The first thing that would come across your mind as you stand outside this restaurant is "wah...."
I was at Straits Kitchen recently last week for Tricia’s surprise birthday party (although it didn't turn out so much of a surprise thanks to *cough cough* haha) but I have to say I was equally surprised by bea-u-ti-ful exterior. I was talking to Jasmine on the phone while outside the toilet (whose hand dryer makes an awful pile driver like sound when in use) when I met Karen and since the VIP hadn't arrived yet, we went into the restaurant first. Time to sample the goods!
As the name implies, Straits Kitchen serves mainly local fare and Chinese cuisine (not for former and current ACS boys and MGS girls, sorry kids). Staying true to authentic Singapore food culture, Straits Kitchen is set in a hawker centre like layout, with individual “stores” serving a different kind of local cuisine.
My first stop was what I called the
zi2 cha4 counter where they had my favourite... CHILLI CRABS! They came with these mini
man4 tou2 and extremely well tasty fried rice and
char kwey tiao. The crabs were ok but the fried rice when mixed with the
chay kwey tiao and eaten together is just completely mouthwatering.
Next was the chicken rice counter that served roast duck, roast chicken, and steamed chicken (your coffee shop "white chicken"
bai2 ji1 and
shao1 ji1). Now this is the true DIE DIE MUST TRY, their
chicken rice RICE. No kids this is not your regular white rice your mommy takes out of the rice cooker. This rice is cooked with the same chicken stock that is boiled with the chicken to give the rice that extra fragrance. Sadly to say, most chicken rice stalls do not put so much effort into the rice they serve nowadays. Anyway their steamed chicken is another must try, though their roasted duck is a little of a let down.
Now the flip side. My fellow cheapskates and me were excited when we heard they were serving mini buddha-jump-over-the-wall-s. Well daft and slow-on-the-uptake me, having never tasted buddha-jump-over-the-wall before was of course extremely enraptured over the prospect of having all-you-can-eat
sui generis sounding Chinese delicacies (pardon me before then I had the impression that buddha-jump-over-the-wall was a Chinese pudding of sorts, haha. It's a SOUP my fellow naive friends). However when the dish came we were sadly disappointed. I don't have to be an aficionado of Chinese cuisine to know that it was horribly diluted and over boiled; lacking any distinct taste I was hoping for. Sigh so much for my first step to sophistication, HAHA. I didn't get to try much of the North Indian cuisine that they had there, but I managed to sample a bit of their
orh jian and
otah, both of which was also a bit of a let down.
Now time for dessert! My favourite part of every meal, haha. They had these mini
orh nee (or yam paste to our
jiak gang tang friends,) served in small bite size (er drink size more accurately? haha) dishes (coconut milk optional) that satisfies enough of your yearning and leaving you enough stomach space to try the rest of their sweet delicacies. Another thumbs up was their
goreng pisang (fried bananas in batter). Sweet and crispy. Tricia swore their pineapple tarts were fantastic the last time she was here but commented since then the standard has dropped (I agree, the pastry was flakey and tasted like they added too much butter). And ice cream! They had quite a limited selection, but hey, who's complaining. Sorry no chocolate strawberry vanilla here, we're going local baby! They had durian, pistachio and lychee ice-cream and mango sorbet. Of course I went old school and had pistachio wrapped in
lor ti (bread duh, forgive my horrible attempts at Romanizing hokkien names for food), and not any ordinary
lor ti, but
fa bao! The pink and green coloured "cake bread" as some people call it, the same one that ice cream men used to wrap ice cream with. Their
kueh lapis was a tad little dry, but still appetising.
And of course now back to the interior of the restaurant that I was talking about earlier in the post. The place has such a wonderful ambience that it makes you feel like the
crème de la crème of high society just sitting in it. Service was excellent and needless to say, we had an unforgettable time there (and at the same time being able to indulge in my
de haut en bas fantasies, HAHA just kidding.)
"Wah, isn't it like a more expensive and high class hawker centre?" said the wise Jasmine. Yes, it is.
The queues are usually outrageously long during dinner time but thanks to the ever so wise laoda we were there around 5pm so we were ahead of the dinner crowd. Since it's not exactly a restaurant per se, the whole place is pretty informal and sadly, quite hot cause they don't have air conditioning. But I laoda mentioned they just renovated so it's possible they installed air cons by now.
You order and pay at the counter first before heading to your seats. Their steaks are relatively cheap, my sirloin steak costing about $9 only while the chicken dishes (which are quite good as well) cost about $6. The rib eye steak costs about $14. All main dishes come with 2 side dishes as well! Something like kenny rogers, they have baked potato, pasta salad, potato salad, wedges etc. My only complain is that their plain water costs 30 cents a glass! It's not like per pitcher or something it's per glass! It's weird enough that we had to pay for water in the first place. Well at least there's no service charge.
