Sweet Basil Thai House opened in its new location at 143 Marshall St. on Friday, putting a new face on the storefront that Cosmos Pizza and Grill had filled for years [11].
Previously located about six miles from campus in Mattydale, N.Y., Sweet Basil [12] offers Thai and Vietnamese food. The weekend’s menu included Vietnamese cuisine such as banh mi sandwiches and pho traditional soup. They also served Vietnamese coffee, which is a mix of different types of coffee served with condensed milk making for a taste like a strong latte. Most of the food is made with steak, pork and Vietnamese spices.
Tom Tran, owner of Sweet Basil, said the restaurant would gradually expand in the new location, slowly adding new menu items from the full Mattydale menu. “We are going to introduce back our Thai curries probably next weekend,” Tran said. “We will spend about three to five weeks just letting people to try out different food every weekend.”
He also wants to make sure things are going well before advertising the restaurant, he said. “Right now, we don’t do any to-go orders other than the sandwich. We want people to eat here so it’s fresh,” Tran said. “We want to serve the customers slowly since the staff are getting used to the new area.”
For now, the restaurant is open between 11 a.m. and 9 p.m. But Tran said the closing time would likely be later as they regularize the schedule.
Tran said he is confident about his Thai and Vietnamese restaurant in the new location. A lot of customers from the Mattydale location dropped by the new restaurant during opening weekend, he said. He also thought Sweet Basil would attract customers at Syracuse University since no Vietnamese restaurant exists in the diverse community.
And he’s excited to start serving new customers in the area. “We don’t know when the customers are going to come,” he said. “The only thing we can do is to open the door and prepare our best service and feel people.”
Blair Sylvester and Varuni Sinha, both graduate students in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, said they noticed the new storefront when they were walking along Marshall Street. "We would like to try something different, so we dropped by," Sinha said." I love the spice. It's delicious but not too spicy."
Bailey Normann, a television, radio and film senior, said she was looking forward to having Thai food available on Marshall Street. She liked the breakfast at Cosmos, she said, but she prefers the new tenant. “I love Thai food,” Normann said, “so I think Thai food would definitely be my first choice.”
