GAYOT.COM (link to source for photos and more )

Susan Feniger has been writing Los Angeles culinary history since 1981 with ...

LA-IST(link to source for photos and more)

"Kaya Toast made me into Susan Feniger's bitch"

I have often walked down this street before, but there was no Kaya toast or Moldavian meat before... Finding Susan Feniger's Street is a little bit like the headiness of a new romance. Your friends love it, your mom loves it, they can go from casual to fancy, they give you exactly what you want when you want it, and they are always full of surprises. The high ceilings make the room feel open and spacious in spite of the limited size. The bar is a surprisingly comfortable place for a meal when the room is packed. There is outdoor seating under giant umbrellas with fire pits and thoughtful little touches like blankets to curl up in on cool evenings. Service is attentive and friendly without being intrusive. This could be love. The menu is international, inspired by global street food, and is definitely all over the map. Stars like Japanese Shizo Shrimp and Paani Puri will definitely keep you coming back for more. Susan Feniger's first venture without Mary Sue Milliken gives an interesting insight into what one hot tamale has going on. Feniger's partner in Street, Kajsa Alger, brought in many of the Asian influences. Although the global flavors are appreciated, sometimes the menu feels a little disjointed. As is often true in the real world, it seems like the cause for disharmony falls squarely on the shoulders of America. Most of the tidbits and main dishes have a certain logic to them, but some American dishes like the Reuben sandwich don't quite cut it. The addition of salads feels counterintuitive as well, but I guess this is Los Angeles, where some people live on lettuce, and Feniger sure can make one mean salad. Other than the unusual menu and the occasional and understandable beginner's awkwardness, Street runs smoothly and easily. Heaven is in the details and for the most part Street's dishes show perfect execution and balance. There is a kind of Buddhist mindfulness. Most of the dishes that really make Street special are in the Tea Cakes & Dumpling section. It would be a great idea to gather a group of friends and make a meal from this section alone. The Cuban Stuffed Potato Cake is even better than from the Cuban bakery. Paani Puri, "small tastes of spiced potato, chutneys, and sprouted beans enclosed in crispy puffs of dough..." over which you pour yogurt-cilantro water were the inspiration for the restaurant. The little cups of deliciousness are truly inspirational. After sampling the Singapore delicacy of Kaya Toast ("Toasted bread spread with thick coconut jam; served with a soft boiled egg drizzled with dark soy and white pepper") I had to return to the restaurant 4 times in one week to eat it again and again, even taking orders to go. Kaya Toast made me into Susan Feniger's bitch.

 

The Rundown May 6, 2009(link to source for photos and more)

Street Meat
Global fast food gets the gourmet treatment...International flavors come together at Street, an upscale salute to globe-trotting street vendor grub.

Graffitied walls and world music synch up with the culturally eclectic theme. Outside, a glass-pebble fire pit and scattered blankets make the courtyard patio cozy and inviting for date night.

Unique texture and flavor combinations (and lots of vegan options) abound on a menu full of surprises, starting with complimentary millet puffs reminiscent of curry-flavored Rice Krispie treats.

Make a meal out of several small plates from the Tea Cakes & Dumplings. Standouts include Paani Puri (bites of crisp puffed dough filled with spicy potatoes, chutney, and sprouted beans) and the hefty Cuban stuffed potato cake with spiced beef and raisins, topped with tomato mint salsa.

Entrees far surpass your average noodle-bowl or kebab joint. Hearty, cinnamon-infused beef pho is a spot-on comfort food, as is the lamb kofta skewer, served over white beans with tomato jam.

Drinks include rare foreign brews (Beer Hue from Vietnam and India’s Flying Horse Royal Lager) and classic cocktails like Singapore Slings and sweet mango lhassis. Best of all, you won’t have to figure out the exchange rate when you pay the check. more
.

L.A. TIMES April 20, 09(link to source for photos and more)

Susan Feniger samples exotic street foods the globe over at her aptly named new restaurant. Bring friends and prepare to share.

By S. IRENE VIRBILA, Restaurant Critic April 20, 2009

You didn't have to be a genius to predict that Susan Feniger's new Street -- focused on street food of the world -- would be a big hit with the guerrilla gourmando set. Or that some diners would be shocked -- shocked! -- by the prices, which don't exactly compute with the idea of street food, and the $8.50 valet parking. Vivid with spices and chiles and oddball textures, the menu is a quick whirl around the world, spending more time in Asia and the Middle East than Mexico or South America. The latter is, I guess, been there, done that, for the co-founder (with Mary Sue Milliken) of Border Grill, the late City and Ciudad.

Street, which is more or less cater-corner from the Mozzas, is painted inside and out in sizzling, super-saturated reds and oranges. Figures outlined in white romp over the walls. There's an outdoor patio that's as big, if not bigger, than the inside, with tomato-red umbrellas stretched overhead and a fire pit for chillier nights.

Feniger and executive chef Kajsa Alger are working double-time to turn out the sprawling menu of small dishes from around the world. Instead of bread, you get intricately spiced millet balls. They're sweet and laced with curry and other spices, and I found myself sneaking another one. And another.

My friends and I ordered a slew of dishes, which came out in waves. I loved the crispy dal dumplings or fritters with yogurt and mint sauces; the Cuban potato cakes stuffed with beef, raisins and capers; and the Turkish zucchini and spinach cake in puff pastry. Plenty of options for vegetarians here. Japanese shiso shrimp, wrapped in nori and crisp pastry, were a hit at my table too. I meant to try the $16 pho to see how it measured up against the city's Vietnamese spots, but forgot. But I did get the Malaysian black pepper clams dosed with lots of cracked black pepper. Korean short-ribs, though, were bony and tough. Get the lamb kofta cooked on skewers in the wood-burning oven instead. And do try the wild and woolly toast spread with a thick layer of sweet coconut jam, which comes with a soft-boiled egg for dipping the toast. It's not dessert, but it might as well be. I'm going to wait until things settle down a bit before I go back. By then, the kitchen should be up to speed, the crowds somewhat abated, and the menu rejiggered to reflect what works and what doesn't. And while I sense a resistance to small plates out there, these aren't all that small, and they're very different than anything else. Go ahead, take a trip on the wild side. ...more

back to top

Fox News LA Lisa's LA(link to source for photos and more)

GOURMET.COM (link to source for photos and more )

Restaurants Now: Street, Umami Burger, The Varnish, Ten Tables, Monkey Bar
In this week’s roundup, three can’t-miss spots in L.A., plus Graydon Carter’s latest venture in New York City and a winning concept in Cambridge

04.10.09

In the ’80s, I lived within walking distance of the pocket-sized City Café. Owned by Two Hot Tamales’ Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken, it was a delicious, welcoming place where you might find the two chef/owners in the back alley grilling meat on a cast-iron hibachi because there wasn’t room in their itty-bitty kitchen. STREET, Feniger’s first Milliken-less project, captures the same warmth and culinary excitement in its menu, which reads like a world tour of street food. There are Egyptian koshary (spiced rice, lentils, and pasta alongside stewed collard greens), delectable puffs of potato, sweet chutney, and sprouted beans known as panni poori, and a Vietnamese dish of fresh corn wok-cooked with spring onions and bits of pork belly. Thai Bites turn out to be rounds of raw collard green leaves that you smear with tamarind paste and sprinkle with bird chiles, peanuts, and toasted coconut, then eat like a quickie roll-up. Outdoors, there’s a two-tiered dining patio with a fire pit and a window offering a peek into a bustling kitchen that, thirty-plus years later, isn’t much bigger than City’s was.

 

 

L.A. WEEKLY (link to source for photos and more )

Back on the Street: Susan Feniger's World Cuisine
A virtual museum of street food, snacks and savories from every part of Asia
By Jonathan Gold
Published on April 01, 2009 at 6:18pm

When it opened in the 1980s, City Restaurant felt a lot like the future of Los Angeles cuisine: a restaurant that absorbed the influences of both the local Asian communities and the exotic places to which a reasonably hip Angeleno might be expected to travel, and re-envisioned the flavors through the prism of Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken's hard-won French technique. In her new Street, a hypercool restaurant in the space that once housed the coffeehouse Highland Grounds, Feniger, in her solo debut, revisits some of those transglobal ideas but with a direct, accessible twist. Cumin-scented millet puffs are brought to the table instead of bread and butter, and if that sounds like a good idea to you, Street — especially the comfortable patio abutting the fire pit — may become your new favorite restaurant.

Street is a virtual museum of world street food, snacks and savories... read on

back to top

THE NEW YORK TIMES (link to source for photos and more )

Seeing Things | Street Fare
By Brooke Hodge
Susan Feniger's STREET in Los Angeles Susan Feniger's Street in Los Angeles, a restaurant where the interior includes Danish modern chairs salvaged from a Sonoma Valley schoolhouse, tables topped with a material used for skateboard ramps and Huntley Muir's cheeky graphics set the stage for sampling the food.

Seeing Things is a biweekly design column by Brooke Hodge, the curator of architecture and design at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.

Sampling the wares of international street food vendors is sometimes not for the faint of heart or stomach. Remember that emergency run for antacids in India? Relax! Susan Feniger's Street, the celebrated chef's first solo venture, serves up the exotic without the risk. Street, which opened this week in Los Angeles, offers diners the opportunity to travel to exotic locales like Mumbai, Delhi, Istanbul or Saigon — all in one sitting — as the enthusiastic staff encourages “globe-trotting” through an eclectic menu of tea cakes, dumplings, noodles, soups, stews and curries, all served... read on

 

L.A. TIMES (link to source)

Daily Dish - latimes.com
A taste of Susan Feniger's Street

Susan Feniger at her new restaurant, Street Chef Susan Feniger, half of the Too Hot Tamales duo responsible for restaurants Border Grill and Ciudad and countless Food Network appearances, will step into her own spotlight Monday when her long-awaited Street restaurant debuts in the former Highland Grounds spot.

Located on Highland, a bit north of Nancy Silverton's Mozzas on the Melrose intersection, Street concentrates on the formula that worked for Feniger's other restaurants -- an upscale take on cultural cuisine. Sticking mostly to Asian-inspired street food dishes, the dinner menu is broken down into small plates meant for sharing, then noodles, stews and curry dishes. There are also entrees made in the wood-burning oven. After Monday's dinner opening, the restaurant will serve lunch and Sunday brunch (the former probably being a welcome treat to the workers at the nearby row of production... read on

L.A. TIMES 2 (link to source for photos, recipes and more)

Too Hot Tamale Chef Susan Feniger to open new restaurant Street
Susan Feniger
Email Picture
Ann Johansson / For The Times
EXOTIC EATS: "The idea is to experience something new without having it be risky," Feniger says of Street's informal-dining concept.
Informal L.A. eatery to feature traditional foods inspired by street vendors around the world.
By Rene Lynch
March 11, 2009
Susan Feniger reaches out for the white pepper, but her hand hovers, fingers twitching -- which one is it?

Feniger certainly knows what pepper looks like. But right now, the 5-foot-square island in the center of her home kitchen is a tangle of plates, food-stained notebooks, tasting spoons, an industrial strength blender and spice grinder, a kitchen scale, and a sea of prep bowls brimming with exotics such as anardana (dried and ground pomegranate from the Middle East) read on

back to top

THRILLIST (link)

Susan Feniger's Street
742 N Highland, Hollywood; 323.203.0500

In our world there are only two universal truths: we're all going to die, and street food is awesome. Give yourself a round-the-world tour to support truth number two, at Susan Feniger's Street.

From Ciudad's Food Network-approved chef, Street's a midsized foodery dedicated to street eats from around the world, funkily decked out with a Eurodisco neon line-drawing interior and a firepitted outdoor patio, whose mural of people-outlines evokes both global street art and your glory days as the best tracer in school. Food's wildly diverse, starting with apps like Chinese sesame cakes filled with red bean paste and Moldavian meatballs in sweet & sour tomato sauce, while larger dishes include curries (Southern Thai massamun w/ chicken, red yam, and mushrooms), soups (Vietnamese beef pho over vermicelli noodles), and wood-oven-cooked fare like baked fish served w/ kushary, an Egyptian street favorite of spiced rice, lentil, and macaroni (they also love Hamburger Horus). Beer also leans international (Kenya's Tusker Lager, Australia's Barons Black Wattle Ale), while cocktails go classic, like a Sazerac Manhattan, and the Plymouth Dry Gin, cognac, cointreau, lemon juice "Jerusalem Between The Sheets", for getting jew naked.

Street's also serving Sunday brunch (Indian spiced tapioca w/ poached egg, etc), and Feniger plans on selecting random tables to receive...read on

ZAGAT (link to complete interview)

On the Street With Susan Feniger

With her wild hair and manic grin, Susan Feniger may be the most joyous culinary icon you'll ever meet. She's a classically trained chef who, along with her longtime business partner Mary Sue Milliken, changed the way we understand food here in Los Angeles – first with City Restaurant in 1981, then with Border Grill in 1985 and Ciudad in 1999. Together, they were the Food Network's Too Hot Tamales. Now on her own, Feniger has returned to her roots with Street (742 N. Highland Ave.; 323-203-0500), a trendy, multiethnic small-bites eatery. The chef took time from her hectic schedule to chat with us about the project.

Merrill Shindler: You just opened – is there any rest for the weary?

Susan Feniger: I have not stopped, literally. I'm working 18-hour days, averaging four hours of sleep a night. My feet are killing me. I've never had problems before. We got there at 7 in the morning the day before we opened, and worked nonstop trying to get ready, figure out that tiny little kitchen. I thought about going home. But it didn't work, so we worked all night, all the next day, finally left at one in the morning. Four hours sleep felt fabulous.

MS: So, you're back to a normal schedule – for a chef. read on