FSR September 2022

the dish to a different place visually,” he says. “Experientially, you want the taste and the flavors to be the same. You want the person in your restaurant to experi ence what they would have in themarket.” One particularly popular item at Mi Vida is quesabirria, a slow-braised beef served with chihuahua cheese between a flour tortilla. Available as either an appe tizer or an entrée, depending on the por tion size, the dish features slow-braised short rib served in a spicy guajillo broth with corn tortillas. Allen Lo, cofounder and brand chef at Hawkers Asian Street Food, shares sim ilar opinions about how to take street food from hawker stalls to sit-down res taurants. As a general rule of thumb, Lo leaves the recipes alone and instead con centrates on sourcing. “Ingredients are definitely our main focus,” he says. “There can be so many different recipes even for one dish, so we try to find the recipe we like best and then elevate that dish using the best ingredients available to us.” Unlike Santibañez, however, Lo keeps the presentation as close to the original as possible. He says dishes are served as they would be in street markets through out Southeast Asia. If an item is tradi tionally served on a skewer, that’s how it’s presented at Hawkers, which now has a dozen locations across the South and Mid-Atlantic. “We want to plate it as it was intended to be eaten on the street,” he says. “If that means being wrapped up so it can be handheld, that’s how we try to serve it.” As for the flavors themselves, Lo says dishes like crispy duck and chicken skin are popping up on menus as more cus tomers look for authentic representa tions of foreign cuisines. At the same time, he foresees a wave of new dishes and recipes. As older vendors pass busi nesses along to the younger generations, new dishes will start to make an appear ance, which will then start popping up in menus in full-service concepts. “It’s really exciting,” he says. “They want to take traditional recipes and modernize them. I think over the next several years you’re going to see a lot of

WHETHER PLATED OR TO-GO, MAMNOON DISHES SHOWCASE MIDDLE EASTERN CUISINE.

REVA KELLER

that happening.” Putting a modern touch on street food is something chef Nicco Muratore has taken up at Mamnoon, a full-service restaurant in Seattle that’s inspired by food stalls found throughout theMiddle East. To update classics, the chef applies traditional techniques to locally sourced ingredients. “It’s an ancient cuisine that really fits the trend of eating healthier,” Mura tore says. “At Mamnoon, we’re cooking Middle Eastern cuisine but looking at it through the lens of the Pacific Northwest. We’re using ingredients that might not always be in the traditional cuisine, but we’re using them to elevate the dishes by utilizing what’s available in this area.” For example, the restaurant’s ver sion of dolmeh (grape leaves, typically wrapped around rice seasoned with lemon, mint, or even onion) uses chan terelle mushrooms, shallots, and cauli flower labneh. As for the fattoush, whose recipe varies regionally, Mamnoon uses local endives and radicchio, as well as sugar snap peas, fennel, and radish. Muratore says he’s seeing kebabs

grace menus beyond the Middle East ern category, with local restaurants fea turing proteins like Pacific Northwest salmon. Street food spices and sea sonings are also becoming more main stream. While Mamnoon sells its own blends like za’atar, sumac, and aleppo pepper, Muratore points out that such seasonings are cropping up all around. “It’s one of those ingredients that’s starting to pop up everywhere,” he says of za’atar. “You even see it at places like Trader Joe’s. It’s nice to see it gaining popularity.” Because such items are becoming more readily available, restaurants have the opportunity to differentiate them selves through the quality of the ingre dients, hospitality, and dine-in atmo sphere. Those components often fetch a higher price, but from Santibañez’s per spective, customers will justify the extra expense for exceptional experiences. “There’s a different expectation with full service,” he says. “Customers will be happy paying the restaurant prices because the food is comforting and deli cious and the experience is fun.”

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