Sometimes you try out a new place and have to immediately post a review about it on yelp. Might be something good, might be something bad. I call it the Yelp Effect. Maybe you just want to remember that first experience; maybe you just have to let the world that you've found something that needs to be recognized-- even if you're the 400th fan.
Oasis Grill had the Yelp Effect on me. With so many new, great restaurants in Uptown, Merritt, ect, it's impossible to keep up. So when one stands out like this, I have to get it down.
I love Mediterranean/Persian food. Especially street food. So if you don't know what a shawerma or falafel is -- google is your friend. Check Wikipedia or something. Better yet, just go and try one. It's a Persian burrito to make it simple. There are a TON of places like this in the Bay Area.
So I tried a lamb shawerma sandwich, spicy. Just like burritos there are many different recipes and ratios of ingredients that make or break a sandwich. The OG shawerma consists of roast lamb off the spit (look it up), hummus, tahini sauce, and he typical vegetables -- tomatoes, cucumbers, ect.
The OG shawerma has a ratio that's high in meat, low in everything else. I'm going to try to get a little more tahini and hummus next time (maybe just on the side
), but it didn't matter in the moment. The lamb was so flavorful, moist and roasted -- that's all it really took to get me hooked. Some will definitely say its 'too greasy', ect.To me that means moist ad cooked correctly, Lamb IS fatty. If it isn't dripping a bit, it's dried out. The OG shawerma is 90% lamb. You want to plow through it like a pile of the best slow smoked barbecue platter you can think of. Except it's conveniently rolled up in lavash so you can keep your hands relatively untouched. I did hit mine with Cholula garlic hot sauce because with shawerma, the spicier the better.
The rest of the Oasis Grill offerings looked fairly typical, but based on the quality of the lamb, I'm ready to try it all. I'm sure the 'plate style' will be great, maybe even better because it comes with plenty of tasty extras. I also got a little cream covered lemon tart that was also great.
I can't wait to try the falafel, chicken shawerma, and the rest. These guys have it going on. They aren't a fancy bistro, alehouse, chophouse, 'popup restaurant' (all of which have their merits) that are slowly being overpriced from the city, This is just good old fashioned comfort food and I'm happy I don't need an iPhone app with GSP to track it down, read more