University Way is absolutely packed with restaurants of all shapes and sizes. Among scores of cafes and cheap-yet-good fast food restaurants, it’s hard to stand out. Despite the competition, a small bubble tea cafe, Oasis, stands triumphant.  

Oasis does not seem notable from the outside. The entrance is barely visible, the sign on an awning is adjacent to businesses. The storefront from the outside is quite unimpressive and makes the place seem like a tiny hole in the wall.

However, you shouldn’t let Oasis’ appearance to deter you. While Oasis appears tiny from the outside, it is surprisingly spacious once you step inside, with two floors.

While I was officially at oasis in order to do the food review, I was unofficially doing a food run for the crew running Music Day.

We ordered coconut bubble tea, popcorn chicken, fried tofu and fried potstickers. My mouth was watering before I began eating. It was served on a plate with a shallow dip filled with soy sauce. On its own, the tofu was fairly bland, but the soy sauce gave it a slight salty flavor that was surprisingly appetizing. The tofu was fried perfectly, with a very thin yet crunchy exterior and a soft moist inside.

The potstickers were quite tasty, some nice filling covered over by delicious crispy fried dough and served soy sauce, making an already tasty thing great.   

Sadly the presentation was mediocre at best, a bunch of potstickers thrown onto a paper plate, (I would give them extra points on portion-for-price) with a small plastic dipping cup   full of soy sauce on the side.

Oasis’ popcorn chicken is legendary. Crispy salty dough covering bits of chicken of just the perfect size for snacking on. The crunch of the dough combined with the succulent chicken created the perfect palette of flavors. The chicken was served in a paper bag with a skewer for snacking convenience. The coconut bubble tea, while not extraordinary in its own right, complemented the scorching hot popcorn chicken with a cool, mild flavor.

Oasis was quite cozy and would have been a nice place to relax in. But somebody had a class they had to get back to. What could have been a leisurely lunch turned into a couple of guys shoving food quickly into their mouths while attempting to take artsy photos worthy of any Instagram girl’s dreams. Overall Oasis scored high on the food and interior decor (if we could have any real say on that) and great price, but sadly the presentation was lacking, making it harder to take an Instagram-worthy photo. Grade: A-

By Shawn Owens and Ian Lee