The cuisine at Straits is much fancier in presentation than the famous street food of Singapore, but features all the bright and exciting flavors of its mix of cultures and cooking: Chinese, Thai, Indian, and Indonesian. You really can't go wrong anywhere on the lengthy menu, though beginners might start with the appetizer sample platter (satay, vegetable curry samosas, oysters, and kway pai ti, which are pastry shells filled with shrimp in chili sauce), and then go on to try nonya daging rendang (spicy marinated beef stew in a kaffir lime leaf sauce with coconut polenta-cake), or lamb korma (braised lamb shank with tomato, cardamom, and potatoes in a mild white curry sauce). Among the desserts are European and Asian specialties, and we admit we prefer the warm chocolate cake with a mandarin orange truffle filling to the heavy Singaporean banana pudding wrapped in a banana leaf.