Basil Pasta Bar

Good fresh pasta! Huge portions. I had a pesto one and it was tasty. I would come back more if I could eat endless amounts of pasta…

I really wanted to like this place. It was within walking distance from where I was staying in Yaletown, so I made it my personal mission to dine at Basil one evening. I went in on a Sunday around 3 p.m., and the restaurant was quiet with only one other table occupied.
I ordered the chicken curry fettuccine with high hopes, but the dish was bland. There was just a tiny hint of curry flavor, nothing what one would expect from a curry-​flavored dish. There were maybe three or four pieces of chicken, a handful of red pepper slivers, and a few peas. I was completely disappointed in my selection.
The service was not great either. I received a simple «hello» upon arrival, but both employees lacked excitement while answering questions pertaining the the menu.

From the first time i stepped into the restaurant and had my first meal i was hooked !! the vibe was great, customer service was amazing and the food … wow the food was the more then I’ve expected it to be.
In the beginning i though heres another fast food, low priced restaurant so i didn’t have any hopes and though it would be another fast «on the go» meal BUT it turned into a big surprise and a bit of an addiction :) .
Ever since then I’ve been eating there and ordering from them on a regular basis and never got disappointed! their service in the restaurant is more then great and their deliveries are always on time and just as enjoyable!
I guess when you hear about all the stories (in movies or magazines) about this small place with amazing food BASIL is the living proof and i would even call it a «Small GEM in downtown vancouver dinning experience» that you must try if you live here or just visiting.

Great tasty food made just how you want it, and incredible value. Eat here all the time!

Awesome comfort food pasta dishes. Not for connoisseurs of fine Italian food, but wholesome and filling pasta dishes full to the brim with tasty ingredients.
I highly recommend the build your own. For the dizzying price of just $ 7.95 you can build a pasta dish with as many veggie and meat toppings as you like. It’s like a savoury candy store.
If your ordering online, one note of caution, the wait time it gives is very conservative. Ignore it, and head for pick-​up about 15 minutes after you order.
The only complaint, if I was really nitpicking, would be the amount of olive oil used. Scaling that back a bit would be a good idea.

I placed an order with Lazymeal and specified that I wanted to pick up from the Kitsilano location, but it went to the Downtown location instead because the former turned out to be closed. When I called the Downtown location to explain the situation to the woman who answered the phone, she had to give it to another employee because she said she couldn’t understand me and laughed about how my English wasn’t «so good.» What the hell, lady, my English is FINE. I was calling while outdoors, so it might’ve been a little loud, but you should’ve been able to understand me just fine without ridiculing me to your colleagues in the process. Overall, their food might be fine, but I wouldn’t know because I never got any pasta. I wouldn’t want to eat at establishments supporting racist and xenophobic ideals anyway.

I LOVE the idea of this place. Its like a salad bar/​chipotle of pasta.
The vegan options are decent, I wish they at least had a vegan red sauce though. They were extremely accepting of vegan requests and questions and were super helpful.
The pasta came out pretty quick and was so beautiful and delicious! I love that you can get endless toppings.
The best part about this was the prices! I could not believe it. We have found things to be overall more expensive than the states, but this place was even cheap for us! I wish we had this back home!

They no longer partner with JustEat and will not accept the 25% off coupons (even though they are still listed as a participant right on the coupon!)
Came here because of the reviews but realized quickly that it was only because of the value and portions. The quality of pasta is what you pay for — packaged pasta and cheap ingredients. We were really disappointed to learn that a place with «pasta» in their name doesn’t serve up fresh pasta. I guess it makes sense or else they wouldn’t be able to afford to do what they’ve been doing.
Our salmon fettucine was undercooked and wasn’t very generous on the salmon pieces. We also found it quite dry and not enough sauce.
The spaghetti carbonara was also dry and lacking sauce. The smoked bacon was tasty. The dish was supposed to include an egg yolk but I didn’t see or taste any resemblance of egg. The peas were from frozen and were all shriveled up and seemed quite old.
Young friendly staff, but I’d rather pay a bit more to get some decent fresh pasta somewhere else.

Pros: This place is pretty darn cheap. Their garlic bread is also excellent. Service is fast and easy.
Cons: I got the gnocchi with some kind of bolognese (meat sauce). The sauce was too tomatoey, the gnocchi were too al dente. The place inside feels kind of haphazard, and there’s not much ambience to it.
Summary: An OK place for a quick lunch or takeaway, but I wouldn’t write home to mia mama about it.

As someone who would never go downtown to sit down and eat, this place is refreshingly earnest, cheap, and tasty. There’s not a lot of concern about organic, free range, or any other up-​selling adjectives on their menu. They simply make pasta in many varieties, including vegetarian, pesto based, tomato based, etc.
A sit down meal is about $ 10 after tip. There’s lot to choose from. I just had the pesto chicken fettuccine and it was amazing. Thanks for helping me out with this one, Unilocal.
I would suggest this place for any East Vancouverite who’s afraid of Yaletown, and anyone who shrugs at the aforementioned up-​selling adjectives when describing their food.

I first saw this reviewed on the front page of Unilocal on May 18^th book marked for future reference. Actually what sold me on this place was that someone posted soup for $ 2.
I appreciate their slogan… affordable meets tasty.
This place is a constructive hole in the wall that is a cheap fast joint.
They weren’t kidding when they meant home of the $ 7.95 pasta.
The pasta was okay. I can make similar at home but it was all about the cheap.
Customer service was cold, however, can’t complain for $ 8.
I came 3 minutes early to wait for my party and the lady at the till kept staring at me as if my short wait was inconvenient for them even though the place was empty as everyone was still at home sleeping off their hang over.
I got the build your own special. They do have Gluten free pasta for an extra $ 2 which is reasonable.
Portions are very large. Service was very fast.
The salmon was a bit too salty that it threw all the other flavour profiles out of balance.

Good value.
Food is good but not mind-​blowing. Probably the best you’re gonna get from non-​fresh pasta.
Fresh ingredients and really friendly service.
Throughout the day the tables and the place is a mess though. In the evening it’s kind of like any other dirty fast food resto on the Granville strip.
Staff are excellent and friendly but I don’t think they have enough staff on hand to keep the tables and floors clean.
I think management needs to shell out a little more for a staff person to bus the tables more often.
I’ll try the kits location and hope it’s better.

This place has cheap pasta and the best part is they deliver! I love that places in downtown Vancouver deliver food.
Of course don’t expect authentic Italian pasta but the portions are good and I liked the food. The prices are reasonable and you can create your own pasta. Being the picky person I am, I love places with create your own pasta.
I haven’t actually been to their location. It was almost 9pm at night and I needed carbs before SeaWheeze 2015 (I know I know I was so last minute). I found this place on Unilocal and saw that they deliver! Their menu was online and they had a good selection of items on the menu. The best part was items start around $ 7.95 and most items were under $ 10!
You choose your pasta, sauce, port twin, veggies and extras. I chose fusilli with marinara and meat sauce. I added some veggies too. It was pretty filling and the ratios of meat and veggies and pasta was good.
Next time I’ll have to go this place and try it in person. I read some of the reviews and it sounds like it’s a small place and most people didn’t like the actual place but they did like the food… so maybe I’ll just have it delivered again.

Hands-​down my favorite cheap-​eats pasta!
The good: pasta is cooked well, the sauce is delicious, good proportion of meat, cheese and pasta with very reasonable price. My favorite is their spaghetti and meatball, such a simple and delicious dish.
The bad: such a long wait for either take-​out or dine-​in, especially during dinner time. They really should add another credit card machine or maybe a separate take-​out line. I meant, there is a reason why you called ahead to order take-​out, you don’t want to wait another 15 – 30 minutes just to pay for your food.
But, food is all what matters to me, so 4 stars for this place.

Came here Sunday for dinner. I was super excited for some delicious pasta!
I got the «create your own». I chose linguini noodles, with rose sauce, mushrooms, garlic, spinach, basil, meatballs, chorizo sausage and parmesan! It was super good The best part about is you can add whatever you want to your pasta and the price doesn’t change (not including meats). Pasta can be super pricey but Basil really keeps the pricing fair! For 2 CYO, 2 sodas, 1 garlic bread, 1 cheesy garlic bread and a beer I believe we paid around $ 30. Super fair and the portions are HUGE!
My only «complaint» is that the place isn’t very clean. Initially it was a bit of a turn off but I gave the food a chance, thankfully :)

We came here with high hopes of a flavourful filling dinner. I should have trusted my gut and turned around when I walked in.
First thing I noticed was the dirt. Look at the floors, walls, tables. This place is in serious need of a deep clean. Not just some half engaged temporary workers running a dirty dish cloth across the tables.
I ordered bow tie pasta, rose, chicken, some veggies and parmesan. The one highlight was the pasta. It was perfectly cooked. The rose sauce, which can be a great combination of rich tomato sauce and flavourful Alfredo sauce, was more like cream of tomato soup mixed with water. My vegetables were RAW. Not slightly sautéed, but absolutely raw. Oh and there was a piece of rotten red pepper. At first I thought it was a piece of pepper that hadn’t ripened, but when I touched it, it was definetly slimy.
I also ordered a Caesar salad. It was larger than I expected, and the capers were a nice touch. But the tiny croutons and wilted romaine didn’t make the cut.
I get that is a tough business. I work in the field. But when a restaurant cares so little for its customers that it doesn’t clean and serves rotten food on chipped dishes (which is a health code violation — all 6 dishes that we were given were chipped) is days are numbered.
They are in a cut throat business, serving horrible food at unsustainably low prices.

I heard about this place from the person sitting next to me on the airplane and thought I’d check it out. So yesterday and my friend and I did! She had the spaghetti carbonara and I had Mediterranean pesto with the gluten free penne pasta. The nice thing about this place is there are about a dozen «pre made» dishes or you can «build your own». The prices are one of the cheapest here in Vancouver starting at $ 7.95. You can either eat it there or take away. My friend and I both enjoyed our food and would recommend this place.

If you aren’t looking, you’ll pass right by this place. Once you walk in, there’s graffiti on the walls and nice people working behind the counter. Once I walked up, I placed my order for the Chef’s special that day which was coconut cream ravioli and I made it a meal with garlic bread & a drink for $ 11 Canadian. Once my name was called I went & picked up my order, silverware is over to the left. The tables are a bit cramped, but we managed to find a table for 2. My dinner was amazing & so tasty; coconut cream, chicken, peas, basil and asparagus and also the drinks are located in the little fridge by the door. The garlic bread was delicious, the entire meal was good and I’d recommend if you’re in the area.

I tried Basil Pasta Bar for the first time today– best pasta I have had in a while. Definitely the best i’ve had in Vancouver. I was with 4 other people and they all agreed with me! We each got something different and everyone was raving about how delicious their meal was!
I still can’t get over the prices. It doesn’t matter how many items you get, the price remains the same! You can go to a fancy Italian restaurant, spend $ 30+ and maybe get a good pasta or you can go to Basil and get a $ 10 orgasm in your mouth!!! I created my own dish: penne with creamy pesto, chicken, bacon, red peppers, mushrooms, spinach, basil and parm. oh my!!!
Best part is the portions are huge so you definitely will be full. I couldn’t finish so I took my meal home– it was still tasty a few hours later.
Also, I watched the owner as he trained a new staff member, it is very obvious that he wants to provide great service. He is also very detail orientated, down to the way he taught his staff member to tie the bags.
I told the owner I would be back tomorrow and I was not lying, I cannot wait!!!

Tried this place as I was in the neighbourhood and the prices seemed great. Ordered the minestrone soup, pesto shrimp linguine, and the four cheese ravioli to share between myself and the gf. Not sure why they didn’t serve the soup first and chose to serve all 3 dishes at once so my food got a little colder than necessary as I finished my soup. Doesn’t help that the pasta itself was not particularly hot, this was actually to my liking however but it might be a concern if you’re getting it to go.
I felt the pasta was cooked perfectly though and quite al dente. I thought the pesto shrimp linguine needed a dash of salt which was an easy fix. Portions are great and the service was friendly. Look forward to trying more dishes here!