Montenia’s Restaurant
137 State St., Springfield, 413-739-9656
Mon.-Fri. Lunch 11 p.m. to 3 p.m.
Tues.-Sat. Dinner 5 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Entrées $14 to $17.50.
There is a blues singer cooking soul food on State Street in Springfield. On Saturday nights she leaves the kitchen to belt out a few tunes. This is Montenia.
At Montenia’s there is no menu. The cooking and singing proprietor knows what she has and she knows what you like. A nice, predictable, safe environment is what most of us expect when shelling out for a night out on the town, but for some, safe gets a little boring.
The night we visited Montenia’s we were greeted by a young woman who showed us to our table. Terrance, Montenia’s nephew, was playing “Girl from Ipanema” at a baby grand. He nodded to us. A hockey game started up across the street at the Mass Mutual Center; while we dined, the Springfield Falcons fought a losing battle to the San Antonio Rampage, but, under the spell of the restaurant’s owner, we were blissfully unaware of that.
We were told to wait before ordering because our waitress was too young to take drink orders. Montenia, of regal bearing and very beautiful, appeared from the kitchen smiling. “I’m Montenia. Hello,” she said when she reached us, lifting a strand of hair off her brow. “Tonight we’ve got half a rack of ribs, falls off the bone. We’ve got catfish, nine ounces, nice big piece, with beans and rice. We’ve got a nice red snapper and gumbo with shrimp, scallops, crawfish and I forget what else… oh, okra.”
We deliberated. A friend, known for a propensity for handwashing, asked Montenia if she had to eat the ribs with her hands. “Girl, don’t worry about picking up those ribs,” she said. “That meat will fall right off the bone. It’s melt-in-you-mouth. This is no five-star restaurant. We keep it real here.”
After we ordered beers, a glass of wine and three meals, Montenia went off to cook the food and “T” played on. We waited a bit and there was no bread or salad, just a lot of banter around the restaurant. We didn’t quite know what to expect and we had no idea what anything cost. When Montenia brought the catfish, gumbo and ribs from the kitchen, she wiggled her hands and said, “I can cook and I can sing but I don’t type, so eat up.”
We soon fell into the silence that accompanies satisfaction. The gumbo was a pretty pink stew of fleshy fish, shrimp, scallops and crawfish as well as generous slices of andouille sausage and some okra here and there. Because the fish was so fresh and the broth hinted at saffron, the dish was light and delicious. This simple bowl of gumbo was more than sufficient: it was succulent.
Dusted in corn meal and heat-giving spices, the catfish was large, as promised. The inside was moist and fleshy and the outside nice and crunchy. This dish came with rice and some greens. The ribs, served with green beans and fingerling potatoes, were indeed falling off the rack due to a long cooking time. The meat was meltingly tender and, again, the portion was quite large.
After dinner we ordered the dessert, a rich, gooey chocolate chip pecan pie. Montenia came out in a pair of black slingbacks and headed for the piano. “Hey, T,” she said. “Do that one, you know that one, baby. Okay, here we go….” Terrance began to play as Montenia sang, “The music is the magic of the secret world, through the raging storm…” and then she sang another jazz song. Finally she and “T” finished with a blues number and a duet that took on a life of its own. When the music was over and it was time to leave, all our cravings were satisfied, even the ones we didn’t know we had.
