Susan Feniger's STREET

Dining Companion: Courtney P

Date: 6-27-09

A belated birthday dinner with a fellow foodie friend. What a nice evening! I had been wanting to try STREET since before it opened. Susan Feniger (half of the Two Hot Tamales empire) has been around forever and had such a great concept for the restaurant- street food. The menu is a mixture of a few different cuisines which could be a bit spastic if you didn't focus on a region for the night. It is not often that you find a restaurant with classic Russian dishes along side of Indian and Vietnamese dishes.

The restaurant has a nice sized enclosed open air outside in the back which is where we ate. It was well heated. At first, the music was a bit too loud, but then it kind of leveled out.

We saw Susan Feniger in her pink outfit (beanie and chef's coat) there that night. Apparently Natalie Portman and Sheryl Crow were there at some point too.

The decor has a very New York feel. It's nice to find a restaurant that doesn't have a monotone "Phillippe Starck"-esque feel. The walls are adorned with a bright orange and some fresco type drawings. it has a very "un-LA" feel.

We asked the waiter for the most popular dishes and he referred us to two: Kaya Toast

and Paani Puri. The Puri was a small bite-sized puff with what seemed like a combination of all the great Indian flavors. I enjoyed the flavors and enjoyed the presentation where the server poured on a yogurt cilantro water. The Kaya Toast blew my mind. The waiter told us that this was a dish that was getting a lot of press and I can see why. I can't describe it well enough. It was like four mini grilled cheese sandwiches but they had coconut jam instead of cheese. It was paired with a soft fried egg and a dark soy reduction sauce. The soy is a bit sharp, but the combination of all the flavors works. I am not always a fan of coconut but this was delicious. A neighboring table began to look on and ask us what we had ordered. We were so effervescent in our description of the Kaya Toast that they ordered it as well. I saw one of the people practically licking the plate.

On a lesser note, as we walked to our table I noticed a lot of other tables had an amuse bouche sort of dish- a savory "rice krispie treat" made with millet, turmeric, raisins and spices Unfortunately, we had to ask for ours, it wasn't brought to us.

Next we had the Vietnamese Corn, the Lamb Kofta, and the Malaysian black pepper clams. I was a bit disappointed with the corn. The dish contained pork belly but instead of being a slow cooked delicate greasy flavor, the pork belly was in small bits and overcooked. The lamb was nice- it came on a bed of almost sweet but mainly savory white beans and a mini artichoke with a grilled lemon. I think the beans were my favorite part of the dish. The clams were unreal. The sauce was delicious. I could have ordered a second helping. The clams were well cooked and not chewy at all. The brown sauce was flavorful but not too heavy. The lime wedges and fresh herbs lightened it up so that it did not overpower the clams. There were two thick slices of a rye like bread to soak up the sauce.

The menu has an option called "The Globe Trot" which is $35.00 and features a chef's choice of the day of five items. The items of that day didn't really appeal to us so we passed but if you're undecided, it may be a good option.

Dessert was a bit lacking. We asked what the two most popular desserts were and ordered those- Espresso, Chocolate and Halvah and Turkish Doughnuts. How can you go wrong with doughnuts? Well, these were a bit soggy, lacked flavor, and my friend commented that it tasted like the oil was re-used (see photo). I liked the topping for the doughnuts better separately from the doughnuts. It was a sour cream like topping with a jam on top. The Halvah dish was overcomplicated (see photo). It comes in a glass and is multi-layered. The bottom layer is an espresso gelatin. We both disliked that layer and unfortunately it was the biggest layer. The next layer was a nice chocolate mousse-like layer. That along with the whipped cream and Halvah (sesame seed candy) on top as well as a sesame seed and matzah candy were tasty. There is an extensive coffee/tea/after dinner drink menu including Intelligentsia Coffee and a few tisanes (well priced at $3). I chose the City Harvest Black (Vietnamese) tea. It tasted great and came with my favorite- rustic sugar cubes in brown and white. The "tea pot" is a metal mini-vase like thing which was hard to pour from however (see photo).

Valet was $8.00 which is kind of pricey but there are some spots on the street. STREET accepts reservations through Open Table.

For the most part, the service was good and the food was good but I think the problem may be that Feniger's kitchen is being spread too thin. It's difficult to make Russian/Ukranian (borscht and vareniki) alongside Indian, Thai, Vietnamese, and Korean. The place this really fails is in the desserts. But the claims and the Kaya Toast make it worth a re-visit. I look forward to going back and trying some of the other interesting things on the menu. There are a few things I look forward to trying and I will definitely go back.

www.eatatstreet.com