by FRAN SIKORSKI
Sarabande American Bistro
12 Unquowa Place
Fairfield, 203-259-8084
Serving lunch 11:30 to 2, Tuesday to Friday; dinner starting at 5:30, Monday to Saturday; closed Sunday and Monday for private functions; open Mother’s Day, May 11, from 1 to 8.
Reservations accepted; handicapped accessible; major credit cards; full bar with wines; American Bistro with a northern California slant; vegetarian selections; dietary restrictions honored; take-out; off-premises catering; casual dress; wine dinners; private functions; seasonal outdoor dining; lot and street parking adjacent to the restaurant.
Soup: $4 to $11.95
Starters: $6 to $14.95
Salads: $6.95 to $22
Pizzas: $8.50 to $12.95
Panini: $7.95 to $14.95
Omelets: $8.95
Entrees: $12.95 to $29.95
Wine by the glass: $7 to $10
By the bottle: $25 to $13
Desserts: $6 to $8
After-dinner drinks: $8 to $15
Located “slightly” off Route 1 in a freestanding yellow clapboard building in Fairfield Center, Saranbande American Bistro, owned by Phyllis Bodek, a CIA graduate, is that kind of little place that easily entices you inside to explore a new dining experience.
The dining room, with art by the owner’s mother, Marilyn Bodek, is light and airy, and a flower-fragrant deck is now enticing patrons to dine outdoors.
Sarabande owner/chef for six years, Phyllis Bodek is assisted by sous chef Manuel Lima, originally from Ecuador. She favors local produce from a farm in Easton during the summer and selects it herself. The California fusion slant in cooking is derived from Chef Bodek’s time there.
To celebrate spring 2008, Chef Bodek designed a three-course dinner menu available Monday through Friday evenings for $20.08, and it has taken off so well that the special will continue indefinitely, with the menu revised every week.
The current menu includes New England clam chowder or wild mushroom soup, and field greens salad as starters. Entrees are mussels and shrimp over spaghetti; blackened tuna with roasted corn salsa and chive-mashed potatoes; burger with grilled Portobello mushrooms and caramelized onions served open-faced with hand-cut fries and housemade slaw; and penne with chicken, artichokes, sun-dried tomatoes, fresh basil, garlic, and creamy gorgonzola with chardonnay.
Dessert choices are chocolate espresso cake, apple crumble or biscotti. Breads, a denser variety similar to ciabatta, are housemde and served with herb and garlic-laced extra virgin olive oil.
My companion and I sampled several of our own favorites, curried butternut squash soup, roasted beet salad with goat cheese fritters, field greens and citrus vinaigrette. We shared a delicious chicken pizza with caramelized onions, Asiago and Gorgonzola cheeses, topped with field greens salad with Dijon balsamic vinaigrette.
Other popular starters offered are coconut milk-marinated deep fried shrimp in wontons with carrot-ginger-jicama slaw and a sesame-almond-soy dipping sauce; crispy calamari over arugula with putanesca and creamy caper tartar sauce; and sesame-anise-crusted seared rare tuna with Asian relish.
A variety of omelets, sandwiches, and specialty salads with a cup of soup are available on the lunch menu. Entrees are fish & chips (tilapia) with creamy caper tartar sauce, Sarabande potatoes and jicama slaw; angelhair pasta with beef and sausage ragu, topped with Asiago and a drizzle of béchamel.
Dinner entrees, generous portions with fresh vegetables, are rum-and-soy-painted salmon with field greens and avocado, citrus vinaigrette and goat cheese polenta; grilled New York strip steak with cabernet demiglace, sautéed spinach, frizzled onions and chive-mashed potatoes; and ginger free range chicken with mushrooms, shallots, hand-cut fries and arugula salad.
Ms. Bodek, also the pastry chef, recommends flan Argentine-style with dulce de leche as a light dessert.
We were also pleased with the wines recommended by manager Rudolfo Rodriguez: a 2006 Malbec from Argentina and a 2005 Rock & Vine cabernet sauvignon by Three Ranches in Napa Valley.
Side Dishes
La Taverna Restaurant, 130 New Canaan Avenue, Norwalk, owned by Maya Gui and her sons, Chef Greg Herman and Brian Herman, is celebrating its 12th anniversary. It’s among 1,000 Italian restaurants nationwide recommended by Zagat. A new business lunch includes soup or salad, chicken or pasta, and a glass of wine for $18. Reservations, 203-849-8879...Reservations, 203-256-5744, are being accepted for a three-course prix fixe Mother’s Day dinner at Fraiche, 75 Hillside Road in Greenfield Hill, Fairfield.
© Copyright 2008 by Hersam Acorn Newspapers
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