Restaurant Review – Roat Osha

by Baron Von Schenk

Let me start by saying that the food was fantastic.  Roat Osha’s changes, both subtle and major, to traditional Thai cuisine really did it for me.  The green curry was especially creamy and flavorful, made with bell pepper, eggplant, carrot, bamboo, and coconut milk to give it that great texture.  But the dish that actually waltzed with my tongue was an appetizer.  If you like a little zip, or just like the flavor of sriracha, try their sriracha fried rice; it was hands down, the best fried rice I’ve had.  The Mee Kah Teeh noodles that I tried were also very good, made up primarily of red curry sautéed with rice noodles. Tasty vittles in very substantial portions for a fair price of around $10-$12 a plate.

I also have to give some props to the servers: they were all over the floor, filling water glasses and eliciting giggles from most.  It would be very hard to say that I was neglected much while dining at Roat Osha. My server, as well as the others I spoke with, seemed extremely knowledgeable of the dishes for a restaurant only a few months old. If you’re not sure what to get, but you’ve got a couple of ideas, the server is bound to have some good insight.

The décor is fairly modern(maybe a little too modern for my taste,) and being just off of Hennepin, it’s easy to get distracted by Uptown’s night life. I generally enjoy a more authentic-feeling, traditional style in a Thai restaurant, but the space is very sharp and clean overall, which works.

I only have two complaints, and neither really affected my overall experience. The first is that the only door that I know of comes from the parking lot on the north side. The problem with this is that it doesn’t seem accessible to pedestrian traffic, and it just doesn’t look as good from the street as it could.  My other grievance is with the music.  Granted, there is a bar inside that looks like it could be sportish, but the application of 80s hair bands over the modern Thai atmosphere just didn’t seem to mesh. Don’t get me wrong: I will blast Rush while driving around with the windows down in my Camaro, but it’s not what I want to hear when I’m enjoying the subtle flavors of a green curry.

The food does, however, take precedence, which is why I’m giving Roat Osha a 4 out of 5.