Coconut fried rice with prawns and vegetables satisfy picky palates at Straits Restaurant in Westfield Center.

PHOTO BY RORY MCNAMARA

If you want to be absolutely sure about fire management, a salad would do the trick, maybe the lovely spinach salad ($10), a heap of baby leaves tossed with tiger prawns, crunchy toasted coconut and peanuts, lime, and a deeply fruity tamarind dressing. For striking visuals, there is no topping the Indonesian corn croquettes ($9). The fritters were less flavorful than they looked, so the matter of condiment assistance wasn't a trivial one. With a more deeply imagined sauce, this could be an unforgettable dish, a signature.

As someone who has been to Las Vegas and lived to tell, I left Straits thinking that it could easily be in Vegas. It has the necessary scale and generic glamour; it's affordable and good. There's nothing not to like except that I don't like Las Vegas, and I did like the old place in its glorified shack, where the touch of the human hand was still palpable. 

STRAITS RESTAURANT

Sun.–Thurs., 11 a.m.–9 p.m.;

Fri.–Sat., 11 a.m.–10 p.m.

Westfield Center,

845 Market, Fourth Floor, SF

(415) 668-1783

www.straitsrestaurants.com

Full bar

AE/DC/MC/V

Noisy

Wheelchair accessible