Susan Feniger’s Street (Los Angeles, CA)

Susan Feniger’s Street
742 N Highland Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90038
Dining date: 11/21/11

Susan Feniger (with Mary Sue Milliken make up the “Two Hot Tamales” and co-owners of the Border Grill chain) opened up solo venture Street in 2009. The name says it all – the restaurant serves street food from all over the globe. Cool concept right? Interestingly, there isn’t a lot of European representation; the menu seems to cover a large part of Asia and the Middle East. It’s an intriguing concept, as far as I know unique in its breadth, but it begs the question “can one restaurant have a strong command over so many styles of cooking?”

We had  2 vegetarians in the party, so many of the dishes we ordered were non-meat.

ANGRY EGGS deviled eggs with Malaysian hot chile relish topped with green sriracha

A good deviled egg, with some extra heat from a green sriracha sauce.

SHRIMP LUMPIA crispy Fillipino style spring roll served with chile dipping sauce and fresh herb salad

These were fried to a nice crisp, though I would’ve appreciated just a little more shrimp flavor. The herb salad was a nice touch. Cool and refreshing.

KAYA TOAST toasted bread spread thick with coconut jam, served with a soft fried egg drizzled in dark soy and white pepper

This has to be the most popular dish here and for good reason. It’s an unexpected combination of flavors (at least to the American palate) that works really well – the sweetness of the coconut jam, the rich egg yolk and the salty dark soy all come together quite well. We actually got two orders of this.

ANATOLIAN MUSHROOM RAVIOLI tossed in a smoked paprika lemon butter with mint yogurt sauce and fried chickpeas

I didn’t try these, but I heard they were good.

ALBACORE POKE small salad of diced sashimi tuna, honey crisp apple, spicy sesame over crispy leeks

I feel like poke has become a fairly mainstream dish nowadays (following on the heels of the tuna tartare) so this wasn’t as intriguing as the other dishes. The poke was decent; the crispy leeks added some texture but there was something in here that was pretty sweet.

SINGAPORE STREET NOODLES stir fried rice noodles with homemade madras-style curry, rock shrimp and marinated pork loin

This was one of the dishes I was most looking forward to, but I thought the noodles were disappointingly mushy.  There was a hint of curry but the flavors were largely muddled. The shrimp was cooked well, though.

TRINIDAD DUCK CURRY Caribbean fresh herb curry paste, potato, green beans, and plantain

For the vegetarians, we got this without duck. Sadly, couldn’t even get the duck on the side. There was definitely some heat to this dish, but it was also very sweet. The rice made it the most filling dish we ordered.

VIETNAMESE SKIRT STEAK with chilled vermicelli rice noodles, marinated vegetables, fresh herbs, crunchy peanut topping and green sriracha sauce

The steak was cooked well and I thought the peanuts added some good texture as well as depth. The green sriracha sauce was on the mild side, but I still enjoyed the balance between the cool, refreshing vermicelli.

Street’s Kaya Toast is the real deal, but I thought everything else was more on the “okay” side. I appreciate the fact that one can try so many countries’ street food in one spot, but it’s going to be significantly more expensive and less authentic than the real thing.