Sidney Street Cafe offers a melting pot of New American cuisine with the chef blending in New Mexican and French training.  Since 2003 it has been located in a century old storefront in the Benton Park neighborhood.  The lights are very low, music is in the background, brick makes up the walls, an old wood floor and a high wood ceiling are all parts of the semi-elegant setting.  Mirrors on the walls add a feeling of space but there is lots of room between the good-sized tables.  There were several rooms for dining but ours had an enormous wood chandelier that was quite striking.  One room has the antique bar.  Overall the lighting was biggest problem with the place cause it make photos hard, especially since I refuse to use a flash.  Appetizers were offered through a chalkboard on the table and the small menu was printed in a really tiny font but is online to study beforehand.  Entrees come with either soup or salad.

Building

 

Food

We ordered 2 of their appetizers.  Lobster Turnovers were lobster wrapped in “fillo” with tomato brandy cream.   They were elegant and tasty with a great sauce to compliment the delicious filling and crisp rich phyllo dough.  Two thumbs up.

Veal Dumplings were in a cilantro salsa with a teriyaki and honey glaze.  The delicate pastry on the outside held tender, flavor filled veal filling topped with sweet sticky sauce.  Bits of mushroom were on top of the salsa made from shiitake and tomato.  The glaze was great as were the dumplings beneath it. Yummy.

 

Bread was made with non-sweetened beignet dough and served with sweet creamed butter.  The nice soft interior had a very slight crisp on the outside.  They also had a bit of fryer-oil taste which was well covered by adding the lovely butter.

 

Each entree came with a soup or salad.  So we had one of each.  The salad was a combination of greens and watermelon radish.  It had a very tasty dressing and was good for a complimentary salad.

 

The soup was a Thai coconut cream soup.  It was smooth and topped with chopped peanuts.  It was nicely spicy with good flavor of coconut, lemongrass and curry.  It was very good, not at all a throwaway.

 

We split an order of the Agnolotti made with hazelnut and chanterelles.  They were terrific, tender packages filled with flavor in a wonderful sauce.   A topping of nuts added texture and blended well with the lovely strong flavors.  A winner.

 

Beef Cheeks were plated with mashed celery root, braised carrots and pan jus.  They were really tender with a little of the sauce on top of the meat as well as the celery root.  They could have benefitted from a bit more of the sauce, as it was a generous pile of beef.  The small young carrots were tasty and quite fresh.  It was a good plate.

 

Scallops came 3 to an order and were barely cooked in a lovely gingery sauce of lobster foam.  The sauce made up most of the flavor on the plate.  It was good but unbalanced.

 

We split a side of the Hasselback Potato which came in 2 pieces.  They were not the crispy thin sliced things I expected but rather the thin slices were covered with cheese and scallions.  They were like mini-stuffed baked potatoes covered with cheese fondue.  They were great and possibly the best part of the entree course.

 

For dessert we chose to split the White Chocolate Turtle Blondie.  The brownie was topped with pecan brittle and was served aside vanilla bean ice cream.  The bar was moist and sweet, as it was also topped with melted white chocolate chips.  It was really sweet and chewy and came in 2 large pieces that made it really easy to split.  It was a good sweet fix with a side of overkill.