The Palo Alto location for Straits Cafe is much better than the Santana Row location, both in food quality and atmosphere. While Santana Row is a trendy, hipster spot that is pretty much a nightclub that server dinner if you hit it up on a weekend night, the Palo Alto location is peaceful and elegant. And the food is better too.

They serve Singaporean fusion food, but there are definitely flavors from other Asian cultures as well. The dishes are meant to be eaten family style; however they are pretty small so a good group size to share one entree is probably 2-4 people.

Everything is very good here, but the only dish that was really memorable for me was the risotto. I can’t find it on the online menu, so they might not have it anymore… but it’s good. However, the one thing that prevents me from raving about it is that I’ve had it twice, and it was amazing the first time, and only ok the second time. If I go back to Straits again, I’ll order it again and see what happens then.

The other memorable dishes (which I also currently can’t find on the menu) are the tuna tartare and a coconut pudding dessert. The tuna tartare is good, but the best part of that dish are the taro chips. Now THOSE are yummy! After eating that taro chip, I went (unsuccessfully) on a mad hunt for store-bought taro chips that were as good. I didn’t think the coconut pudding would be that good, but I really enjoyed it… it’s the one that comes wrapped in a banana leaf, not the one that comes with sago (that one was just ok).

My overall impression of this restaurant is that it’s a reliable restaurant for consistently good food and an enjoyable dining experience.