The food in Bender is Moldovan home cooking with a strong Russian and Ukrainian inflection: mămăligă (polenta) with cheese and sour cream, plăcinte (stuffed flatbreads), borsch, grilled river fish, and pelmeni. The choice of sit-down restaurants is modest — a handful of places in the centre and along the river — but lunch is cheap by Western standards and the food is generally fresh and unpretentious.
The simplest plan is to combine a visit with lunch in Tiraspol, where the choice is wider. In Bender itself, look for one of the central market stalls selling plăcinte from a domestic stove, or one of the cafés near the cathedral for a sit-down meal of borsch and grilled meat. Cash in Transnistrian roubles is essential; foreign cards are not accepted.