Straits Restaurant — Restaurant in San Jose

A friend who I haven't seen in about a year and a half and whom I used to work with was in town and we decided to revisit a regular venue we used to haunt with our friend group back in the day. We decided it was a good place to come sit, talk and order casually. To a large degree it still is, however it isn't the same as it used to be. I believe it's still an Asian fusion restaurant of sorts mixed with a sort of nightclub feel. This is even more evident when you see how the waitresses and hosts are dressed. All are wearing shape defining clothes, with some more daring I'm attire than others. If you want a moderately upscale dining experience with a bit of female eyecandy. This might just be the place for you. However, it may be that I'm getting older, or maybe that I'm just becoming an old dad, but the waitresses seem to be getting younger and younger every time I visit this place. So much so that I find the attire to be more daring than necessary. But hey what do I know ? This is a restaurant right? So let's talk about the food.

One of the things we came for in the past was the oyster bar. We ordered a set but were disappointed to know they did not have kumamotos. I found the quality of the oysters tonight to be inconsistent. Some tasted very fresh where others tasted a bit on the fishy seafood side. It came with a choice of three different toppings but none of them were horseradish or Tabasco sauce. On top of that the whole restaurant was out of Tabasco sauce. That seems to me to be a crime that should never be allowed to happen in a place that serves fresh oysters. It's a staple for oysters. If you run out, send someone out to the grocery store and grab a bunch of bottles. It's hard for me to imagine that we were the only ones who would find this to be unforgivable or it must be that no one else is ordering fresh oysters from the bar.

Everything else we had was perfectly fine. We had garlic noodles with chicken which was pretty good but wasn't outstanding. It was a bit better than what you would expect to get from a Chinese fast food. The beef tartar was good as well. Served with a raw egg in the center and what appeared to be fancy potato chips. On the scale of other beef tartars that I've had, it was below average in taste above average in presentation. The best, dish we had tonight was a beef dish that was nested in a shrimp chip bowl. Nice presentation, and the taste was satisfying.

We topped the night off with some dessert. They had some new dessert items and indicated that their dessert menu is new because of this and we ordered their new items. I'm not a dessert person, I don't typically care for cake, but when I do, I prefer carrot cake, so that's what I got. Presentation was interesting. It appeared to be a smaller portion, round, coated with a cream cheese topping, with small chunks of pineapple nested in the center of the round. I would say it tasted more like pineapple cake than carrot cake, but it was definitely a carrot cake. The unfortunate part of dessert was we tried to order coffee with our cakes, but for whatever reason straits does not serve coffee. As in, they just don't have coffee at this place and it's not something that you can offer there in and day. They said there was coffee in a mixed drink that they could serve for us if we wanted, but we were good to go with enough alcohol to that point having had wine and beer previously in our meal.

Straits visually is a relatively upscale atmosphere, generally dark in lighting. In some spots the restaurant, the walk space is very tight so you'll find yourself squeezing between other patron's tables to get out of the way of passing traffic. Business still appears to be good, even though this restaurant has been around for a while, and if you're looking for a degree of elegance without going full fine dining, you'll come out of this experience satisfied. Nothing is terrible,...

Straits is like a club vibe restaurant that I think feels more like a club atmosphere the later in the night you go. The women who work here are all beautiful, giving the club vibe. I came with three coworkers of mine, about 7 minutes before happy hour ended. We told the hostess we wanted happy hour so she sat us in the happy hour area. When we went to order, the waitress told us we had to sit in the happy hour area and moved us again to another table/area.

As I was looking at a happy hour menu and about to order to the waiter, a lady came and took the menu out of my hands. She then went across the table to remove the menu from my friend's hands and thankfully they said something (unlike me bc l'm scared of confrontation in any form). The waitress who was taking the menus said this was not the area for happy hour and happy hour was over. It was 5:58 and happy hour ends at 6 so technically we still had time to put an order in. We told them how we already moved tables for happy hour and thankfully our waiter Luis saved the day as he was willing to accommodate our happy hour order. If it wasn't for him, we would have not gotten it bc the lady was dead set on making us move again and telling us happy hour was over.

As a business you can either happily invite people to come in and quickly get a last happy hour bite or rudely make it difficult for people to squeeze in a happy hour order and I feel like Straits did the later. It was an unwelcoming vibe and the waitresses didn't seem to know where happy hour was taking place.

Is the food good? Yes. The corn fritters and chicken lollipops are always my go tos. The fries are good w the dips and the garlic noodles were good. Happy hour vodka drink was decent too just a bit sweet.

Overall, I don't know how to feel about this place. Luis saved the day so I'm thankful they have some caring employees, but I'm scared to go now and not have him bc it would've been a completely...

I've passed by this spot for years along Santana Row, but haven't gone inside until recently. It was mysterious as it seems like a really loud nightclub from the outside, but it was also a restaurant? I noticed that they had late night happy hour, so my partner and I decided to check it out.

An emulation of Vegas was the vibe I got: servers in short black dresses, loud music, dark lighting, tables, and the smell of cigarettes.

If you're coming for happy hour, tell the host as you're walking in. I did not know that it only applied to the lounge and bar seating despite the rest of the restaurant being empty. We were seated and when we asked about happy hour, the server said "the bar is full so you can't get anything," shrugged, and walked away. Not even a "I'll let you know when there's a spot open" or "please wait until something opens up"??? Come on lol this is not an exclusive Vegas nightclub, this is San Jose lmao.

Instead of eyeing the bar, we ordered cocktails from the regular menu. My partner got an espresso martini while I got an Amira Delight which has vodka, tamarind, apple, lime, li hing mui, and tamarind candy. Both drinks were strong. Unfortunately, I did not taste the tamarind nor li hing mui. My drink tasted like New Amsterdam Green Apple vodka and a mixer. Where were any of the other ingredients?

We were thinking of getting food but given the sour taste in our mouths and the wait for service, we decided to down everything and head to downtown SJ for drinks instead. We asked for the bill, got handed a paper bill, and the server walked away as we asked if we can pay right there with contactless payment. We would not see her again for 20 minutes.

Straits continues to be a mystery to me. For a nightclub vibe, why does it close at 10:30pm? Why is the service so lacking? Why does no one dance? Why cram 30 people into the bar area instead of serving everyone in the whole space?...