My turn! I finally went to Basil with my husband and two kids in tow. It was a very kid friendly restaurant and overall it was a good experience.
We ordered the truffle fries since so many people said it was worth it. I have to admit, the mayo was better with the fries than the ketchup and we ate it all up. It arrived earlier than everything, though, and we waited a few more minutes until the pizza, followed by the gnocchi, and the calzone (a seasonal special) arrived. I made a request for the risotto which wasn't on the menu, and the server who took my order didn't sound familiar with it, so she consulted with the menu, at which point I said "maybe you can ask someone else? I hear it's a staple here," and she asked two other servers, both of whom also seemed completely clueless as to whether the restaurant has ever served risotto there ever before. I started to get worried that this staff was new. Sadly, they said there was none. Maybe they stopped serving it in 2010? Disappointing.
My kids both loved the pizza (we went with plain - my kids are picky), as did we. The gnocchi was quite good - it was sweet in this cheese sauce, and it comes with cooked tomatoes, which offsets the sweetness with that savory.
I'm a huge fan of calzones, so instead of the risotto I planned to eat, I went with this $22 behemoth. Honestly, it was bigger than my 2 year old! It was good, but probably our least favorite - inside, it came with a spicy sauce (which I loved), spinach, some broccoli, mushrooms, and cheese. (My favorite calzone is in Sara's in Florida, and this one has yet to beat that.) My husband didn't like the stringiness of the broccoli and spinach pieces in his teeth. I noticed that part of the calzone was missing any filling - despite so much dough, the filling seemed lacking. It was also burned in certain parts, so it was hardly ideal to eat those parts. However, we finished it and still enjoyed it.
We ended up buying the lavender dusted funnel cake with basil ice cream. It was wonderful - I think that was the first time I ever had funnel cake. The basil ice cream, like others said, worked! It's a sweet basil-flavored ball of goodness. It definitely is a small portion. I would have preferred more, bearing in mind I had to share.
Service notes: We got water almost immediately after we were seated, but shortly after we got our food, the restaurant started filling up and we weren't able to get any water from anyone. We asked one of the other waitresses for water and she totally forgot about us. We didn't get our first refill until after they cleared our plates (40 minutes later?), but after that, we had no issues getting refills.
I'm still trying to find out if the servers didn't know about risotto because they were clueless, or because they really don't serve it anymore. I'd have loved to try it!
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