Shana Thai — Restaurant in Mountain View

Update: recommend beef pad Kee mow over chicken or tofu pad Thai every time here. more like 3.5, only bc it's the only half decent Thai food in the area. green papaya salad has reduced in quantity, and seems like leftovers with a translucent wilted quality and inedible mushy tomatoes. have realized consistency is lacking so we reserve visits for high turnovers days like Thursdays. Chicken can have warmed over flavor, tofu an old reheated texture, food is overall too sweet, peanut sauce is bland and yellow some days, spicy and red other days. Crazy bags are well made some days and burnt and crumpled over other times.

Previous: This is a solid eat-in place for us with a convenient parking lot (shares with a Michoacán market, and some other establishments). The couple who introduced us say it's their regular to-go place. We do always see a lot of to-go orders neatly packaged. They do fried food well here, no grease puddles or rancid oil odors. Everyone loves the crazy bags, you can actually see the meat, and taste the herbs and spices. Between the deep fried spring rolls (a popular choice) and crazy bags, we would choose the crazy bags for the aromatic herb packed flavor. The green papaya salad here is excellent, no rock hard dry shrimp here, but tiny soft dry shrimp. Also, some places drown it with a bowlful of peanuts, which despite loving peanuts, I am not a fan of. They really let the fresh green papaya shine, and it's fresh, not wilted or drowned in too much liquid. If you want crispy fried with a sweet glaze, the garlic basa (caramelized sticky sweet garlic topping is a bit too much like candy for us) is a crowd pleaser. The crying tiger beef was tender with only a couple pieces with untrimmed sinew, and beef pad Kee mow were okay, but we felt the beef could be of better quality. A popular go-to dish here is fried rice, with many tables enjoying it served in a pineapple shell (we don't order rice because we like to fill up on protein). An order of fried rice seems enough for 2-4 people to share. The portions here are generous, and leftovers like pad Kee mow held up well the next day. No black edges on the lettuce, overall leafy green lettuce and iceberg lettuce has been pretty fresh. The spiralized carrots, cucumber slices, shredded purple cabbage that comes with your plate always appear dry, as if prepped and refrigerated or left out too long, wish they were fresher. Like that the beer is poured at the table in a pilsner glass (could be wrong about the name, but basically a tall, slender glass slightly wider at top). I ordered a Thai beer (Chang) and thought it went down well with the spicy sweet of Thai food. Must mention how clean their glasses are, as well as flatware. They also give you a sturdy, not flimsy napkin. The water is also clean tasting, no metallic or chlorine laden smells or tastes. Sadly, dangerously chipped drinkware, (some plates are chipped but drinkware so far, never), dirty plates and utensils, and soapy tap water happen all too often at some establishments, but never at Shana (so far). Service is excellent, servers are helpful, patient, and polite. They wear 'proper' (not stretched out cloth masks that hang off the face) masks 'properly' (not under the nose or chin). The disposable gloves they keep on at all times do bother us a tad, as it's so easy to touch all manner of things unthinkingly, but given how good they are with everything else, this certainly isn't going to stop us from...

I went here by myself recently, but I think this'd be a decent place to take a date. The area around it is hardly upscale or trendy, but the inside of this place is quite nice... and since the food takes longer to arrive than your average thai place (in my experience), you'd have more time to chat :).

Other thoughts...

OKAY BUT NOT GREAT I don't recall if they asked me how spicy I'd like my curry (I might have blurted "medium spicy," which is how I usually request curries), but my red curry dish came out a bit on the bland side.

Similarly, the flavor of my pad thai was good, but nothing to write home about.

Service was professional, but not particularly warm. I see this as sort of a neighborhood place, and so -- maybe it's just me -- but I wouldn't have minded more smiling and friendliness.

GREAT

The coconut rice was flavorful and cooked just right.

The chicken in my curry was also cooked perfectly; unlike what I've grown grudgingly used to in many Thai places, this chicken was melt-in-your-mouth tender, not stringy or rubbery.

I also loved the assortment of veggies in my curry... asparagus, cauliflower, and much more. Yum! Perfect proportions of the veggies, sauce, and chicken, too!

When I ordered pad thai with prawns, I expected the usual: 2 or 3 prawns. But I got more like 6 or 7. Yum! Only nitpick: why do NO Thai places (in my experience) ever cut the tails off the shrimp in their pad thai? Who needs the hassle when you're eating noodles?

ZOMG FRIED BANANA! I initially mistyped that as "FRIEND BANANA" and let me tell you, you could easily make friends with people by giving them this banana dessert. The three 'balls' of bananas are coated in crispy whatever + coconut and paired with a medium-sized ball of ice cream. Delicious!

Parking: no problemo at all (Shana Thai is in a small strip mall). What's nice is that this is about a 5-10 minutes walk from Castro Street, so you're close enough to the heart of town if you want to do some people watching before or after your meal at Shana Thai, but you're far enough away that you don't have to deal with the traffic and parking headaches.

I plan on going back, particularly to ask for my curries a bit spicier, and also to try the roti and a fish dish.

Oh, and in case you're curious, all of the above (red curry w/ chicken, coconut rice, pad thai, and fried banana dessert, no drinks, no tip because it was takeaway) cost $33. So with drinks and tip, I'd expect a typical couple eating here would pay around $50-$60 total. A little more expensive than I'm used to with Thai, but not awful.

UPDATE: I tried the roti. Meh. Sticking with the...

Looks upscale outside and inside but the price is not too bad. It’s easy to spot because it one of those corner restaurants. Good number of parking spots but not so easy to get during lunch hour.

The service is quick, they come to take your order and it comes right away, so that means the servers are nice but are not very chatty and they could smile a bit more. I guess they’re very focused!

They have a great selection of food in the menu. Love the different types of curry; red, yellow, green, pumpkin curry. One sauce I really love with my roti is the peanut sauce, love how it is perfectly paired with roti bread. But you can also dip it in that green curry sauce!!! Makes your mouth water don’t it! Oh so good!!! If you like fried rice I recommend the crab fried rice. It had chunks of real crab mmm, mmm, muy delicioso!

Now, if you are not a meat eater they have a few salad choices: just to name a couple they had papaya salad, lard salad and grilled eggplant salad OMG! One last tip: I’m sure you can bring your kids here but looks like this place is popular with...