Busara Thai Restaurant and Lounge

The Tyson location is still the best, unless that have changed in the past two years! Service was lacking: had to hunt down Waiter, which didn’t seem happy to serve us, we were never asked how the food was, he never came back to refill water until check was given. Food sucks, seafood was rank (if no one knows what that means, it’s seafood that is not wash or clean before cooking) I had shrimp but it seem to be sitting next to some sort of fish! The smell in your mouth was to make a pregnant woman throw-​up. Should I even mention that all Indians and Blacks seem to be seated in the back of the Resturant! And I’m neither Race! It’s definitely off my list.

I’ve been to Busara for lunch about 4x and gotten takeout from here about 10x, easily. Lunch service is FAST — as in, you sit down, order, and the food comes all in under 7 minutes. Their food is well-​priced and I don’t think I’ve ever had anything I don’t like.
Generally, I tend to mix things up and not always order the same thing when I go somewhere frequently but I love their gai sapp kapow so much that I order it pretty often.
Co-​workers also love this place — and the gai sapp kapow. If you like spice, you can’t go wrong with it.

Busara is an upscale Thai restaurant in Reston Town Center. Their service was prompt and courteous, from the maitre d’ to the wait staff, even for a Saturday night in December. My water was refilled several times. I love it when I don’t have to ask.
App: Tom Yum with shrimp (shrimp soup). I have to say it was surprisingly bland and uneventful. With no extra spice on the table, I was left ho-​hum.
Entrée: Dinner special of salmon and shrimp, medium spicy, in a peanut sauce. Hearty, and excellent with a cheap side of mixed veggies. This is a well-​balanced dish that satisfies. Yummy.
Dessert: I tried fried coconut ice cream for the first time. It’s really fried ice cream. Go figure. Blue flames and all.
Nice place. A bit overpriced for the quality. I bet their lunch is priced better, though I didn’t ask.

I think this review is somehow different from my others. I don’t know how to explain. I was feeling low, but the company I had was first class. It changes everything :) The place wasn’t crowded so we could talk as loud as we wanted. The waiter, his name was UNO, was very friendly and helpful. My actual dish, the Panang tofu was flavorful but quite sweet so at the end I had to dump chili flakes all over it. The jasmine tea was also nice. I wouldn’t even call it a dinner. It was a nice experience.

This is a good restaurant in Reston town Center.
Food has always been great ! Just be careful when you order something and ask fir ‘extra spicy’
Only reason why I am not giving 5 stars is because the service is a hit or a miss and the décor (especially walls & upholstery) could sure use an upgrade !
Otherwise it’s a great restaurant with very good food !

Pretty average Thai fare. However, they give very generous portions. But like most restaurants in Reston Town Center, this one is a bit overpriced for the quality. I’d stick to a non-​chain if you want more authentic Thai food. Otherwise, ask them to make your dish extra spicy, because the food came out pretty mild.

A real deal Thai dive ran by Thailand natives and catering to the American tastes. Typical Thai drink menu Zombies, Daiquiris, Pina coloda. no fancy umbrella :-) strong drinks and decent Thai food. Connoisseurs can do better ty. Location location location in the heart of Reston if you’re in the mood for Thai. And good drink

I can only speak to their takeout and I would say that it has mostly been good. Their fried vegetable spring rolls and curry puff are always hot and flavorful. We found their pad thai to be quite unconventional versus what we’re used to (bit of fish cake throughout) but their drunken noodles were good and had the right level of heat for our palates. Overall good Thai food but not the best I’ve ever had.

Nothing too great about this place.
The service was good– Our drinks were never empty and our food came out in a reasonable amount of time. However, the food was just mediocre. It would not be my top choice if I was venturing into the town center– Big Bowl is much better and around the same price.

the food is not good. I think it’s good for people who don’t care about the quality of food, or don’t care about eating authentic Thai. My friend ordered the drunken noodles and it was very disappointing. It looks like you have to mix everything (sauces, toppings) yourself so the drunken noodles looked like drowning noodles.

I came here for a large work related dinner. We made reservations, so they had a large table prepped and ready to go for us. Since it was a large group, two of my coworkers were in charge of ordering the majority of the food. I don’t know if it’s because we had several people in attendance who didn’t speak English well, but it felt difficult to get entrees out. Appetizers didn’t seem to be an issue, though I wish they’d been clearer about what was what as they set it down on the table (I have a seafood allergy, and my coworker is vegetarian, so the two of us couldn’t just pick at whatever was plated before us).
I ordered the ginger tofu and broccoli. It was simple, but good. I wish there was a little more sauce, since I love my rice to be soupy. It made for good leftovers the next day.
The mango and sticky rice is surprisingly good.
All in all, your typical Thai restaurant. I think they did alright with a complicated group like ours.

I’ve been here many times during year stint in the area couple of years back, and decided it was time for my first Thai dinner since heading back out this way. This place has always been a solid — if not outstanding — option in the area, and frankly the options in this area are just okay… So a Pattaya Seafood & a Rama Gai later, we were fully satisfied and happily vowed to return when in the mood for Thai food.
They are more upscale and slightly pricier than your typical Thai restaurants. Being in RTC I guess that is to be expected. Décor fits the part of the area, and the views out to RTC through the large windows are quite nice. I’ve actually never had problems with their food, it’s always been good to very good. It’s always been their not-​quite-​rude but not-​quite-​nice service that’s always bothered me. Well, this evening I think it was the bartender serving us, and he was great. Probably the best service I’ve gotten in my half-​dozen visits to Busara. He was enthusiastic and attentive, and quick with the Singha.
I highly recommend the two dishes, we were being a bit adventurous and ordered a couple of items we’ve never had, but they turned out to be great choices. And beware, their spicy (they only have 3 levels — mild, medium, spicy) are those type that builds as you go. Not bad at first, but builds to a crescendo and ends up to be pretty spicy by the middle of your meal. Singha is highly recommended for those occasions.
I have no problem giving 4-​stars to this place, especially when you went in fully expecting to give a 3. We’ll see what happens next time.
Table-​for-​1 Factor: They have bar seating where you can eat on your own, and the place is never packed so I would imagine you can sit at the table alone without feeling too awkward.

My husband was apparently VERY hungry and insisted on trying this place out since we happened to be standing right in front of it. I’ve always wanted to try this place anyways because we pass it all the time when visiting Reston.
I must say service was great. We had a very attentive waiter who was constantly checking to see if we needed anything during our meal. We ordered Green Curry, Drunken Noodle and another spicy dish (can’t remember the name). The flavor of the dishes were fairly decent, however, the protein was extremely chewy almost as though it was over cooked. The chicken had a bit of a funny aftertaste.
I guess overall glad I tried it out but I can unquestionably say I will never be dining here again.

I originally came in this area to go to Bartaco, but the line was unfortunately too long for me and my friends since we were on a time crunch, so we opted out for Busara lol and it was alright.
Ambiance: Slightly above average. That’s all I have to say about that.
Service: They got a waters on a constant refill, but the food took a pretty long time to come out. They also came to our table twice with a different table’s food… such a tease :(
Food: Average… if not below. I forgot what my friends got but they said their portion was small for the price and the flavor was just okay. My sister and I got beef drunken noodle, which looked a lot different than what I’m used to eating. They didn’t cook the sauce and noodles together, so our dish came with liquidy sauce and white noodles and top. It was a bit too runny in my opinion, and I rather have the flavored infused in my noodles. That may just be me though.
I don’t know, I feel like I’ve been to a lot of better Thai places. The reason why I gave it a 2 instead of a 3 is because if I wanted Thai and this was the only one in the area, I don’t think I’d want to eat here and I’d probably just opt out for a different kind of food instead.

If you’re looking for a tasty Thai meal. Look further.
I was so excited for a delicious, spicy meal last night. Instead, what I got was a tasteless Green Curry with Vegetables and Tofu. So tasteless that I couldn’t even finish the dish last night; I just stopped eating because I was so disappointed. After having visited countless Thai restaurants in various small and large cities over the past 10 years, I can easily say this was the worst Green Curry dish I’ve ever had. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: You can truly judge a Thai restaurant based off how they do their curry dishes.
I get Green Curry with vegetables and tofu at 9 out of 10 Thai restaurant trips I make, and this was the worst. Why? I could barely see the soupy green curry the vegetables and tofu were sitting in. The Green Curry was lacking taste! That’s plain sad. It was as if no thought about cooking had been put in the dish. The only positive thing about the dish is that they seemed to use big chunks of what tasted like fresh vegetables. Allow me to warn you though: this is one of the only Green Curry dishes that I’ve ordered that does not come with the fried tofu complimentary inside it.
I was sad about the slow service at the beginning of our meal, but the food did come out rather quickly after we ordered. They filled our water glasses ALL the time without us asking. And, the vegetable spring rolls were cut and presented nicely with plenty of sauce; they were actually pretty tasty; but, then again, it’s hard to mess up a spring roll — which could’ve already been pre-​made elsewhere. For these reasons, I’ll give this place 2 stars.
The pricing at this place were total inside-​Washington, DC prices, and there wasn’t much variety on the menu at all. I thought the portions were okay sized — not huge but definitely not small at all. I just don’t think that the suburban location, lack of real ambiance, quality of the food, or anything else about the place warranted these prices. I was actually pretty shocked at the pricing and lack of variety on the menu — it definitely was a let-​down from the get-​go of the meal.
I’d say skip the trip at this place; it was a total let-​down in terms of taste.

Service and food excellent. My water gets filled without asking and their server is friendly and very knowledgable on food.
Great atmosphere

Love this place. Have tried quite a few things on the menu. My all-​time favorite has to be the Ka Pow with Beef. Pretty spicy so if you like heat, keep it the way it is. If you don’t like heat, ask for it «less spicy». Another gem is the drunken noodles. Both chicken and beef are on point.
Lastly, for dessert, a favorite of mine and my g/​f is the mango sticky rice. Sometimes they don’t have mango which is a huge bummer but when they do have it, it’s ridiculously good. I’m craving it right now as I type this out.

Overall, good experience. Service was prompt and courteous. Food was tasty: I had vegetables in green curry sauce. My husband picked something more exotic-​chicken with mangos and nuts. He was pleased. The only person who got the short end of the stick was our daughter who ordered Pad Tofu and all I saw on her plate was a couple of pieces of tofu and a huge pile of bean sprouts. That was it!
The restaurant needs a bit of an update– a face lift would do them good.

This chain location looks far nicer on the interior than the Tyson’s Location, which I normally order takeout or delivery from. This location seems larger in size, but that may not be true since the layout of the two locations are completely different.
One thing I love about Busara is that service is very efficient — perhaps too efficient. My friend and I met for dinner and ordered pad see ew and tom ka gai soup and the food came out literally five minutes later at most. The timing between us ordering the food and the arrival of the food was so quick that it was obvious it had not been made to order. I am not entirely sure how I feel about the food being either heated up or cooked in a batch, but for what it is worth, it still tasted decent. It definitely lacked a certain zesty fresh flavor, but it was not bad by any means. As long as I have my spices, too, I am a happy customer :).
For the price of the food and the great service, this place is still worth it — especially for takeout/​delivery!

I have visited Busara twice and had previously given it 4 stars. I visited again and had a bad experience. Once again, I visited for lunch on a weekday and decided to order the Pad Gai this time. I had heard about it and thought it might be interesting to try. The Pad Gai dish consists of chicken and rice noodles stir fried with egg and light garlic sauce. It was the most flavorless Thai dish I have EVER eaten! This is saying a lot, because Thai dishes are generally full of flavor (and oftentimes spicy). I wasn’t expecting spicy — just some sort of flavor… it was so flavorless that I had to douse it with hot sauce to taste anything (and then subsequently had a stomach ache). On top of that, they were not generous with the chicken OR the noodles — half the dish was the lettuce that the noodles sat on. I was so disappointed. And the service was awful. I guess they attend to groups of people but ignore individuals patrons.
After this bad experience, I doubt I would want to evwr visit again.