May 11, 2013 Lunch – Second Street Brewery at the Railyard, Dinner- Street Food Asia

May 11, 2013 Lunch – Second Street Brewery at the Railyard, Dinner- Street Food Asia

We had been to Stephen's the week before and saw that there were several items we were interested in. Saturday was Stephen’s big Mother’s Day weekend Sale when everything is at least 30% off, so we decided to go to the sale.  We arrived at around 9:30 am and it was already crowded.  I immediately went to the piece I wanted, an Agnes Sims watercolor named “Prayer Sticks” and picked it up. 

Then I followed Suzette to the back yard where we found an unusual table with a steel top that was formed into the shape of a tablecloth draped over a table.  Suzette bought a jardineire that she wanted to use to hold her lingam stone from India and finally she picked the small hand blown Holmgaard crystal vase we had previously admired.  We were ecstatic that we had gotten all the things we had wanted and found a new wonderful table for another seating area in our back yard.

We then went to David Richard Gallery to see its new exhibit of Richard Anuzkiewicz and works by some of the artists showing at the Dynamos in Paris Exhibition currently.   We loved the exhibit but was after 1:00 pm and we were getting thirsty so we went out the back door to the Second Street Brewery at the Railyard, which is just a few steps from the gallery.  I ordered an apple cider and Suzette ordered an ale, when we saw on the board that one of the daily special was steamed mussels, so we ordered that also.

Shortly after our drinks were served the waiter brought a large bowl with about 2 to three dozen large mussels garnished with diced fried bacon and a Dijon mustard sauce with a slice of French bread that had been grilled.  We loved the mussels, but found that the Dijon mustard and bacon did not complement the mussels.  It was like two different dishes served together in one bowl, so we enjoyed eating the mussels and then ate the bacon in mustard sauce on the grilled French bread.

After our big lunch, we went home and shortly after we arrived I received a telephone call from Robert Mueller asking if we wanted to go to Street Food Asia for dinner.  We said yes, because we have not been to Street Food Asia before and Robert had recommended it highly.

We decided to meet at 7:30 p.m. at the restaurant.  When we arrived the restaurant was packed.  Robert and Marilyn were seated at a table at the front with high seats, so we could see everything on the street, which felt just like a street café.   I looked at the menu for quite a while and then recalled that I had seen ads in the IQ for a Mother’s Day Special menu at Street Food Asia featuring lobster and that Robert had mentioned enjoying their lobster dishes, so I ordered di lobster with Chinese wide Fu noodles in a ginger and scallion sauce.  It became apparent to me that the menu was structured around about six types of meat, about nine types of sauces and about six types of noodles and they were mixed with a fairly standard array of Southeast Asian vegetables into a multitude of different dishes, like a Vietnamese restaurant.  Robert told me that the owner is Malaysian and Malaysian dishes were on the menu, along with Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese, Korean and Japanese.   But there was nothing like Ristafel; mostly Malay flavored satays using different ingredients. Noodle dishes seemed to dominate the menu, either in the form of cool salads or warm noodle dishes.

For example in the large salad category contains four different selections of salads and 14 different topping selections.  Suzette ordered the Saigon Street Vermicelli salad with lettuce, cucumbers, warm vermicelli noodles, a carrot and daikon relish, cilantro basil and mint an chopped peanuts on the side with a Vietnamese Vinaigrette (just like in a Vietnamese restaurant) with a topping of wonderful large triangles of deep fried tofu which also contained lots of fresh mango.  So it appears that fresh ingredients are added to give zest to the menu.

 

 

 

 

My lobster had been frozen and was probably boiled, chopped and then stir fried.  It was just okay.  Besides the deep fried tofu, which was my favorite, Marilyn and Robert ordered an order of three different dumplings including a round vegetable dumpling and several steamed dumplings that was very nice, a platter with three different meats (BBQ pork ribs, grilled thinly sliced beef and chicken wings coated with a ginger sauce).  My second favorite thing on the table were the BBQ’d pork ribs.  I could have made a dinner out of a plate of those.

We drank Chinese beers, like Buddha beer, and had a great time eating all the different foods.

After dinner, we decided to go next door to Flying Star for a pastry and a cup of tea.  Robert and I decided to order a embarrassingly large chocolate éclair.  I took more than one-half of mine home and Suzette and I ate it for breakfast Sunday morning.
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Finally at around 10:00 p.m. we went home and caught the first of Saturday Night Live.

Bon Appétit