Dining

Item Description

Brunch for 4 at Susan Feniger's Street

LA WEEKLY JONATHAN GOLD's 99 ESSENTIAL L.A. RESTAURANTS

What’s the female equivalent of big, hanging ones? Because while the boys were busy displaying their machismo this year by showing their prowess with big meat, bringing hacksaws to carcasses and sliding their unmentionables into throats all over town, Susan Feniger, the chef and proprietor of Street, was letting her eggs run wild, on top of Korean rice salad, garnishing spicy peanut noodles and served over South Indian tapioca, slid onto a bed of semolina and draped over a Cantonese white radish cake — and on pretty much every table, served almost as a dipping sauce for the kaya toast, the Singapore-style dish of brioche toast spread with soft coconut jam that has become the restaurant’s most popular dish. In her new, hypercool restaurant, in the space that once housed the coffeehouse Highland Grounds, Border Grill/Ciudad chef Feniger, in her solo debut, revisits some of the transglobal ideas she and Mary Sue Milliken explored in her seminal ’80s-era City Restaurant, but with a direct, accessible twist: Street is a virtual museum of world street food, snacks and savories from every part of Asia — Korean-style mung-bean pancakes studded with bits of anise-braised pork belly; hollow, potato-stuffed Indian ping-pong balls called paani puri; a juniper-laced salad of roasted beets and crumbled walnuts; even a delicious version of the do-it-yourself Thai bundles of roasted coconut, bird chiles, peanuts, tamarind jam and minced lime, among other things, but sensibly wrapped in bits of collard instead of the traditional betel leaf. Half the menu is vegan-friendly, although you probably wouldn’t notice that fact unless it was important to you, and at least as much attention seems to have been paid to the roster of rare beers, spiced lassis and herbal coolers as to the short but appropriate wine list. Don’t miss Feniger’s parfait, a layered concoction of espresso gelatin, chocolate mousse and cream, sweetened with special halvah imported all the way from Canter’s Delicatessen. 742 N. Highland Ave., Hlywd., (323) 203-0500, eatatstreet.com. Open daily from noon for lunch and dinner; from 11 a.m. for Sunday brunch. Full bar. Valet parking. AE, MC, V.

Item Special Note

Value up to $100