My fifth New Haven Restaurant Week dinner brought me to Bentara in the Ninth Square neighborhood.
Bentara’s 15th Anniversary, which was looming on April 29th (and which we’ll have further coverage of), was being promoted in the restaurant’s window.
Also posted was an advertisement for the new Bentara Malaysian Cookbook.
Of Connecticut’s upscale restaurants, Bentara is one of the most exotic. And of Connecticut’s exotic restaurants, Bentara is one of the most upscale. The intersection of these key traits produces a stylish décor and urbane ambiance,
a menu that tantalizes and even educates (with treats like this cendol shaved ice dessert),
and plenty of richly deserved accolades.
Let’s begin with a tour of the restaurant. To the left of the hostess station
is the front bar area
and accompanying lounge space.
There’s also a large dining area toward the rear of the restaurant called the Equinox Room,
and even farther back, the Equinox Bar,
which includes this inviting lounge space.
But it’s the main dining areas that really grab me. I like the shared sense of pleasure that comes from a room full of people who are really enthused about where they are and what they’re eating.
And I love details like these striking figures
and the shadow puppets that obscure the entrance to the kitchen.
Bentara has long featured one of Connecticut’s best wine lists, and by “best” I mean most varied, knowledgeable, well put together and reasonably priced. If a better one can be found in the Nutmeg State, it’s probably just down the street at sibling restaurant, Central Steakhouse (which I visited during the previous New Haven Restaurant Week). My dining companion was Angelo Marini, who owns popular Sal e Pepe, a contemporary Italian bistro on Route 25 in Newtown that’s especially known for its fresh housemade pastas.
Angelo selected an intense, spicy 2007 Tenuta Sant’ Antonio “Nanfrè,” Valpolicella, Italy made of 70% Corvina and 30% Rondinella hand-picked grapes.
Bentara featured one of the more extensive Restaurant Week menus. There were six appetizer choices, including two we didn’t get to try—a roti murtabak (unleavened griddle bread stuffed with a mixture of ground beef, egg and Malaysian spices and served with a curry lentil sauce) and a house salad (mesclun greens with crumbled blue cheese, spicy peanuts and vinaigrette of balsamic vinegar, honey, lime juice, soy sauce and sesame oil). But four of six is pretty good.
Bentara’s popia (crispy vegetable spring rolls served with a sweet hot chili sauce) have been a personal favorite for many years.
So, too, its satay. The beautifully marinated and grilled strips of beef or chicken and their complex coconut peanut sauce are a world apart (literally) from the sanitized renditions that populate casual restaurants.
A calamari salad with cucumber, tomato and red onion was buoyed by a sweet and peppery lime juice dressing.
And delightfully light shrimp, scallion and bean sprout fritters were served with a sweet and hot peanut sauce.
There were seven entrée choices, of which we tried four. The three we didn’t get to try were the kari (beef, chicken or tofu with vegetables in a coconut curry sauce), the curry-blackened salmon or chicken, and the goreng pedas (beef, chicken, tofu, calamari or shrimp sautéed with onion, Asian long bean, hot chilies, shrimp paste, tamarind juice and tomato sauce), all of which sounded terrific.
But the four main dishes we did try were so good we had zero regrets. An old favorite, barbecued salmon was slathered with a delicious housemade coconut, turmeric and lime BBQ sauce, steamed baby bok choy and grilled tomatoes.
Goreng kicap, which means “two soys,” featured beef, tofu, or in our case, chicken that was wok-fried in two different soy sauces, one sweet and one salty, and then served with slivered onion, broccoli, green pepper and Asian long bean.
Bentara’s petite filet mignon was served in a Cabernet reduction with portobello mushroom, baby bok choy, lemon garlic baby potatoes and a salad basket.
But my favorite entrée might have been the Kelantanese kerutuk, a lively but soothing sauce of coconut milk, coriander, fennel seed, cinnamon, cardamom, star anise and chilies served with baby potatoes. I normally elect to have this sauce with beef or chicken but this time I tried it with tofu. And I absolutely loved the tofu kerutuk!
Even Bentara’s rice is exceptional, a mix of jasmine and long-grain rice.
We didn’t really have room for dessert, but we were mindful of our responsibility to readers and manned up. Essentially a banana split, grilled banana was served in its skin and topped with ice cream, raspberry sauce, caramel sauce, chocolate sauce and spicy peanuts.
Fried banana, of course, was missing its skin, wrapped in a spring roll shell, deep-fried and then served with vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce and caramel sauce.
In my wife’s homeland, the Philippines, this dish (called turon) would typically be served with just a little honey or sugar for dipping the hot sections of spring roll.
A chocolate molten cake was dressed up with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce.
But our favorite dessert was the cendol pictured at the start of this article. Shaved ice desserts are popular throughout Southeast Asia, undoubtedly due to the region’s high heat and humidity. (The Philippine version is called halo-halo, or mix-mix, and whole shops with dozens of possible ingredients are devoted to it.) Bentara’s cendol featured shaved ice, coconut milk, rice flour noodles and brown sugar syrup.
Although I have probably tried Bentara’s entire menu at one point or another, my favorite meal was always to bring a friend and share the spring rolls, the barbecued salmon and the petite filet mignon, washing it all down with a couple of Singha beers. Or substitute a tofu kerutuk. Just a recommendation.
Finally, I would like to ask some of Bentara’s key figures to take a figurative bow. Kudos to our attentive waiter, Sham,
to beloved manager Jackie,
to affable co-owner Bill Christian,
and most of all, to supremely talented chef-owner Jeff “Hasni” Ghazali.
Bentara, 76 Orange Street, New Haven, 203-562-2511