Street Chow

• Picoas (Linha Amarela)
• €€
• R. Tomás Ribeiro 20, 1050-229

Anyone who has had the full privilege of visiting the vast array of Asian nations whose cuisine now rules the world, will be more than familiar with the concept of street food. Indeed, for your author, this particular approach to curb-side dining saw them consume a rat impaled on a skewer and chargrilled as they fell out of a Kuala Lumpur night-club one morning during a more impetuous youth. Chilli, as I'm sure you're wondering. It tasted of nothing more than the reservoir of chilli sauce I slathered it in.

Nonetheless, so popular is the concept of 'street food', that back here in Europe, proprietors of everything from Indian to Indonesian, have long served "street" sized portions at capital city prices as every day punters fell over themselves for that "authentic" experience that few could identify as authentic. But we shouldn't let the machinations of capitalism detract from the objective truth that Asian food, everything from Black to Bering Sea, constitutes all of the worlds best umami. This simple truth is enough to make you want to head straight to Street Chow.

Despite being a restaurant, Street Chow stays true to the street food concept by actually offering a wide array of delights inspired from Thailand, Malaysia, Korea and China. Having debated if we should just order all 6 of the small bite options, we settled for the chicken double of satay skewers and crispy 'Gangnam' chicken.

You would have thought that peanut dipping sauce was a fairly standard execution. Street Chow blows your minds by having mixed massaman curry spices through it. It was clean the dipping bowl with your fingers delicious. Meanwhile the gangnam chicken clearly utilised the ever brilliant fermented chilli of Gochujang, yet I felt it could've packed more of a kick, although this shouldn't be seen too much as a negative. The Portuguese fear of spicy is legendary.

Moving onto the reason we didn't get 6 starters, the main dishes. For one, a classic prawn pad thai. This was a faultless dish, with the fish sauce really shining as a salty blast over the noodles. The second dish being a wonderful fusion of Asia and Portugal, a wok full of noodles with leitão as the protein. The use of the barbecued piglet meant the the rendered fat gave such an awesome silkiness to whole dish the chef could easily diversify into formal suit accessories.

Just because the phrase Street Food has been abused to the point of no meaning does not mean that it still can't be enjoyed when there's a strong commitment to the flavours of a dish's origin. Street Chow will serve up all manner of treats depending on your favourite flavours. It's certainly a great choice for central Lisbon.

Don't forget to order: Leitão noodles really is a cunning plan

Drinks: Couple of glasses of wine, a beer and a coffee.