When we walked into the new Turkish restaurant on Berkeley’s Fourth Street, more than half of the tables sat empty. But without a reservation, even on a sleepy weeknight, they weren’t seating customers inside or outside on the inviting and newly reconfigured patio. The more one knows! We hopped back in the car and crossed town to land on Piedmont where parking at the MacArthur end of the avenue was a situation. At doña, diners not only packed the restaurant but formed a line out the door. Was the new negroni cocktail the big draw that night?
The relocation of Tiyo Shibabaw’s Teni East Kitchen—formerly at 4015 Broadway—operates out of the same building as doña, but tucked away under an awning. Mica Talmor’s Middle Eastern restaurant Pomella used to run there as an al fresco cafe with efficient to-go containers for meal delivery. Shibabaw completely reimagined the space. A spacious dining room replaced the interior prep areas and countertops. I’ve been missing Pomella’s hummus since Talmor closed her restaurant last year, but the Teni kitchen makes for an ideal successor. The chefs there make impeccable plates of food.
Satisfying the significant absence of lettuce in my life of late, the pea-shoot salad ($16) contained many remarkable flavors and textures. Nuts, seeds and cabbage supplement the delicate pea shoots. But the combination of fish sauce and a roasted chickpea flour dressing made the salad ingredients cohere into a light and refreshing dish. The dressing in particular provided an unexpected creaminess, closer to chevre or a crumbly feta. I really liked the additional hit of tang and spice from the fish sauce, but it can be omitted to make the salad vegan-friendly.
The Teni kitchen treats vegetables with as much care and attention that most other restaurants give to proteins. There’s a coconut vegetable curry, chickpea tofu and cauliflower with sweet corn. We both homed in on the baby bok choy with baby bella mushrooms ($18). I can be a purist when it comes to bok choy. I stir fry them on their own with garlic, pepper and soy sauce. But the leafy crunch wasn’t diminished or dampened down by the quantity of earthy mushrooms. The combination was enhanced by a dark, rich gravy. I especially loved the savory vegetables when I paired them with a forkful of slightly sweetened coconut rice ($5).
Roti is a signature dish at both Teni’s and Shibabaw’s more casual Aman Cafe. When the cafe opened in 2021, I tried savory and sweet versions of them. Aman specializes in roti because, as she told me at the time, “Everyone at Teni East orders roti.”
Shibabaw worked at Burma Superstar for a decade before she opened Teni’s original location on Broadway. “I wanted to mix herbs and spices from Southeast Asia with California greens, and make it a bit more fresh and bright,” she said. “That’s what Teni East Kitchen is.”
Our plate of Teni spicy noodles with chicken ($23) arrived with a small-but-noticeable dollop of chili sauce on top. Once distributed evenly amongst the noodles it simply added a pleasant kick to the creamy yellow sauce coating the noodles. We both ordered a sparkling cooler, tamarind and calamansi ($7 each). Those helped cool off the chili-est bites. My calamansi citrus drink tasted like a healthy version of a soft drink, but that might have been wishful thinking. The chicken itself was perfectly prepared, in a way I’ve never been able to achieve at home. Southeast Asian restaurants in particular use a method to sauté chicken until the texture mimics the quality of a tender poaching.
Dessert wasn’t an afterthought. From a list that included mango sorbet, pistachio ice cream and roti served with ube and coconut ice cream, we ordered a gluten-free orange saffron almond cake ($14). Plated with thin slices of strawberry and a quenelle of coconut ice cream, the cake complemented the meal in a way that a slice of chocolate cake could not. The infusion of orange and saffron subtly complemented, rather than jarred against, the taste of coconut.
Teni East Kitchen, 3770 Piedmont Ave., Unit B, Oakland. Open every day for lunch and dinner. tenieastkitchen.com
