We made a special visit to Osh to try them on a weekend trip to Nashville about a month ago. I'd…read moresaved them in my Nashville bookmarks for some time after they received a lot of acclaim on Yelp - I believe at one time they were on a Yelp list of best restaurants in the US. We were certainly excited to try Uzbek food, as there's nowhere that serves it where we live.
The restaurant doesn't look like too much from the outside and the parking lot is a little run down. However, the inside is very updated and super clean and comfortable. There's lots of seating, what appears to be a private room in the back, and some high-tech features, like a machine that you can use to alert waitstaff if you need a refill, a to-go box, or any other kind of attention. The bathrooms were also immaculate.
Service was a little strange. I wouldn't say it was slow - every time we placed an order or had a request, our food or items were promptly brought out to us. However, the challenge came in getting the attention of our waitresses. Two ladies took care of us, alternating based on availability. One was very nice and friendly, the other a little gruff and irritable-seeming. But both were completely averse to coming in and checking on us without one of us flagging them down. Perhaps they're used to the little machines? I don't like using those because they come across as too demanding; I'd prefer to just be visited and checked in on from time to time by staff. Not so here. Despite not being very busy, our visit took a lot of time, even though the actual food service was fairly quick.
Onto the food, the most important part. We ordered a lot because I wanted to experience as many unique dishes as possible. One waitress first brought out a complimentary serving of pita and what I believe was suzma, which the menu describes as a yogurt-based cheese. This was one of the highlights of our meal, actually, as the pita was hot, fresh, and very lightly charred. The suzma went very well with it.
Then we ordered a chicken somsa and some Uzbek bread. The chicken somsa was alright; the pastry was delightfully flaky, but for me it was way too onion-forward. The Uzbek bread was another highlight. It was a temperature and textural delight - so warm and fluffy - if not a flavor bomb. It was great to polish off the remaining suzma from our complimentary treat.
For entrees, my husband wanted to try the signature osh, while I ordered chicken shashlik.
The osh was probably the better of the two but he didn't love it. It was quite greasy and the lamb was on the gamey side.
My chicken shashlik had definitely been near charcoal too long; it had an overly-charred, unpleasant chemical-y taste. The accompanying rice had so much butter or oil in it that it was greasy, too, and although that imparted more flavor into it, I felt gross after a couple of bites. Everything was cooked well, just the flavors really didn't quite come together for us on this visit.
It's hard for me to believe, given the average outstanding reviews and consistent praise this place gets, that our experience was an average one. Perhaps we just came on an off day or ordered the wrong things for our palates, since we're fairly unfamiliar with this cuisine. I would be willing to try again some day, but sadly our first visit didn't quite wow the way we'd hoped it would. I appreciate the clean and pretty environment and quickly prepared food!
