Date: 23 Feb 2006
Venue: Straits Kitchen, Grand Hyatt Hotel Singapore

Menu: Dinner Buffet ($38+++ Adults), Hawker Food Spread

The Experience:
So much so for the excellent interior design by the renown team at Super Potato (yup, that's the same Japanese interior designer firm that did up mezza9), Straits Kitchen practically did everything to disappoint (in the food section) less the interior, which to be honest, was quite stunning. Straits Kitchen was intended to reflect the culinary delights of our hawker walks found around Singapore. Sadly, it did little to represent our tradional flavours.

Lets take a tour around the different counters where they are distinguished by the region of cooking.

Malay/ Indonesian Food Counter
The charcol grilled satay did quite a bit to redeem this section of the kitchen except that the satay was on the sweet side. It definitely cannot be compared to the smoky burnt satay you get at hawker centres but this was not too bad. I enjoyed the fact that they made an effort to include a charcol grill for both cooking, and heating. Authentic! The rendang was tender but lacked oomph. I would have loved more flavour in the rempah. The chicken curry was a tad too watery. There was grilled stingray and prawns in sambal, which I avoided as it looked way too dry.

Chinese Stir-fry and Roast Meat Counter
Perhaps the most presentable counter, the stir-fried crab was succulent and tasty. The oyster omelet was chocked full of plump and fresh oysters but it simply lack the fragrance (wok hei) of hawker stalls. The crab meat fried rice was bland and the stir-fry vegetables were crunchy but was soaking in sauce. A clear indication of a poorly controlled cooking heat. It didn't help that when I asked whether I could get some freshly stir-fried vegetables (the sign indicated Fresh Stir Fry Vegetables), I was directed to this wok of vegetables sitting in sauce. The roast meats were delightful, not flavourful. The roast duck and steamed white chicken was plump and moist. The roast duck skin was heavenly, given its warm sheen and crispy exterior. It still lacked flavour though. The double-boiled/ steamed soup consisting of fish maw, sea cucumber and a thick chunk of scallop was a definite treat.

Indian Tandoori Counter
An excellent variety of dishes, my brother very much enjoyed the dishes at this counter, accompanied by the variety of pratha, roti and naans made available. Tandoori chicken, fish, prawns abound together with various curries although with inconsistent qualities. The fish cubes (prob bass) was dry and the prawns were extremely salty. The chicken was quite fragrant but I had to moisten it with yoghurt. I tried the paneer but it just didn't have as much flavour as I expected it to have. I definitely wasn't a fan of this counter.

Popiah/ Rojak Counter
The popiah was good standard fare with the turnips crispy and the filling generous. However, to be honest, once you make popiah at home, you're unlikely to appreciate those outside. Somehow, the ingredients just doesn't feel as luxurious. haha...As for the rojak, well, passable. It had lotsa fritters (my favourite) but it didn't wow me. Rojak to me has to taste richly of belachan and has to be of the right sweetness. The sauce has to be nicely balanced and not many places do it well. The vegetables in rojak has to complement the whole dish and not get overly masked by the caramel flavoured sauce. In this case, it did.

Dessert Counter 1 : Chendol & Ice-Kachang
To be honest, never serve chendol when you can't get it right. The ingredients in chendol are simply and yet, easy to go wrong. In this case, it was bad. I had a bowl of chendol that was practically dilute coconut water/milk simply because the coconut cream wasn't lemak at all. Add ice and all you get is coconut flavoured water. So wrong. The ice-kachang was a terrible disappointement to. Kachang, jelly and sweet corn. Good simple ingredients but poorly made. The red beans were mushy, the jelly tasteless and the sweet corn wasn't sweet. 3 of us, and we couldn't even bear to finish one bowl of each dessert. Ouch.

Dessert Counter 2: Ice-cream/ Sorbet/ Gula Melaka Sago & Kueh kueh
I have mixed views about this counter. The mango sorbet was good but we could taste the egg white used in stabilising the melting point of the sorbet. The black sesame ice-cream and coconut ice-cream is a no-no. For good coconut ice-cream, nothing beats Conrad Hotel's Oscars Cafe.

The gula melaka sago was not too bad, except that I put too much gula =) being a sweet-tooth myself. Passable. The kueh-kuehs were weird. Pineapple tarts that tasted rancid (the pineapple filling was as hard, it made a *dumph* sound when you tap it with the back of your spoon. Butter cookies that weren't buttery. Somehow, any nonya would have waved her hands in protest at their kueh-kuehs. The only redeeming factor was their Indian mitthal. That however, is an acquired taste =)

Dessert Counter 3: Fruits
By this time, you would have expected that nothing can go wrong, especially with fruits. Uh-uh. It was luxurious to have persimons and duku at the fruit counter especially since you don't really see them at buffets. Wonderful. But stay far far away from the starfruit. They were terribly sour. Somehow, better to look at then to eat.

Total bill for 3: $132.87

At that price for hawker fare, Straits Kitchen seriously needs to consider focusing on improving its food.