thai and Kua Kai and I wasn’t disappointed by either one. Their apps are great as well.

Excellent thai food! I ordered Mango Curry. It was the best I ever had. Highly recommended place for food lovers! Reasonable price, decent ambience, and great service!

They are trying to do way too many things. After talking with the waiter it became clear that the sauces are bought in and they all contain fish sauce and oyster sauce. The food did not taste good and I left not feeling well.

As always, I am a skeptic of any asian restaurant that tries to do more than just one type of cuisine. I believe there should be a focus on food and honestly– thai, chinese and japanese are not closely related in terms of flavor. They pretty much have rice in common. So theres that.
All in all, my experience at Cool Basil was a good one. Clean, modern design, yet not so fancy that I felt weird walking in with tshirt and shorts. I did have a sushi craving and decided to give them a chance although it has all the red flags of a mediocre sushi place (thai and chinese on the menu). The american style sushi I ordered was great. Fresh ingredients, and fish tasted fresh also. I didnt order nigiri though I love it — just wasn’t brave enough to try it there. Much safer to order an american styled roll. The drunken noodles and padthai were fine-​no complaints there either and it beats me cooking it myself on a lazy day. The dessert was a good too, although when in thailand i loved the condensed milk drizzle on top of the mango with sticky rice-​i recommend they add that on!
I would def come here again. Its a certain contender in the des moines area for thai and surprisingly, sushi!

If you want good Asian food and you are in Altoona then go here. They have a wide selection of Thai dishes as well as good sushi. They have a very quiet and comforting atmosphere. The staff members are extremely friendly and the food is made well. I had lived in Altoona for a brief amount of time and this would be my go to Asian restaurant.

I am torn on how to rate this place because the food is always very good, however the service is always horrible. So choosing middle ground on this one. They are great at bussing the tables and seating you but little (1 sometimes 2 people) taking your order. So, I can’t imagine how stressful it may be during busier times and would like to see some changes in this area, but have visited around 5 times in the past year and its always the same. Even when it’s slow, service is bad. The girls don’t seem to be too concerned about your presence or needs. Once you get your order, forget about seeing them again, we have even had to chase them down for our check and order several drinks at once because you won’t be offered refills or a second drink.
We would visit more often because in this part of the state, we lack flavorable options. If you go into to Des Moines, you will have more options that favor taste AND service. So maybe that is the issue, lack of competition equals no motive to improve their business?