Ocean Avenue is in that transition phase between "Old San Francisco" and "Oh how cute" which…read morefrankly is the sweet spot. Great places like Megan's Table swing towards the latter, but until it swings all the way and they put on tablecloths and raise the prices, you love it now.
We paid our first visit today and the first thing I noticed was the nice smell of wood. It has a nice layout with an inviting bar side, but we were having an anniversary lunch and sat at a table.
Grades:
1) Tofu Fresh Roll ($14): A. This was really good, with an instant but light taste of mint. The peanut sauce was thick and excellent. We had it with tofu, as we did with all the dishes with that option.
2) Wing Zaap ($14): C+. I think that the secret SF specialty is wings and these had the distinction of a certain kind of spicy hot, but otherwise unremarkable. Lot of breading, cooked too long, and the dipping sauce was just basic sweet chili sauce.
3) Tom Kha soup ($17): A. Excellent taste, nice big mushrooms and tofu chunks, and that coconut broth is divine! Tastes best drunk straight from the bowl.
4) Pad Thai ($17): B. The acid test for any thai restaurant, it was better than many because the sweetness was just right, but oddly it was missing ingredients we often see, like green onion, limes, and peanuts.
5) Banana flavored wheat beer (Yodbeer Bearnana, $9): A. So there's craft beers in Thailand now. Yum!
The waitress was excellent, always attentive, and cleaned up spills from the soup. I also liked the house music, though I was disappointed to see it was jazz written for restaurants. I thought it was really Wes Montgomery!
Another nice touch - the very clean bathroom was dressed up for Halloween with skeletons! See pic.
