Basil Thai, Soma, San Francisco, CA

Uniqueness counts quite a bit in my scoring.

plamuk tod
8
Thai fried calamari served with sweet & spicy chili sauce

8 Batter
Ordinary looking. But not ordinary tasting. It had a subtle hint of sweetness in the batter. I thought cheese was different (see Pasta Cuisine's review), but sweet? I guess that's the Thai. The only detraction was that the batter was ordinary looking, and there wasn't any hint of spice in it. However, that touch of sugar was a spectacular surprise.

9 Accoutrements
J'aime le cilantro!

I love fried lemon too, which you can spy if you try hard enough in the lower left quadrant of the image. The julienned carrots gave a nice splash of color.

8 Squid
Not chewy. Not fishy. Good texture.

8 Sauce
Would've been a 7, but for the fact that it is comprised of legendary Sriracha sauce. I love all things asian (except for Pol Pot, Viet Cong, Madame Mao and her Gang, and early 20th century Japanese soldiers). It also was a consolation sauce making up for the lack of spice in the batter.

Overall

8.25 - .20 for scant tentacles and scant quantity overall

8.05