Khmer Sweet Basil

Every once in a while when I decide to buy beer from this establishment, it is ALWAYS flat, sour or skunked and not fresh! They are working to improve the appearance, but the customer service sucks and the beer is old! I have no comment on the food as I would not dare to eat it.

We had a very nice meal of prah-​hok, lok lahk, and papaya salad. For two people, this meant getting full, leaving with leftovers, and only paying $ 30. After finishing our meal, we talked to Billy for about 15 minutes. From the meal to the conversation, nothing disappointed in my first experience with Khmer food since visiting Cambodia. We left smiling, and we promised Billy we’d return.

I love this new hole-​in-​the-​wall. The quality and flavor is much better than Khmer Kitchen.

The bar host BILLY… is amazing and makes you feel at home!!! …you have to try the clams!!!

By far the best Cambodian restaurant in Philadelphia. I love the steak with the pahok sauce.

Khmer Sweet Basil is a 6 month old Cambodian and Beer take out spot (with a pretty decent beer election). A combo that would only fit in South Philly. The small amount of seating required a take out order, but the real issue was the insanely long wait for our order. We were told everything is made fresh as we waited. Most customers stopping in were looking for beer. Maybe the kitchen wasn’t ready for food seeking customers?
While the homemade beef jerky was fun to munch on, it was also dryer, more expensive, and not as drool producing as the stuff from Ratchada.
Beef salad (Pleah) came in the form of lime cooked beef and herbs, delicious, but I cut up the mint and basil to a more reasonable size.
Water spinach and pork belly was not the prettiest dish, but it had a nice oyster sauce coating. The pork belly was too fatty until I finished the pieces off in a pan at home
The prahok katieh was a favorite along with the beef salad. The ground pork and coconut milk mixture had layers and layers of flavor. I still don’t get the whole raw eggplant as crudite thing that always accompanies this dish.
Given the wait and the influx of beer seeking people of questionable hygiene, I would not say this is my favorite Cambodian spot. If I lived closer though, I could see myself calling in an order of prahok and beef salad and then grabbing a 6 pack to pair it with.

Cool friendly place with a type of food I had not tried before and also is in the back of a liquor store with a giant TV with football on it, so, good!

First of all, you guys are so awesome ! Cambodian food for delivery, I couldn’t ask for more. Great customer service. I called and asked if they can read the menu to me over the phone because I didn’t know what they had on their menu and they did without hesitation. So I ordered salaw machu youn and supposedly it was with fish and I asked if they’re able to substitute it with either chicken or shrimp and they was able too. A+ for that. Food is full of flavor. Would be returning.

I’m giving this place 5 stars based just on its food and service. Food is very authentic, fresh and flavorful. The ambiance could use a lot of TLC on the other hand. If you can get over the fact it is mostly a take out beer place and needs a fresh paint job, you’ll be rewarded with an awesome meal.

Definitely a hole in the wall, in a «hood» area, but service was great and food was Delicious!!!

I’m basing this review on one dish — so keep that in mind.
I think there’s been a wave of popularity in Khmer food lately. Khmer Kitchen really opened up the cuisine to the restaurant-​going crowd, but they definitely changed their menu to accommodate the tastes of that crowd. Hell, every little hole in the wall we find seems to adjust their menu for the crowds — Los Gallos for instance is completely different from what it used to be: A little kitchen in the back of a Mexican grocery store cooking up tacos al pastor from a vertical spit with a thicker yellow-​ish colored salsa. If you’re reading this, Los Gallos, bring back that salsa. It was delicious. But all of that is neither here nor there. I’m giving Khmer Sweet Basil five stars because I ordered the chicken stir fried with kreung, chiles, and celery and it was better than the same dish I’ve had at I Heart Cambodia and I think better than the same dish when I had it at Khmer Kitchen.
The restaurant itself (if you can call it that) reminds me of the early Los Gallos in that it’s just a room in the back of what used to be a beer store. It looks like the family doesn’t really want to give up the assured income from selling booze; they still sell six packs of beer at the front of the store. Hell, if not for the new sign on the north side of Moore street, there’d be no way to tell there was a restaurant on the premise at all. That said, I gather that this restaurant is a family business. Dad seems to handle the business side of things, daughter works as a server, Mom is in the kitchen cooking up a storm. I think family owned restaurants like this tend to have a lot of personality and the people behind them seem to have a certain pride and passion about their food. The stir fry I had was different from other Khmer restaurants in that it had a lot a certain herb that was a little numbing but kind of mint-​like? I think it might have been mreah — bitter melon leaves, or perhaps rice paddy herb. It completely made the dish and worked with the kreung to provide a unique flavor for what would otherwise be a mundane stir fry of peppers and chicken.
I would strongly recommend trying out Khmer Sweet Basil before it changes too much. These hidden gems always open up like this and end up doing well, but then they close for renovations to make them more accessible and maybe Mom decides that she doesn’t need to do the cooking anymore because the restaurant makes enough money for her to retire.

They made the foods very very delicious, I couldn’t ask for more :) everyone is friendly as well … Come check them out you won’t disappointed