Give it to me Straits

Rating: A fun resto-lounge for a decent meal and drinks. Skip the oysters.

I love family-style dining: ie. share plates for everyone!  This comes from the Asian side of me – but it also means that I get to try more food and what can be any better than that? Wherever I go, even if it’s the type of place where you order your own entrée, I still prefer to share and split meals with whoever I’m with if they’re up for it (and even when they’re not, as my boyfriend would know. I think he’s getting used to this now and has finally just given in).

Last night, I tried another new place after I had gotten my fill from shopping.  So, I wandered over to Santana Row which is kind of like two streets of shopping and restaurants (the Yaletown of San Jose?). There, I met up with a co-worker and we wandered up and down the row to try to pick our fuel for the evening. We wandered past a couple Italian places, some really Americanized looking Japanese restaurants, and quite a few other options before we walked all the way back to the first place we stumbled upon: Straits Restaurant – Santana Row.

It was really busy when we walked in around 9 pm, and there was a DJ playing some fairly loud music in the corner. Apparently there are quite a few hockey fans down here as well, since there was a huge crowd in front of the big screen tv behind the bar, watching the Sharks play. The ambience was great – kind of a resto-lounge feel with a lot of lively people, and it was all decorated in time for Hallowe’en.

We started off with a half-dozen oysters – big mistake!  Remind me to not do that again when I’m outside of Vancouver unless it’s in a world-reknowned place for these types of mollusks. A couple of them tasted kind of milky to the point where we were joking around and hoping that we wouldn’t be stuck in the bathroom for the rest of the night.  We also tried the Murtabak, which is basically roti stuffed with some spiced meat and a curry flavoured dipping sauce.  This one was actually pretty salty, and I almost wonder if they accidentally spilled a bit too much of the spice in while cooking. The best of the small plates was the Vietnamese Beef Carpaccio. I loved the flavour of the dressing on the veggies on this – it tasted very fresh and was so delicious! There was a bit of cilantro, some mint, capers (I love their little salty-goodness) and the flavour combination left me wanting more.

Now on to the larger plates: the Origami Seabass was the overall winner here.  I loved the texture and could be biased (this is one of my top favourite types of fish behind sablefish). There were longans (kind of like a mini-lychee nut fruit), red peppers,  shitake mushrooms, and a rice wine sauce and it was served in a neat paper box that kept all of the steam inside.  We had this with a massive bowl of Nasi Goreng – coconut fried rice with prawns and a mixture of veggies. Sometimes I still need to adjust to the sizes of the dishes down in the U.S. because I tend to over-order (and overeat) while I’m south of the border.

The drinks here were also quite tasty. We tried the mango soda which was perfect as it wasn’t overly sweet, and the lemongrass mint soda which was pretty good, but would’ve been better if there was a bit of alcohol in it. It basically tasted like a fresh mohito without the rum. Next time I go back, it’ll have to be when I don’t have an early morning meeting and can try more of the non-virgin options.

I noticed that this lounge has two other locations in California (San Francisco and Burlingame) as well as one in Atlanta, Georgia, should you venture in those cities as well and want to give Straits a try.  Overall, the flavours were fresh, the lounge was bustling and the decor was festive. I will be back.

Let’s get started – Cupertino anyone?

One of the things that keeps me sane while I’m down on one of my frequent business trips to Cupertino is trying new-to-me restaurants in the area.  While I’ve had more ‘misses’ than ‘hits’ over the past 6 months, there have been a few places that I would go back to and recommend. Most of these places are also within a 5 km (or should I say 3 mile) radius of the Cypress Hotel (really nice hotel with great service) - my home away from home.

The Red Crane:

Rating: Best of Cupertino so far (but probably helps if you have an expense account since it’s a bit $$ for what it is)

This place credits itself as being ‘Japanese and Asian fusion.’ Everything in this town is in a strip mall, so even though it doesn’t look very enticing from the outside, once you go in it has a much better atmosphere than you expect.  The black cod skewers were the best part of my meal, along with the free panna cotta dessert they brought by (did I really order that much that they rewarded me with more?). I’d have to say the sushi, although very pricey, was probably at Vancouver standards if you were to hit a decent place like Sakana or Shiro. I did really like the sizzling roasted rice miso soup – basically, they pour it into your bowl at the table and you get to hear it sizzle (not just fun for your palette, but your aural senses too)! 

In terms of service, it was a little strange when the very friendly server was being shadowed by another guy the whole time (he said he was there to ‘help’ in addition to the girl already serving me).  Not sure what was going on there, but felt a bit like he was trying to impress me and was the owner that couldn’t let go or else was just bored.  Maybe she was in training and he was making sure that she got it right? Could be why I got the free dessert too…

Overall, costs a lot for what you’re getting, but hey, if you’re in Cupertino you’re probably down on business anyway.

Loon Wah:

Rating: All day dim sum – need I say more!

The exciting thing about Loon Wah is that it’s an allll day dim sum place (someone read my mind!) – I haven’t heard of any of these in Vancouver, so please let me know if you have. Sometimes you just get those cravings to try a bunch of different things all at once, and back home I just can’t seem to find this option anytime after 3 pm.

The sticky rice in lotus leaf and the sliced beef tendon (yes, I tend to eat the weird things) were decent, and the cream custard bugs were divine for dessert when they were piping hot. Chicken feet were kind of soggy (but aren’t they all at these places?), and I think I’ll continue to go the home-cooked route for this dish next time. Just watch out for the mini pork buns if you’re expecting them to be consistently filled with a lot of soup – most of them were dry, but there was a random one that happened to shoot out liquid all down the front of a co-worker’s shirt.

On the whole, this place was inexpensive, had all-day variety, and helped me tend to my strange asian-food cravings I get when homesick.

Fontana’s Italian Restaurant:

Rating: Don’t bother trying it – I won’t be going back.

Not only was this place overpriced, but it just wasn’t good.  At all.

The only thing that made me happy about this meal was the glass of pinot grigio I had – not because the wine was especially good, but I was starving going in and got a slight buzz out of it.

I had the Scampi Saltati for my main – I’m not even sure how to describe this. It had some prawns in it which were fairly large but overcooked and some spinach and basil and and Dungeness crab polenta in a cream white wine sauce – the whole mixture somehow tasted overdone and like it had come out of the freezer.  Then, I got the Warm Apple Strudel for dessert (give me anything with ice cream, and I’m there).  The portion was massive, but I just couldn’t get over how it tasted like it came from a box at the supermarket with some caramel squeezed from a bottle over top.

Overall, it just felt like I wasted a whole meal that could’ve been purchased at the grocery store at a fifth of the price.

Not sure who might find this useful, but maybe some of my fellow ‘road warrior’ co-workers and tech friends and acquaintances that venture down to Silicon Valley will thank me some day.

Keep an eye out – I’ll continue to add to this list of Cupertino restaurants in future posts…