In the past year, street food has been a rising star, moving from
neighborhood ethnic restaurants and counters to mainstream concepts.

Salvadoran pupusas are among the Latin-style street selections at INC. Street Food. (pictuure below)

Wave,
an upscale Mediterranean restaurant inside W Chicago-Lakeshore hotel,
offers a special street-food menu every Wednesday night, with a
different country featured each week. Among the recipes Executive Chef
Kristine Subido will prepare in the coming months are bourekas-Israeli
puff pastries typically filled with cheese, potatoes, spinach or minced
meat.

In her rendition, layers of freshly made phyllo dough will
be topped with sautéed spinach mixed with mint, parsley and fontina
cheese and then folded into triangles and baked. To order, the cook
will cut a slit in one side of the pastry and fill each boureka with
sliced tomatoes and hard-cooked eggs. Tahini sauce will be served on
the side.

Other choices on the Israel-themed street-food menu
will include mini lamb kefta burgers, falafel pockets with
roasted-eggplant salsa and house-made chips with lemon hummus.

"You get three choices for US$10, and that includes a cocktail," Subido says. "That's a steal. You can't not try it."

By: Allison Perlik

Source: Hotels

Assertive flavors, approachability and wallet-friendly prices grant global street food a warm reception on American menus.

Bursting with flavor, inexpensive and easy to eat out of hand, paani puri—crisp,
hollow rounds of puffed dough often filled with potatoes, tamarind
chutney and mung beans—would seem to hit all the right notes with
diners. Most Americans, though, likely have never sampled the snack,
offered on some Indian menus in the United States but served most
commonly by street vendors in India.

“Not
everyone travels to these countries, and even if they do, some people
are too nervous to eat on the streets,” says Los Angeles chef Susan Feniger, who built her latest restaurant, Street, around paani puri and other global street fare. “What we’re trying to do is let people experience foods they might not experience on their own.”

Feniger
is just one of many chefs spreading the street-food gospel. In the past
year, street food has been a rising star across foodservice, moving
from neighborhood ethnic restaurants and counters to more-mainstream
concepts such as Philadelphia’s Kong, which serves Chinese specialties including pork buns and lamb dumplings; Denver-based chain Garbanzo Mediterranean Grill, a fast-casual concept built around Mediterranean street staples such as falafel, pita and laffa bread; and the upcoming INC. Street Food in Roswell, Ga., where Latin-inspired menu choices will range from tamales to pupusas.

Though
the recipes may be more refined, what restaurant versions of street
food share with the traditional fare cooked and served outdoors by
individual vendors are fast, simple preparations; no-frills
presentations that usually don’t require a knife and fork;
and—especially important in the current economic environment—low
prices. These go a long way in explaining street food’s appeal for
consumers.

“People
are looking for value, but the formula for value isn’t just that it’s
less expensive, but also something intriguing,” says Kong Chef-owner
Michael O’Halloran. “Anybody who’s been to a country with a large
tradition of street food is amazed at how good it is and how cheap it
is, and that general aesthetic is what restaurants are trying to
capture.”

At Kong, pork belly is cured in-house for a dish called Chinese Bacon.

The street snack paani puri features spiced potatoes inside crispy dough puffs.

A Full Plate

For diners, immediacy is another central part of street food’s charm, says Mark Furstenberg, the chef and baker who created the menu for five-month-old G Street Food in Washington, D.C. (he recently left the concept).

“There
is a real separation between [the diner] and the kitchen in a
traditional restaurant,” he says, noting that fast-casual concepts such
as G Street Food can more easily replicate street food’s interactive
nature than sit-down restaurants can. “There’s no barrier. People look
immediately across the counter and see food being prepared.”

Though
street food often is presented small-plate-style at restaurants, most
of Furstenberg’s globe-trotting menu is shaped around meals rather than
snacks. He reimagined the French chickpea-flour crêpes called socca precisely so they would make a more-substantial lunch.

“When socca
is eaten in Nice or Liguria, it’s sprinkled with a little olive oil or
black pepper and that’s it,” Furstenberg says. To bulk up the recipe,
he created a topping inspired by the North African stew called harira,
with chickpeas, lentils, rice and tomato seasoned with cumin, turmeric,
coriander, Marash pepper (Turkish red-pepper flakes) and other spices.

Another lunch-friendly choice at G Street Food is lahmajun,
which Furstenberg describes as a Middle Eastern pizza. The thin-crusted
flatbread is topped with ground lamb cooked with pomegranate molasses,
cumin, coriander, garlic, onion and tomato paste.

New Takes on Tradition

Like
Furstenberg’s recipes at G Street Food, many chefs’ street-food
offerings include both authentic and reinterpreted dishes tailored to
their own—and customers’—tastes. The Latin American corn cakes at Caracas Arepa Bar
in Manhattan and Brooklyn, N.Y., for example, come with a much greater
variety of fillings than typically would be offered on the streets of
Venezuela.

At the restaurant, classic combinations such as La Pabellón (shredded beef, black beans, queso fresco and sweet plantains) are menued alongside nontraditional choices such as Los Muchachos (grilled chorizo, queso fresco, jalapeños and sautéed peppers).

All are tucked inside arepas
made from a simple dough of corn flour, canola oil, water and salt.
Although street vendors usually grill the palm-size cakes, resulting in
a chewier texture, at Caracas Arepa Bar, they’re griddled and then
baked in the oven—more similar to how they would be prepared in a
Venezuelan home. The result is a crisp-on-the-outside,
soft-on-the-inside finish that co-owner Maribel Araujo says is more
appealing to American palates.

“Arepas
are great for a city like New York because they’re very flexible,” she
says. “You can get them as takeout and they can be a full meal inside a
pocket, or you can bring a group of friends and have a nice, shared,
family-style dinner.”

At Street, many recipes are refined versions of standard street fare. For example, the potatoes in Feniger’s paani puri
are seasoned with a more-complex spice blend—curry leaves, cumin, black
mustard seeds, coriander and other ingredients—than many Indian vendors
might use. Accompaniments to her dish include two house-made sauces:
one a smooth blend of tamarind, mint and cilantro with serrano chiles,
ginger and seasonings, and the other a purée of dates, tamarind, cumin
and garlic sparked with a spicy Indian chile called reshampatti. The dish is garnished with sprouted mung beans.

A
particularly popular dish at Street is Feniger’s rendition of Kaya
Toast, a Singaporean specialty. A thick, silky custard made from
coconut milk, sugar and eggs cooked with pandan (an herbaceous plant
common to Southeast Asia) leaves is spread over buttered toast, which
comes with a soft-fried egg and dark soy sauce for dipping.

“You have sweetness, saltiness and savoriness, so it’s a very sensual dish,” she says.

Olive Garden’s Lasagna Fritti appetizer was inspired by Italy’s Veneto region.

The Price is Right

The
growth of Latin influences in the United States and the demand for
more-accessible dining options helped shape the concept for INC. Street
Food, a soon-to-open full-service restaurant in Roswell, Ga. Nothing on
Latin street-food-focused the menu will cost more than $15, says
Richard Wilt, executive chef and partner.

That will buy diners updated and traditional approaches to dishes such as pupusas,
Salvadoran stuffed corn cakes that Wilt makes with masa harina, lard,
water and sea salt. For the filling, Oaxaca cheese is mixed with
chicken braised with chipotle paste, adobo powder, onion, garlic and
cilantro. A topping of potato-based salsa dressed with lemon juice and
olive oil lends a bright counterpoint.

At
Chinese-centric Kong, prices range from $5 to $16 for dishes O’Halloran
says are loosely inspired by the street foods he enjoys in Hong Kong.

One such invention is Stir-Fried Egg, an omelet-like starter priced at $8, featuring lap cheong,
a dried Chinese pork sausage. The diced sausage is rendered in a hot
wok and then tossed with sliced asparagus and jumbo-lump crab. Lightly
beaten eggs and cooked jasmine rice are stirred in, and the pan is
removed from heat to allow the eggs to set. Scraped into a small bowl,
the stir-fried egg is finished with green onions and spicy sriracha
sauce.

For Chinese Bacon, a $7 shareable
plate, O’Halloran cures slabs of pork belly with Chinese five-spice
powder, salt and brown sugar for five days and then smokes them. To
serve, the bacon is grilled, glazed with honey-chile sauce and
sprinkled with spiced, toasted peanuts. It comes with butter lettuce
leaves for wrapping.

“Our food is quick; it’s flavorful; it’s economical; and it’s [served] in a convivial atmosphere,” O’Halloran says.

Trying It on for Size

Eateries not built around street food are dabbling in the trendy fare as well. The “Indian street snacks” menu at Indique Heights, a contemporary Indian restaurant in Chevy Chase, Md., includes kathi rolls (think Indian burritos) and dosas (rice-and-lentil crêpes), while a recent Thai street-food promotion at Asia Nine Bar & Lounge in Washington, D.C., featured adventurous dishes such as Jelly Fish Salad and Takoyaki (octopus balls).

Campuses too, are embracing street food’s portable, affordable format. Among them is the University of Houston, an Aramark Corp. account where Vietnamese pho and Indian onion fritters called bhajis are among rotating menu options at the Moody Towers residence hall.

Even mainstream chains such as Orlando-based Olive Garden
are getting in on the act. The Italian concept recently debuted Lasagna
Fritti, an appetizer of fried, Parmesan-crusted squares of pasta
layered with ricotta, mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses. The recipe was
inspired by the street foods of Italy’s Veneto region, says Marie
Grimm, director of culinary operations for the casual-dining chain.
“It’s shareable; it’s a little indulgent; and you can translate it [to
the restaurants] with quality ingredients,” she says.

WAVE,
an upscale Mediterranean restaurant inside the W Chicago–Lakeshore
hotel, offers a special street-food menu every Wednesday night, with a
different country featured each week. Among the recipes Executive Chef
Kristine Subido will prepare in the coming months are bourekas— Israeli puff pastries typically filled with cheese, potatoes, spinach or minced meat.

In
her rendition, layers of freshly made phyllo dough will be topped with
sautéed spinach mixed with mint, parsley and fontina cheese and then
folded into triangles and baked. To order, the cook will cut a slit in
one side of the pastry and fill each boureka with sliced tomatoes and hard-cooked eggs. Tahini sauce will be served on the side.

Other choices on the Israel-themed street-food menu will include mini lamb kefta burgers, falafel pockets with roasted-eggplant salsa and house-made chips with lemon hummus.

“You get three choices for $10, and that includes a cocktail [or a beer],” Subido says. “That’s a steal. You can’t not try it.”