We’ve been waiting for the opening of the Houston outpost of the California restaurant, Straits, for a while so we were exited to be going there. It’s located at the bottom of a hotel in front of a grassy courtyard, so good location and nice frontage.

The restaurant has a nice concept. It is part lounge, part bar, and then a modern dining room. All seating is modern and very classy. The kitchen is stainless steel, including the back splashes so it feels very clean. Most south east Asian restaurants in Houston are dives or smaller so Straits will immediately seem different. You would not know this is Singapore/Malaysian restaurant from the outside or inside decoration i.e. there’s not mask, teak wood, or kites hanging from the walls. Sitting in the dining already you can hear the DJ inspired music from the bar but the dining area continues to feel as a part of the larger space.

I don’t typically gripe about the next thing that I have to gripe about, so I will keep it short… Please loose the the dancers (or dancer outfits); it’s not necessary to make the place cool, it cheapens the experience and clashes with the “family style dining” – this is not Patpong.

We started with the lollipop chicken, which are frenched drummettes, fried, and covered in a dark caramelized soy based sauce. We liked the spice level, but thought the heavy sugar application of the sauce was a little bit too much. Once you started biting in, a rude taste of cayenne came at the same time. This dish looks beautiful, but I would not order it again.

For our mains, we ordered the rendang tamales and the Singapore chili crab. You can actually order this dish with lobster or crab. I was surprised that it was a fixed price. Usually crab or lobster is market priced. The crab was smaller than I expected but the taste was wonderful. Very well balanced spicy, with sweetness coming from the peppers, and a crab broth. I love thi dish, but at $38, arghhh.. I’ll have to think about it. The rendang tamales we actually a corn husk topped with cream maid polenta infused with keffir limes, then short rib rendang on top. I’ve been rendang for years, but never had it non-spicy. The short ribs are a good introduction for anyone new to rendang. They had all the taste of rendang without being spicy. At home I usually use boneless short rib to make rendang, so the taste was very familiar. I would have liked the dish better with some kind of sauce. Rendang does not always have a sauce, but this dry rendang on top of polenta really needs one to liaise it. A fried or grilled polenta would have been much better. Since the timing on the food is still coming together, a sauce will help to keep the dish tasty after it has cooled too much.

Rendang Tamales

The dessert has a few stand-outs, we opted for the coconut tres leches. It was nice, but needs more height and more coconut flavour – maybe roasted shredded coconut in the cake. I was surprised not to see iced kankang or a coconut pudding or jelly dessert. With all the keffir lime on the menu, maybe keffir lime pie or keffir lime ice cream. 

Our waitress was attentive and quick, but still learning the restaurant. Her friendliness more than made up for any mistakes. The waitstaff in general was helpful and professional. This restaurant is suffering from what most suffer from a week or 2 into opening… Kitchen timing, unfamiliarity with the menu, running out of ingredients, staff who has not yet tasted enough of the items on the menu. All of these can be worked out; we’ll be back in a month or 2 as we do expect improvements, but we will be recommending this place to friends. All in all, we had a great time and I think this one is a keeper – just drop the Patpong decor.

Straits

www.straitsrestaurants.com

800 West Sam Houston Pkwy N
Houston, TX 77024