Eli's on the Hill

Eli’s on the Hill is a new restaurant in Branford, CT and is the sister restaurant of Eli’s on Whitney in Hamden.  When I first walked in my attention was drawn to the bar area.  The bar was large and surrounded by bistro tables and stools.  There were more LCD televisions than I could count both on the inside and outside of the soffit above the bar.  At first I thought this was going to be another typical sports bar wanna-be.  Once we were seated I glanced at the menu.  The choices were astounding.  The appetizers seemed to be your typical pub variety, but the dinner choices ranged from burgers to gourmet pasta dishes and more.  

We started with the loaded nachos.  A heaping pile of tortilla chips topped with cheese, tomatoes, beef chili, scallions and jalapenos.  The cheese was thoroughly melted and the chips were crispy and not too salty.  The chili seemed to be made in house, but I’m sure the chips were not.  I do have to mention that this appetizer took a long time to come out.  However, the restaurant it new and I will chalk that up to the staff still getting used their new digs.  My pint glass was kept full which in turn kept me a bit happier.

My main course was the Chicken Eli, listed on the menu as chicken breasts marinated in a light white wine sauce accompanied by cherry peppers, sweet bell peppers and potato hearts.  When it arrived, I was amazed at the size of the portion.  I ended up getting three meals out of it.  There were four large pieces of chicken breast swimming in the mix of peppers and white wine sauce.  The potato hearts were russet potatoes shaved down a smaller size and sliced in half.  The entire dish was overcooked but the flavor was all there.  The potatoes fell apart, the peppers were soggy with absolutely no crunch and the chick was a bit dry.  On the other hand the sauce was nicely assembled with just the right amount of hot cherry peppers and sweet bell peppers.  I enjoyed the kick that the cherry peppers added throughout the entire dish.  Then there was the garlic.  I’m Italian and I love garlic.  With the amount of garlic that was in this dish it should have been listed in as one of the main ingredients.  Large half cloves of garlic appeared on almost ever fork full I ate.  After the first few enjoyable bites, the garlic started to overpower the flavor of the pepper wine sauce and the dish quickly turned to garlic chicken in a white wine sauce.

The menu options all sounded good and there are several other dishes that I would like to try.  Most likely I will return to Eli’s on the Hill and try a different menu option.  Hopefully by then the cooks are used to the new menu, the wait staff is a bit more trained, and they run out of garlic.