Do you live in a big city? Or near one? If you don't, here's what it's like to live in a big city.

Let's say you have two major roads. Lake St. and Hennepin Avenue. The area around where they meet is called Uptown. A few blocks east of Hennepin, on Lake St., is a Thai restaurant, Tum Rup Thai. Opened a couple of years ago in a space that for a short time held a Wild Noodles.

Fast forward to early this year, and the same company that runs Tum Rup Thai decides to open another Thai restaurnt. Another Thai restaurant in Uptown. And they put this Thai restaurant... a few blocks north of Lake St. on Hennepin. Two mid-to-high-end Thai restaurants, within eight blocks of each other, owned by the same company, and both seemingly successful. That's what it's like living in a big city. We can get away with stuff like that.

I've never made it to Tum Rup Thai, but thanks to Liz's brother being in town and wanting Thai food, I got to have a very nice meal at Roat Osha. It's an odd, cubical building on the site of the old Uptown Sawatdee. The inside was nice enough - light walls, dark wood, lots of fifteen year old Top 40 music playing on the speakrs, and no Wi-Fi to be found in or nearby. The service was typical Uptown, which if you live here, you know what I mean, and if you don't live here, you don't really care. But it means young, either way overeager or way undereager (over in this case), and with sexual preference stats way out of line with traditional Kinsey numbers.

I ended up with the Mango Salmon, which turned out to be a very nicely grilled piece of standard restaurant salmon, served atop a mix of vegetables (bell pepper, asparagus, zucchini), chunks of mango, and a lemongrass-infused spicy brown sauce. I thought it was delicious. Not too heavy, a nice cumulative burn, and lots of fresh, bright flavors from the mango, herbs, and humongous lime quarter they provided for squeezing.

I also tasted Cathy's tom yum soup, which was presented in a somewhat over-the-top metal pyramid/donut-trough construction and kept warm with Sterno. It had all the flavors I expect from, and love in, soups from this part of the world - spicy and bright and herby.

It's a standard Minneapolis Thai restaurant, which means the dishes are prepared on a one to five spice scale, and additional condiments are provided for people who want to up their capseicin content further. One very surprising hole in the menu overall, though. Only two of the appetizers were suitable for vegetarians. One is the ubiquitous cream cheese wonton, which fifteen years in the Midwest have downgraded from a Crime Against Humanity to an occasional guilty craving. The other are cold spring rolls that can be ordered sans meat, leaving you with a spring roll wrapper filled with cold noodles, lettuce, mint, and cilantro. You can imagine how exciting a flavor that wasn't. I mean, they weren't inedible, but if you don't eat meat, skip straight to the entrees.

Expect to spend $15-$20 a head before the tip, more if you drink. Would I go back? Definitely. Would it be the first place I think of next time I'm in the mood for Thai food? Mmmmmmaybe. It's close enough and convenient enough (it has a parking lot, for example, a bit of an Uptown rarity), but I'm drawn to go back about as much as I'm drawn to try out the hundreds of restaurants here I've never been to, so we'll see.