VALENCIA STREET RESTAURANT REVIEWS: OSHA THAI RESTAURANT

Mary:

I've eaten lunches at Osha before, and always enjoyed the food and the decor, especially the amount of light that enters from the wall-to-wall front windows. It gives the place a clean, crisp feeling. Someone has been overdoing the decorations (flowers and birds on the metal cut-out panels on the wall). It looks a little kitschy now, downgraded from elegant artistic.
I decided to eat off the appetizer menu. It seemed easier than trying to pick out an entree--mainly because they all sounded so good. So I had the lettuce wrap (Jesse did too, so I'll let her describe the ingredients.) The wraps were very good. The stir fried chicken and minced veggies were blended with a great-tasting sauce. The leaves of the lettuce were crisp and rounded so they were easy to fill and eat from. No juice and tidbits dripping down my fingers and arms.

The Beef Wasabi Rolls were formed around julienned carrots and celery, with mint, wrapped with sliced grilled steak on watercress with a rich wasabi sauce poured over the top. I liked them, but they didn't quite make it to perfection. Something to do with the sauce and how it didn't blend into the other ingredients. I liked the bite and flavor of the wasabi sauce, and the best part was eating the watercress at the bottom which had been sitting in the sauce. It was more pungent and hot than what remained on the meat. The sauce on the saturated cress came just shy of opening up my sinuses. Just how I like it.

Shirley:
Osha is good corporate Thai food. There are a bunch of them, so consistency is key. I always appreciate the thought and care given to please the eye in all their locations. Not sure I like the current trend in many restaurants toward hard surfaces that amplify sound, and I miss the dark grey mesh that separated the wall decor from the dining area. It created a subtle suggestion of depth that the black adorned grates lack. And the touch of whimsy of the "butt" chairs always tickles my fancy.

I enjoyed my meal a lot. It may be my southern background, but good peanut-butter makes me happy. So I chose two dishes that were "peanutty" and very satisfying.
The Osha Fresh Spring Rolls with tofu (you can get shrimp instead) had carrots, cilantro, lettuce, mint, all very fresh, and wrapped in rice noodle skins. The sweet & sour peanut dipping sauce was thick and tangy, with a tiny bit of heat.

The Beef Praram with peanut curry sauce and steamed spinach was served with rice. There were other options for meat (tofu, shrimp, pork, chicken) and options for rice (Brown Rice, Coconut Rice, Ginger Rice, Curry Rice or Sticky Rice). It's fun to mix and match. The beef was tender, the spinach sauted just right, bright green just barely wilted. A few slices of brocolli stem were thrown in there it give it some crunch. Altogether, a nice, well-balanced dish. And, of course, the peanut sauce was just what I needed.
The staff was pleasant and helpful. Some language confusion made for a slight challenge, but not enough to greatly hinder communication. Try asking a waitperson "What's in the shrimp-paste?" if you want to kill some time.
So, we are back to acknowledging Ray Crock for the concept of standardized menu and food prep. Osha is a chain, but one of the good ones. Give it a try on a medium-exciting day.

Jesse:

I love the interior here. Very restive and a bit of elegance and whimsy. An orchid flower is served with most dishes.

As usual I started by informing our waitstaff of my food allergies to see if anything I was interested in would be ok for me to eat. I was heartened by the statement at the bottom of the menu: Please advise us of any food allergies before ordering. Perfect, they are aware and knowledgable of food allergies.

They turn out to be very helpful but as Shirley hinted at, there is a language barrier here. Their first language is not English so I could not be 100% sure that my food was really void of allergens. Here's an example. I was interested in their crab fried rice which contained shrimp paste. When I asked what was in the shrimp paste, I was told it was in the crab fried rice, and around in circles we went as if we were in an Abbott and Costello skit.

So we decided on the Lettuce Wrap with Wok-fried minced chicken, red & green onion, cilantro, mint, lemongrass in sweet chili paste served with lettuce for $9.95. I asked for medium hot chili without soy sauce. It was good but had no heat at all and was pretty bland. Fish sauce and chill oil didn't even help too much.

I also ordered the Crab Fried Rice, with crab claws & shredded crab, shrimp paste, green peas, carrots, egg, onions, garlic, cilantro & green onions for $14.95. No soy sauce and medium chili. It was even more bland and unimproved by liberal doses of chili oil and fish sauce. I would not order that dish again. Too expensive for too much bland.

The interior of the bathroom is similar in tone to the main dining area. Restive and a bit elegant. I love their floor tiles made to look like river stones.