Hamden Restaurant Week 2—Eli’s On Whitney

As a Hamden Restaurant Week organizer, I feel like a proud papa seeing generous and intriguing prix-fixe menus developed by the participating restaurants and enthusiastic crowds responding to them. Restaurant Weeks are all about offering excitement and value, so people will break from their routines and try something different. The only thing I ask of members of the dining public is that they exercise a little patience as restaurants handle an unusually large customer load.

One establishment offering an impressive Restaurant Week selection is Eli’s On Whitney, already a Hamden favorite.

Located at the corner of Whitney Avenue and School Street

across from younger sibling Eli’s Brick Oven Pizza & Market, the restaurant has long offered the unusual combination of sports bar atmosphere and contemporary dining. I have caught my share of NFL and Michigan football (Go Wolverines!) games at the bar.

I have also supped in the dining room at least a dozen times.

My lunch companion was fellow Hamden Restaurant Week organizer Julie Smith, a go-to person for the Town of Hamden with the unwieldy title of Deputy Chief Administrative Officer & Help Desk Manager.

Our waitress, Kristin,

took great care of us throughout our lunch, even as Eli’s dining room gradually filled. She started us with good bread with a slightly salty crust that played beautifully off good green olive oil.

It wasn’t easy to decide what to order. Eli’s really pulled out all of the stops with this menu. Seafood lovers, carnivores and vegetarians all had reason to be pleased.

And dinner? Good gracious! A part of me wished I weren’t fully booked for the week with Restaurant Week visits, because I would have loved to try the New York strip au poivre with broccoli rabe, the Kobe beef burger with smoked bacon, peppercorn aïoli and Cheddar on brioche, and the braised short ribs in a red wine reduction with mashed potatoes and vegetables. Obviously, Eli’s wasn’t holding anything back.

But the lunch offerings were plenty tempting. Here are the starters we didn’t get to try: French onion soup, butternut squash bisque, spinach dip with goat cheese, Cajun buffalo chicken wings, fried Mozzarella Siciliano with hot and sweet peppers in a demi-glace, and Caprese salad with fresh Mozzarella, tomato and basil.

And here are the starters we did: My health-conscious companion ordered the small signature salad with mesclun greens, Craisins, Gorgonzola, apple and candied walnut in a balsamic vinaigrette. Small? Who were they kidding?

A beautifully balanced offering, Julie frequently makes a full lunch of this salad by adding chicken to it. I couldn’t resist a bowl of lobster bisque. It was a thick, ’70s-style version with a nice balance of flavor and plenty of lobster.

We also tried Asian-style fried calamari with a sweet chili sauce. The serving size was generous, the rings and tentacles perfectly prepared, the sauce ideal accompaniment. We loved the stylist conceit of serving the calamari spilling from a to-go box.

There was plenty of choice among the lunch entrées as well. We didn’t get to try the short rib grilled cheese on raisin bread, penne vodka, blackened chicken Alfredo, Brown Derby cobb salad, or Santa Fe chicken with mushroom, olive, sun-dried tomato and penne pasta tossed in a Marsala wine sauce.

Here’s what we did try: tasty Kobe beef sliders with great double cooked fries cleverly presented in a Fryolator basket,

rich seafood-stuffed sole in a lobster cream sauce,

and delightful butternut squash ravioli in a sage brown butter sauce.

Three desserts were offered. We avoided the Reese’s sundae peanut butter cookie with peanut butter ice cream due to my daughter’s (thankfully mild) peanut allergy. We ordered instead a white chocolate and lemon mousse

and a chocolate lava cake served with vanilla ice cream.

All in all, it was a great lunch. I want to congratulate Eli’s On Whitney and its general manager Kevin Fitzsimmons

for offering such a wide-ranging and creative selection of food and for not shrinking their portions in the least. Kudos for a job really well done!

Eli’s On Whitney, 2392 Whitney Avenue, Hamden, 203-287-1101
www.elisonwhitney.com