The image of a fish is a welcoming touch at OShan Island, but diners also are well advised to check out the Hainan chicken at the San Gabriel restaurant. Hainan, by the way, is an island off the southern coast of China. (Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times)
A serving of seafood curry at OShan Island. A food writer in The Times says the restaurant’s curry base is rendered in the Singapore-Malay style -- that is, spiked with a blast of cumin-chile curry powder and mellowed with a bit of coconut milk. (Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times)
Here’s OShan Island’s Hainan beef dry noodle dish. The restaurant’s menu -- Singapore-style curries, plates of Hong Kong-style spaghetti and steamy bowls of rice noodles -- mirrors what’s going on in Hainan’s kitchens today. (Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times)
Mei Li’s curry-making skills put OShan Island on food writer Linda Burum’s must-return list. (Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times)
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The restaurant’s Hainan chicken -- free-range birds are poached to a gentle tenderness -- surely belongs on the passionately debated list of contenders for the city’s best, writer Linda Burum says. (Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times)
Rarely is Hainan chicken done as well, or as traditionally, as at OShan Island, Linda Burum asserts. (Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times)
