Straits Kitchen

Hungering for buffets? Want to show your friends from overseas what local cuisine tastes like? Well, look no further then Straits Kitchen. At one small(read: big) price, your friends will get to try everything they've ever wanted to try in Singaporean cuisine while enjoying a relaxed and comfortable ambiance within the confines of the Grant Hyatt.

Located on the first floor of the Grand Hyatt, Straits Kitchen is the restaurant encased in glass and partitioned with bottles, tea pots and soft lighting. Tables are of the wood variety as are the chairs in certain portions of the restaurant. The table we sat at comprised of wooden tables and chairs which look great until you realise how cramped and difficult it is to stand up and move around. Air conditioning in the restaurant is quite powerful while the music played ranges from classic malay, chinese and indian songs to suit the theme of the restaurant. An overall aesthetically pleasing presentation.

Being a buffet, counters are separated according to cuisine. There'll be separate counters for Malay food, Indian food, Chinese, Dessert and drinks. The range of items can be quite daunting and bascially, there are so many choices, your stomach will never be the same again. I'll just name the few i've come into contact with that day. These range from Laksa, Mee Soto, Fish Soup, Chicken and duck rice, Chili Crab, Mini Buddha Jump over the wall, Fried buns, Keropok, Fried carrot Cake, Prata, Prawns and Asparagus, Fried Kway Teow, Dory fish with Beancurd, Satay, Fried rice, Ayam Pengat, Rojak, Yam Paste, Durian Ice Cream and all manners of cakes and cookies to name a few. Even with an extensive list like this, i still may have missed out on quite a few items they had to offer. Needless to say, they have alot to offer.

Reviewing a buffet is never akin to reviewing actual fine dining establishments because first of all, its impossible to put much heart into food preparation when mass producing items and secondly, even if there were good items, the trouble with too much selection is that the customer might not get to try the better items. My colleagues mentioned that the food here was heavy as compared to carousal in Royal Scotts. They were right. With selections like fish soup noodles, fried rice, chicken rice, roti prata and laksa (that doesn't even finish covering the heavy items btw), its a killer to eat everything. In fact, eat 2 bowls of the above and you'll be stuffed enough to go home. The food is of a certain standard of course. The better items i had were the Mini Buddha jump over the wall which came with a scallop (boiled to death and very crumbly, no sweetness whatsoever) and a piece of abalone (which may or may not be actual abalone, i'm quite sure its either low quality or fake altogether). The broth itself should be double boiled which explains why its quite salty but overall, i'd say it was still passable. The carrot cake was pretty decent albeit being extremely oily. Pair it with some chili sauce and it'll do just fine. The prawns and asparagus were quite tasteless but the prawns themselves were big and crunchy, i'm disputing a little on the freshness because after 4 prawns, it started to feel generic and all of them strangely lacked any taste of sweetness in them. The satay was pretty good as the chicken (the only one i tried because all the other meats were quickly snapped up) was tender and the satay dip was authentic enough to be good. I had the yam paste for dessert which honestly wasn't too good. It was too sweet while the coconut milk portion too watery and lacking in taste to be even slightly decent. The best item i figured for that night? Probably the prawn crackers or the satay but thats just me.

I'd like to thank my boss again for the treat. She's really too kind and too generous. Wonderful boss i should say and i'm not even trying to flatter her. The experience was a good one although i can't say the same for the food offering but hey, its a buffet. A word of fairness is that it did not taste too bad actually, just that its not exactly grade A stuff. A good place to show overseas friends local food without braving the heat and oil of the real hawkers though. Straits kitchen is an interesting concept with decent grub. If only they could include the fresh juices as part of the buffet again to make it more attractive.