Siti in East Austin Takes Asian Street Food and Makes It a Modern Marvel

Eater

3 days ago

A specific hunger pang made chef Laila Bazahm take the menu at Siti, her second Austin restaurant, in the direction of Singaporean dishes. 'It is a modern Southeast Asian restaurant based on dishes I craved from Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines,' she says of Siti, set in the Frances Modern Inn, a small hotel that's tucked away off East 11th Street, near Nickel City.
Bazham began her culinary career in Singapore, at the now-closed Joël Robuchon, and would go to the Singaporean hawkers market to eat regularly. 'I love laksa, and I would regularly go to 328 Katong Laksa. They had the best laksa in Singapore; you could get a big bowl for like $3,' she says. When she couldn't find a similar noodle soup — typically made of coconut milk broth with dried prawns, fish cakes, and bean sprouts — paired with an inability to find a similar dish in Austin, Bazahm perfected a recipe just for herself. But that made her start to think: Should I open a restaurant that serves laksa? What would that look like, and what else would it serve? Her interpretation at Siti involves scallops, which she notes that hawker stalls would never serve in the dish, and Gulf shrimp in a broth that takes six to eight hours to prepare.
Laksa the Siti way. Mackenzie Smith
Bazahm was born and raised in the Philippines, which is another important influence on Siti. 'We pay homage to the women in Southeast Asia. The grandmothers — especially mine — my mom, my aunts,' she says of Siti, the Malaysian word for 'lady.' 'I grew up cooking with all of them and it is where I developed my love for it.'
Siti strives to recreate their cooking techniques with a modern, elevated style. Bazahm laughingly recalls going into the kitchen with her mother after attending culinary school and working at Joël Robuchon, and finding herself correcting how her mother cooked. 'She just looked at me and then said, 'I don't want to do this with you because you're not fun anymore,'' Bazahm recalls. 'That's when it hit me. She's been doing this for years, and she is the best cook ever. I got caught up in the Western techniques that I'd just learned.' With Siti, the techniques and preferences of the aunties and the hawker stalls are at the forefront of Bazahm's mind.
Hiramasa crudo with tom kha broth. Mackenzie Smith
The menu's hiramasa (yellowtail amberjack) dish, served with tom kha broth, is one of Bazahm's favorites on the menu. 'I love tom kha, and every time I go to a Thai restaurant, I order it,' she says. 'I was thinking, 'How can I present that differently?'' The crudo dish gets served in the broth with lime, kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass, and galangal (a spice in the ginger family) that she describes as 'earth-forward and refreshing.' Bazahm serves tom kha ice cream with calamansi (a lime from the Philippines) and sudachi (a small Japanese citrus fruit) and yuzu curd, that is finished with peanuts and candied ginger, developed by chef Greg Maze from Merry Monarch Creamery.
There is also Singapore chili crab, which Bazahm is presenting as a lobster dish, using a whole lobster and mantou buns (a Chinese steamed bun). And there are satays made with chicken, beef short rib, and local mushrooms and eggplant, all cooked in her Mibrasa oven from Spain. All of Bazahm's spices, including the chile in that lobster dish, are made in-house, from scratch. 'Even my Srirarcha, I make in-house. It's all cooked here, made here, and prepped with a lot of care,' she says.
Chef Laila Bazahm Mackenzie Smith
Bazahm was initially looking at another location, before the owner of the Frances Modern reached out after hearing about what she wanted to do. Siti takes up the entire lower floor of the 15-room Inn, like taking a trip to Bali, she says. It has a lanai (that will include AC once a permit comes through) overlooking a backyard garden. Bazahm describes the decor as Asian colonial style, evoking the Singaporean shop houses, which typically feature ground-floor shops and homes on the second floor. The team installed wooden shutters, which are ubiquitous in Singapore, and artwork and decorative details that touch on Asian themes.
Siti is open now at 1123 East 11th Street, inside the Frances Modern Inn. Reservations are recommended and can be made on OpenTable.