marvin lowe photography

Straits Restaurant is a critically aclaimed Singaporean Restaurant based in the States. They serve Singaporean and South East Asian Food. It operates mainly in the West Coast Bay areas of San Jose and San Francisco. The owner and Exectutive Chef, Chris Yeo, is Singaporean and was a graduate of SHATEC. After leaving SHATEC, Chris went into Hair Styling for a couple of years before making the transition back into cooking when he opened the Straits Cafe in San Francisco. He has since gone on to open a few other branches in the Bay Area.

During my last visit to San Francisco, we dropped by the Straits Restaurant. Having been on a long road trip already and being denied any form of decent Asian Food in Florida, this visit was like a breath of fresh air. We settled comfortably into the chic stylish restaurant and found familar dishes on the menu.

Popiah

Popiah here is served in a very artistic manner. Quartered and arranged neatly on a sleek plate, dark sweet sauce and chilli sauce lines the plate. The Popiah here is light in taste, but it lacks the punch of the flavour of freshly chopped garlic, which might have been removed to suit the local palate.

Satay

The Satay here were huge and juicy. It was nicely grilled but lacked the smokey charcoal flavour we get back at home. The gravy given was again rather light, probably moderated to suit the locals as well. The gravy isn’t as thick as the one we get back home and being placed on flat plate, it wasn’t as easy to get the gravy to stay on the satay.

Sayur Lodeh

Sayur Lodeh is some kind of a Curry Vegetable dish. As you can see from above, the dish looks pretty dry. There isn’t as much curry gravy as I would expect in a Sayur Lodeh. Nonetheless, the curry used was still lemak(rich) and flavourful enough for me.

Origami Seabass

Origami Seabass is really a fancy name for Paper Wrapped Fish.The Seabass was baked in parchment with ginger, longan, shiitake mushrooms and rice wine. The fish used was fresh and the stock it was baked in enhanced the fish with hints of sweetness.

Potong Kari Ayam

Potong Kari Ayam is our classic Curry Chicken with Potatoes. The Curry was rich with flavours, the potatoes were sweet and the chicken was tender. This really brought a taste of home back to us. This rendition of Curry Chicken is not too spicy, has a rich lemak flavour and is slightly sweet. It went perfectly well with white rice.

Tamarind Beef

The beef was tender and the sauce had a pepperish taste to it. It had a very Thai feel to it.

Banana Crepe with Ice-cream

The desserts were a little dissapointing. I expected to see variation of classic Singapore desserts like Ice-Kachang or Chendol but there was none. Instead they had a Banana Crepe with a scoop of Vanilla Ice Cream. The only thing tropical about this dish would be the Banana. It came across as an average dessert, nothing spectacular about this.

Dessert Platter

This dessert platter consisted of a brownie like cake with a cream filling, a Pistachio Parfait and some Chocolate Tart with a scoop of ice-cream. Again, nothing to scream or shout about. The dessert section was probably a little dissapointing. I had hoped to see more than the usual western desserts.

Overall, Straits Restaurant is one of the place to go to if you miss Singapore and you stay in the Bay Area. The quality of food here is excellent although they have made changes to adapt to the local context. One thing I am pleased to note is that they try their best to mantain the authenticity of the dishes. You will not find Singapore Noodles, Chop Suey, Chow Mien or any Fortune Cookies here. It is really heartening to see Singaporeans bringing Singapore’s food and culture to this part of the world and do so well.

Straits Restaurant