Vietnamese-style Saigon beef salad (left) and Chinese-style fried noodles with shrimp, pork belly and greens

What to think about Street? I’m having the same hard time as everyone else. I love owner/chef Susan Feniger’s culinary passion and curiousity, not to mention her warm-hearted desire to make her customers happy. The concept behind Street — a menu inspired by street food from around the world, served informally but professionally and matched with fun wines — is totally appealing, and the prices are moderate by hip-L.A.-restaurant standards.

But the prices are not at all moderate by street-food standards, or even L.A. ethnic-restaurant standards. Of course they can’t be, given the overhead of running a higher-end place a millet puff’s throw from the Mozza twins. Still, as other food writers have pointed out, it just doesn’t seem right to pay $16 for a bowl of pho. Maybe in Fargo, but not here in L.A. — it’s not like we can’t travel the culinary world in our own backyard.

As for the flavors themselves, there are some very good ones, some disappointments and some that are fine but no better than you’d find at an L.A. ethnic restaurant. My colleagues and I have tried a number of dishes on the menu and have happy memories of the complimentary sweet-spicy-chewy millet puffs; the surprisingly complex Cuban stuffed potato cake, a sort of Latin shepherd’s pie whose flavors build with each bite; the lamb kofta kebabs; and the spectacular Egyptian basbousa cake, a lime-infused hunk of fruit-topped semolina heaven. But other dishes have ranged from just okay to not very good: the messy, too-sweet Korean rice salad; the bland Thai chicken curry; the too-salty Chinese-style fried noodles with shrimp, pork belly and greens; and the Vietnamese espresso jello that barely tasted of espresso. And there are just too many fried eggs on top of things.

I want to like Street a lot, and if I lived or worked in that neighborhood and had a well-fed Visa card, I’d go more often. But I live and work near a seemingly limitless number of good, cheap Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Korean, Mexican and Central American restaurants, so I can’t say I’ll be rushing back to Highland and Melrose soon.

Street, 742 N. Highland Ave., Beverly/Third, 323.203.0500. L & D daily. International. Beer & wine. AE, MC, V. $$ – $$$$  eatatstreet.com

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