ne of the hottest new dining trends has come to Greater New haven disguised in an old barbecue rib joint on a street populated with fast food and pizza places. And we mean hot in both senses of the word.

A spicy cross between Indian, Chinese and Thai food is on the menu at the newly opened Bentara, Connecticut's first Malaysian restaurant.

Chris Yeo, author of "The Cooking of Singapore" (Harlow & Ratner, $24.95) and chef at the acclaimed Straits Cafe in San Francisco, says Bentara is one of only a handful of Malaysian restaurants in the country, and the only one he's heard of outside of a major metropolitan city.

Malaysian cuisine is among the lesser known and more cutting edge of a group of Southeast Asian cuin=sines that is "very much in vogue right now," says Gwenda L Hyman, author of "Cuisines of Southeast Asia" (John Wiley & Sons, $14.95)

"Thai came first," said Yeo. "It made some of these ingredients more acceptable to the American palate. But now maybe they're tired of Thai and ready for something else.

"That something else borrows the wok from the China, rich sauces from India and lemongrass and other flavoring from Thailand.

" Or it might be that the Thai copied us," Bentara chef Hasni "Jeff" Ghazali, 30, says with a smile.

In any case, it's the way all these things are put together and cooked - slowly - that gives Malaysian cooking its full body and pungent flavor.

In fact, it takes Ghazali almost an hour to make his specialty, kerutuk, an entree featuring beef or chicken cooked with fennel seed, cardamom, cinnamon, chilies and coconut milk.

Ethel Kanter, a Bentara customer and chicken kerutuk fan from Hamden, says it's well worth the wait.

"They take ordinary chicken and turn it into ... such an interesting combination of flavors ...," said Kanter, who first went with a friend who wanted to know how "adventerous" she was. Now, she says, "I think it's one of the best ethnic restaurant in the area."

Other popular Bentara dishes include Chinese style stir-fried egg noodles with meat and vegetables; roti, a bread appetizer similar to Indian nan; a Thai-like hot and sour shrimp soup; and a tumeric, coconut and lime-based barbecue chicken dish so regional in ori-

chovies.

Ghazali says he learned how to make all these things from his mother, who runs a restaurant in Northeast Malaysia.

Ghazali came to the U.S. to study computer science at Nebraska Wesleyan University and became a most popular man at campus parties with his satay, a marinated and grilled chicken dish served on a skewer and eaten with a coconut-peanut dipping sauce.

Ghazali said he moved to Connecticut to be near college friends and opened Bentara this spring at their urging.

As for the Foxon Road location and few-frills decor, Ghazali said the price was right and, being uncertain of business, he and his partner didn't wanted to be working under the financial burden of a huge rent.

He said traffic has been much better than he expected, and was "actually too much" the weekend after the restaurant

was first reviewed.

"That day weran out fo chicken and beef. I feel that we didn't give very good service and I feel uneasy about that, especially considering that the name (Bentara) is the title of a king's servant and so means that we will take care of everything you need."

Ghazali took the name - if not his style of serving - from his mother's restaurant.

Food there is served buffet style; people eat most dishes with their right hands; knives are banned as a safety precaution for children.

Most important, Ghazali stays true to his mother's recipes.

He learned that lesson the hard way.

"Somebody came in here saying the curry was too hot. So I decided to make it a little differently.

"Then another group came in and asked, "Do you have a

gin that Ghazali says "even some of Malaysian friends aren't familiar with it."

Ghazali has been most surprised by the demand for a rice dish called nasi lemak, given that a main ingredient is hot, chili-enchanted dried an-

different chef? Because the curry doesn't taste the same."

"Now I know not to change it." he said