Basil Leaf

This place has been a favorite for a long while. There are too many great dishes to name… With the addition of a sushi/​sashimi bar, I’m sold! The jasmine tea with honey is the best simple drink they serve.
Basil Leaf is a great place to just drop by (check hours though). Indoor or outdoor seating is a available.
Parking isn’t bad either for a store front business without business parking.
Enjoy!

Fantastic. Great hole in the wall type of place, with a neighborhood vibe. Fresh summer rolls are very tasty. Panang Curry is actually spicy, flavorful and a great portion. And the tom yum soup was delicious. Will definitely eat here again! Basil Leaf has practically everything you could ask for in a thai /​japanese restaurant.

I would really give this place 2.5 stars instead of three. The menu is very limited and didn’t even have traditional Thai offerings such as Pad Woon Sen. I had the Pad Thai, it was okay. The bean sprouts were barely detectable, and it didn’t even have green onions or lime with it, like it is served at other Thai restaurants. The flavor was not very complex like most Pad Thai I’ve had… it had a lot of red pepper slivers in it, so that’s mostly what it tasted like.
I thought it was pretty overpriced for $ 14.95. It’s just noodles and didn’t even come with a soup or anything. The service was good (although they wouldn’t do separate checks) and the Thai iced tea was good. The place was pretty clean. I would not go out of my way to initiate another visit there, but it is decent enough if I’m dragged there by friends.

Basil Leaf is one of those restaurants that you only want to come to for lunch because their dinner menu is twice as expensive! I’ll admit, a big plate of curry is worth the $ 8 lunch price, but a final bill of $ 20 is too much, especially considering the service.
I’ve never been impressed with the wait staff here– in two instances, the waiters were over-​attentive, interrupting conversation and guilt-​tripping us into extra food & drink («just try it… here, I’ll order it for you, you’ll like it»… then we get charged.) Then last week, we were seated, then ignored for fifteen minutes.
The food, though often spicier than advertised, is good enough. Stick to their curries though. They like to experiment… without always the best results.

Jason our host was great. Loved the food. Will definitely be back.

This was a last minute post St Paddy’s Day Parade dinner. My dining companion and I were cruising the Carrollton area and we both said Hey let’s go there. I’m no expert on Thai food, but I enjoyed mine. I ordered pineapple jasmine rice which was full of shrimp chicken and veggies. Can’t say I remember pineapple though but enjoyed the dish. The dining companion ordered an octopus salad (her go to protein it seems) and said it was good not great and very spicy. All in all a solid place. And I agree with my friend Cristy A that it is probably 2.5 stars.

Good food, excellent service! Not having Thai food in a while my husband and I were excited to finally make it down Carrollton to Basil Leaf. We will be returning again just to be served by Becky.

Bah — ok so I was going to wait to write my 100^th review of some place awesome… I should have just written it on Cochon (I haven’t eaten pork for ~6−7 years and I honestly died and went to hog heaven there!). However, I just as fired up about this place as I am there, just for opposite reasons.
1) The service was bad. There were two other tables and we still waited 45 min to get our bill. Our water never got refilled. I watched the owner (wearing an Abercrombie long sleeve shirt while his employees wore black) walk back and forth, drinking thai ice tea. He never said a word to any of the customers.
2) The food was bad/​meh. We weren’t asked how spicy we would like our food. I guess that’s my fault, because it didn’t come out spicy at all. Part of the sauce on the pad thai was cold and tasted like it came out of a commercial pre-​packaged bottle. I feel bad for saying this, but the green curry was nasty. It was soupy and tasted like fish sauce. I like fish sauce… but I expect better curry. In addition, the vegetables were old (1 basil leaf was disintegrating, eggplant was mushy, broccoli was wilted) and the meat was dry. I cannot believe that we got charged $ 17. We ate less than half and should have said something, but didn’t. Honestly, if I ran a restaurant and saw that people didn’t eat ½ a plate that cost $ 17, I would ask why. Also, sorry again to whine, the rice was bad! So we had bad rice on top of a watery «curry» that tasted bad and was garnished on the side with a «M» of sriracha. Fail all around on that dish.
3) The thai ice tea was good — 2 stars.
We definitely won’t be coming back here. I can’t believe how much the dishes cost, what a waste. Sorry Basil Leaf, I think the other restaurants in New Orleans far outshine you — which perhaps makes you look worse. Maybe that would fly in a city where the other food wasn’t so good.

Basil leaf is one of the only places in New Orleans where you can find Thai food… and also Japanese?
I tend to stay away from Asian restaurants that offer dishes from the entire region from Chinese to Thai to Korean and Japanese. It lacks authenticity. But when there aren’t enough Thai restaurants to choose from beggars can’t be choosers.
On one of our last nights packing up, fridge empty along with stomachs, we started roaming the streets of New Orleans looking for a place to dine. The time: 9:30 pm on a weeknight. Fact: not too many restaurants are open past 9:00 pm in New Orleans on weeknights. We originally had our stomachs and hearts set on Panchita’s-the Mexican diner next to Basil Leaf but upon arrival found them closing up shop. Stomachs churning and McDonald’s becoming a likely dinner option we turned to Basil Leaf. I had always wanted to try it since its one of the only places on the small international culinary strip of Carrollton which I had not yet tried (Café Grenada being my favorite).
For our entrees we ordered the shrimp and chicken pad Thai and red chicken curry. The pad Thai was very good and the serving was huge with a generous amount of chicken and shrimp. The noodles not too soft and the perfect amount of sauce in each bite.
The chicken curry was served with a scoop of white rice and contained broccoli and red peppers. It was also very tasty. I know what you are thinking. I was hungry so anything would have tasted good at that point. But after inhaling the crab cakes I think I could judge the tastiness level quite accurately. And both dishes were great. This review is based solely on the two dishes that we had. I cannot comment on their non-​Thai dishes that they offer but I can say that their Thai food was what you would expect at any typical Thai restaurant.

I can’t for the life of me understand why this place has such terrible reviews. Sure it won’t be anything you want to write home about, but we left satisfied.
I got the sushi special (can’t remember what it was) and I cleaned the plate. I also ordered the spring rolls.
The server was very attentive (there were only 2 tables counting us in the restaurant) and the food was pretty good.

It is an ok Thai food restaurant. Thai tea was good but the entrée was more like a «American» Thai food. It was also a little bit pricey. In addition, the Tom Yum had only two shrimps in it. In uptown, I would recommend the Chill Out Café on Maple. Additionally, Singha Song on Maple was another good choice but their Thai tea was too sweet. I am keep exploring good Thai food restaurants :)

The food here is spicy, but the staff is very accommodating. You can ask for as much or as little spice as you want.
More spice means more red pepper. More red pepper can change the dynamics of dishes like Pad/​Phat Thai. It not only adds heat, it adds flavor too.
Great service. A beautiful restaurant, but I thought the lights were kind of dim. Not the best shrimp. Great appetizers.
They have a wide range of dishes on the menu. There’s a $ 15 Pad Thai and a $ 24 Pad Thai.
They have one dish that’s served inside a hollowed-​out pineapple. Amazing!

We went to Basil Leaf for lunch and their lunch menu is very reasonably priced, contrary to the previous reviews.
We ordered pad thai, drunken noodles, and the red curry. Their plating and presentation was unexpected and artistically done. Just enough spicy and sweet. Everything came out steaming hot straight from the kitchen. The red curry was delicious and had a nice coconut taste. The pad thai was great but it wasn’t too spicy. We also had the Thai tea which was so refreshing and amazing. It goes great with the meals we ordered.
Service was friendly and our waitress was very helpful with dish selections.

If I could give this place 2.5 stars, I would.
I had a very formal family dinner here once. Everyone knows Thai food is on the spicy side and I was ready for it. To my surprise, it was not as spicy as I would have liked it to be. The family I was with were Koreans and they LOVE spicy food. I don’t think they were very impressed. It was just OK.
A little pricy for the type of food. I’d rather go to the Thai place in Metairie by TJ Maxx, and that’s saying something because I really like being uptown. Plus, this place is just blocks away from my apartment.
I’ve only been here two times, and I really was not impressed. This place has a lot of potential… it is almost disappointing.
I wish them the best though.

OVERPRICED.
I was really craving Thai food but because I’m completely spoiled by Little Bangkok in Atlanta I generally stay away from all other Thai restaurants (it is worth a 7.5 hour drive — trust) but this was… OK? I guess but way too expensive and the portion sizes were extremely small. Pad Thai should not cost 15 dollars. I hear Bangkok Thai is good but I’m just going to stay away from all Thai food in New Orleans for the foreseeable future.

I have been to Basil Leaf a total of 4 times. It’s hard to decide what I think about it, because 2 times I LOVED it, and 2 times I disliked it, and was unhappy paying that amount for something just that was just «ok». I live only 3 blocks away, so I keep giving it chance after chance because of the convienent location, but after my last visit last night, I think I am going to have to put it in my retired folder.
Now the 2 times I went and it was amazing, it was their special that night, so it’s not avalibe on a regular basis. First special was their soft shell crab that rested on top of a shrimp, veggie, noddle mix. It was mouth watering!!! Second special was similar but it was a large peice of fried redfish, ontop of the same shrimp, veggie, noddle mix, with a fantastic sauce. Now, if either of these were on their regular menu, I would make it a point to go back from time to time.
The other 2 times were during the week, so there special list was short, and did not supply the fried fish or soft shell crab. So I ended up getting something off their regular menu, the beef dish with jasmine rice the first time, and the pad thai the second time. Both were just so so, wasn’t anything special, and both are avaliable at plenty of other resturants for much cheaper prices. So in my opinion, everytime they have an asian fried dish, that’s the way to go, otherwise it’s forgettable. Maybe the way to go is to go on a weekend when their specials are prime!
Hope this helps! Good luck!

Another ‘meh’. Damn. I hate writing mediocre reviews…
I started with a veggie roll, and had a ‘Spicy Cashew’ meal, generally served with chicken– but subbed for tofu. The roll was delicious, very fresh and not too big. Usually a veggie roll is overstuffed to the point of difficult to eat, but this one was perfect– avocado, asparagus and carrot, rolled lightly in sesame seeds and drizzled with some type of unmemorable sauce.
The cashew plate was good, with mushrooms, baby corn and broccoli– all sauteed wel and tossed in a not-​so-​spicy sauce with some cashews… It was a little saddening. ‘Spicy’ on a Thai menu is usually more exciting than that… Not here. Oh well.
The service was good, and the iced Thai coffee was great… The bill was the deal breaker. $ 8 for my veggie roll. I can usually get out.the.door. at Little Tokyo (not including the bottle of wine that I take in…) for $ 8. I’m a vegetarian for christ sake– theres nothing fancy in there! I’ve never paid more than $ 4 for a veggie roll– and they’re usually 2x the size (and hence difficult to eat). Ouch. The plate? $ 14, plus an additional charge for tofu. Hm. Sub tofu instead of chicken. Not tofu AND chicken. Hm. Fair’s fair– it was printed on the the menu– but really? The portion nor quality were not NEARLY worth $ 16– let alone the cash I saved them on chicken.
All in all, I felt as though I’d been bled dry for a measly meal. The place is cute, clean, and friendly… But c’mon guys– there is too much competition for this to be acceptable.

In the nearly ten years I’ve lived in New Orleans, I’ve only been to this place twice, and the second time was due to a lack of other places being open for dinner. (Monday night seems to be a popular one for restaurants to close…)
This place isn’t awful, but it’s also not one of my favorites. Then again, I’m comparing it to Bangkok Thai in the riverbend, which remains the best Thai food I’ve ever had (for the record, I’ve only had Thai in New Orleans) and is perhaps not a fair comparison. Nevertheless, it is what it is, and Basil Leaf will likely never escape comparison to Bangkok Thai, especially since it’s in the same neighborhood.
As I mentioned, we ended up here for dinner last night because the first four places we’d planned to go were closed. It was definitely not packed in spite of being one of the few places open on Monday night. We waited longer than I would’ve liked for drinks (well, service of any kind) which was likely due to the fact that there appeared to be one waitress in the entire restaurant. If there were others, they must have been hiding, because I’m pretty sure I only saw one employee the entire time we were there.
That said, our waitress did a great job considering the number of tables she had, though it would’ve been nice if she’d gotten around to our table a little bit sooner after we were seated. I ordered the vegetarian (vegetable and tofu?) soup and pad thai with tofu, both of which were okay; nothing I’d kill myself to go back for. The soup was… interesting. Basically warm, salty broth – reminded me a little bit of ramen, in fact. (The kind you buy for 25 cents at the grocery store.) The pad thai was okay, the best part was definitely the tofu; they did a great job preparing it.
Overall, meh. Not horrible, not amazing, and a bit more expensive than it’s arguably worth. Next time, I think I’ll just pick a better night to go out.

I have to start out saying that i’ve had more than my fair share of Thai food having lived in Los Angeles for much of my life; Now, since living in Nola i’ve managed to only find dreadful Thai food here. I have been told many times to try Basil leaf, which has been described to me as good food, but, expensive. After many years, ive finally taken the leap.
Alas, there was a good reason for my hesitation. (i should have read the commentary here first)! Too expensive for the quality is really all i can say. Theres lots of cheap filler, heavy on the onion and celery. flavor was ok on one dish and so so on another. I would recommend taking your money elsewhere for a better meal… i hate to sound mean.

I am a regular consumer of their Thai Teas, however today was the first day I’ve tried their food.
There was no lunch menu and I found the menu to be kind of pricey; considering the area and the fact that their are restuarants in the area like every 2 paces.
Next thing, I ordered Eggplant Napoleon, yeah I know Eggplant from a Thai restaurant, not experiencing the Thai part of it, but anyWHO… the presentation of the food was horrible!!! The server brought me a bag where the food was already leaking down within. She noticed me looking at the waste in bottom of the bag and was still going to give it to me. I had to request that she correct the matter.
So a Thai Tea + Eggplant Napoleon (appetizer) + .35 to go charge = $ 14.09 (and this was lunch).
So will I go back, yes, for the Thai Tea, but for food… NO!!!
OOOOOH but I do need to add that the wait staff and the lady who appears to be the owner are quite pleasent!!!