Pasadena California?
Essentially we all are our worst enemies regarding food ratings and comparisons. We travel somewhere or live in another city for a time finding some lip smacking, sock knocking, world rocking place that serves dishes that make you swoon. Then we all come 'home' and try to find a local that matches it....
In my case, the problem, to the extent it is one, is that from the time I was a little kid, as soon as I had something that was better than any other version of that I'd had, my standards were instantly raised. Where many people I know can go to a restaurant and have GREAT food and yet once home go back to living on canned soup and grilled cheese, I never could. I never accepted that restaurant food had to be the exception. And my steel trap memory insured that every good food I had was meticulously recorded for future comparisons. It's what drove me into cooking, trying to raise my mother's game and prove to her that yes we COULD make veal with marsala sauce at home. I was only 10 when that particular lightning bolt hit: we didn't have to eat gravy! I hated gravy! But marsala sauce? OOH LA LA.
So where did I have Thai food for the first time? Bangkok. Which means every Thai restaurant in town is doomed. The only Thai food I've had that was worthy of the food I hate in Thailand is Lotus of Siam in Las Vegas. But I have had some good very good Thai food, and I will keep trying. It's tough though because the sweetness that you rightly fault Basura for is typical of literally all the Asian food in the provincial Pacific Northwest (I'm letting Seattle and Vancouver off the hook), with the sole exception in my experience of the place with the dead flies in Ferndale.
Having lived smack next door to a huge Vietnamese community in Southern California and living in a town that otherwise catered to suburban chain-restaurant dwellers and surfer dudes, we were accustomed to going out for excellent Vietnamese and Chinese food often. And we missed it, so shortly after moving here, one night Bob and I went out for Chinese with the goal in mind of finding a restaurant we could at least like, if not love. A few attempts here and there had only turned up appallingly bad food. So with phone book in hand, we went to five other Chinese restaurants and ordered the same two dishes. Four were horrible, worse than the worst Chinese food I ever remember having in Southern California. Egregiously sweet, greasy, and lacking in authentic and properly prepared vegetables. One we left without ordering due to astonishing filth--sticky tables and menus that hadn't been wiped of prints in months, moths flitting about the curtains...the Health Dept closed it shortly thereafter. We gave up. This isn't just food that pales by comparison to great Chinese food I've had elsewhere, it's just way below average food that my Chinese friends would spit out.
But give me points for being charitable. I gave Basura a lot of chances--it's a beautiful, clean, white tablecloth restaurant and I so wanted it to be good. Need to try Chris' Lemongrass and another pan-Asian restaurant in town that you'd be interested in if it's any good called...oh shoot. Ah, here it is, A. W. Bistro. They say, ("we do the art of fine asian dining and vegetarian dishes"). Of course, it's one thing to say it, but a recent Dining Guide that the Herald puts out used a beautifully composed dish from that restaurant on their cover: broiled eel with tamago, fresh avocado and daikon sprouts on rice. If the real food in the restaurant actually looks like this, it's worth investigating. The menu indicates a lot of the usual suspects, but it's interesting that there are no pork dishes, lots of tofu, lots of sushi stuff, and even some seafood versions of typically-meat Chinese dishes, like Kung Pao Snapper. I'll give you a heads up when I finally get there.
, but the college nails it. Yes, that's Sehome. On 32nd.