[REVIEWS] Shana Thai

This restaurant is situated right past the end of Castro Street in Mountain View. It certainly gets a star for location, and perhaps that's why my mom's coworker, a self-proclaimed Thai food fan, fell in love with it. Perhaps she was frustrated by the full parking lots on the Castro. Perhaps the din of the downtown dinner rush dizzied her, and right when she surrendered, right when she drove past the Castro in defeat, she found this haven.

Perhaps, because there must be another reason. Because the food was awful.

We were served complimentary soup upon arrival, but it tasted... split. It was spicy, to be sure, but the spiciness did not complement the soup's sour savoriness. When I sipped the soup, I tasted the hotness right on my tongue, and then - bam - the sour notes, and later, the savory. Another sip, and there it was again. HOT! - SOUR! - SAVORY!

Not a pleasant experience.

The Yelp reviews sang praises for the pumpkin curry, but I was here to find some good local Pad Thai. My mom, a habitual vegetarian, out of preference, ordered the seafood salad.

Looks can be deceiving.

The first thing I noticed upon biting into the noodles was... biting into the noodles. Ideally (for me), the noodles should be light, soft, almost melt-in-your-mouth, yet with enough firmness for the teeth to chew on. These were just firm. No fun there.

As for the beautifully curled carrot? It was too dry... maybe on purpose, to soak up the oil?

I did appreciate, however, that as I ate into the plate, the flavors came together for me, and I enjoyed the dish by the end.

But still, I'm not a fan of oily Pad Thai. I prefer mine light, not heavy.

You can see the oil glistening in the close-up here:

If you enjoy heavy dishes, then you could try out Shana Thai. Just ask them to reduce the cooking time because the entire dish seemed overcooked.

My mom's seafood salad provides a crisp, fresh contrast to the previous photo:

Unfortunately, looks deceive again.

I found the garlic to be overpowering in the dressing. That's about all I remember about the dish, actually.

Garlic.

My mom, on the other hand, found the salad to be decent, particularly with its generous helping of seafood. She noted that the flavors reminded her of Korean ones, so she liked it. Well, Korean cuisine features garlic prominently in most of its dishes, so our divergent reviews seem to center on preference, really.

So if you do order this dish, then watch out, because Korean cuisine also LOVES its peppers. My mom's mouth was burning after finishing this surprisingly spicy salad, and she wanted to order dessert - the first time that I've ever heard her request this!

While she loves spicy, garlicky foods, she despises coconut... which featured around half of the Thai dessert menu.

So, we decided to try some Thai-iced-tea-flavored ice cream.

It sounded interesting!

One was more than enough for the two of us.

The ice cream was as creamy as it looked in the picture. But it was a bit... strange.

It wasn't yummy, but I took multiple bites just to pinpoint the taste. Memories of Japantown floated back to me, and I decided that it was like peach mochi with strawberry ice cream filling, covered with extra layers of flour. If no one had told me this was supposed to taste like Thai iced tea, I would have thought it was adobe-colored vanilla ice cream for diabetics. Milky, not sweet, and somewhat chalky. There's a reason that I thought of adobe.

Am I allowed to describe ice cream as dry?

At any rate, Shana Thai's dishes were oily, spicy, and, in the end, odd.

I'd suggest tucking it into the back of your memory, to remember when you find yourself stuck and starving on the Castro. But if not for a last resort... try the other Thai places in the Bay.

Trust me.

There are more than enough.