RESTAURANT REVIEW : Red Rooster: Menu Twists the Tongue, Pleases the Palate

One night a few months ago, after eating at Zio’s in Van Nuys, a few friends and I were walking back to our cars when we stopped to read a menu posted behind glass. What we saw were a lot of words we didn’t understand: burek , ajvar , leskovacki , niski cevap , snicla , kobasice , pljeskavica .

“Polish,” suggested one companion.

“Maybe Czech,” said another.

We stepped back to read the illuminated signs. Red Rooster, said one. European cuisine, read another. We peered inside into a warm, glowing, rosy dining room. “Let’s go in and ask,” someone said.

“Yugoslavian,” said a handsome dark-haired woman. She handed us menus and gestured at the nearly empty restaurant. We explained that we’d just eaten. “Then please, just come in, come in,” said the hostess. “Have a glass of wine. We would like to give you a glass of wine--we’ve just opened.” She smiled and shook her head. “It is a long, slow process, building up a business. We had a restaurant for 10 years in Chicago. We know if we make it through the first few months, we will be fine.”

We demurred on the drink and promised to return. Outside, we paused again, this time to glimpse into the kitchen, where a small older woman presided over steaming pots and gave direction to several young men.

“Whatever’s cooking, it’s got to be authentic,” someone said. “That’s somebody’s real live mother in the kitchen.”

A month or so later, I arranged to meet some friends at the Red Rooster--friends with an adventurous eating streak. Everything looked the same as before, except for the sign. The wind had blown it down.

The dining room is indeed wonderfully appealing; there are comfortable, gray upholstered booths, warm pink walls and simple, attractive tableware. A rose blooms on each table and the walls are decorated with the most charming assemblages of old, found objects: a guitar and a violin sit amid a number of colorful felt hands; 60% of an old French horn hangs with a beret; an old baritone hangs solo, forlornly. Each display is carefully mounted and the effect is magical, talismanic, evocative: They’re like exploded diagrams of tiny European bands, without the players, or perhaps the things one would find in a small heap near a street band. Small children and adults alike will find themselves enchanted.

It seems a pity that this lovely little restaurant is nearly empty on a Friday night. Not everybody is compelled to try food they can’t pronounce, I suppose.

We do our best and, when necessary, employ the point-method of ordering. “I’ll have this,” I say and point to cevapcici . “However you pronounce it.”

Our waiter, a local fellow, couldn’t be more gracious. “Chev-aw-chi-chi,” he says. “Took me a long time to learn that one.”

After ordering, we wait to see what will materialize. The burek , it turns out, is a golden, flaky filo roll filled with deliciously seasoned meat and leeks. Ajvar , which is described as “sauteed bell pepper, eggplant, garlic and olive oil,” is a real surprise: It’s a puree--dense, earthy and spicy--and best slathered on the good French bread; we wish we’d had it with, instead of after, the slabs of Bulgarian feta cheese--the sheep cheese seemed too plain, too naked by itself. The kackavalj is a flavorful, salty goat cheese that has been breaded and fried so that it’s crispy on the outside, hot and melted within.

The Caesar salad is tangy and good, but the veal soup is extraordinary. Hearty, rich, a little creamy, flecked with bright carrots and chewy bits of tasty veal, this is the kind of soup that has put meat on the bones of children, nursed the sick into wellness, comforted the grieving, warmed the cockles of hundreds of hearts. We suspected before, but now we know: Somebody’s mother is in the kitchen.

“It is our pride,” says the owner when we compliment him on the soup. “We brought our chef from Chicago so she could make this soup for us, and her moussaka too.”

I wish I could say that the moussaka was as wonderful as the soup, but we find it a dark, dense version of the classic Greek dish, and the first moussaka we’ve met that’s served with sour cream. “It’s close,” says Ellen, “but there’s not quite enough flavor.” The sour cream does give a kind of Eastern European twist to the Mediterranean standby.

While dinner plates come with buttery, perfectly cooked vegetables, the entrees we try don’t always fulfill the promise of the appetizers. Something’s wrong here: The quality of the meats don’t fulfill the promise of the prices charged or the casually elegant decor. A chicken breast is lemony and fragrant with herbs, but a little overcooked. The grilled marinated lamb was of an unidentifiable cut, rubbery and bland, and a whopping $15. For $6 less, cevapcici proved far more engaging: 10 (10!) fat, delicious little homemade sausage links of beef, lamb and veal, fanned out over my plate. It was certainly enough meat for three hungry people. I only wished for a little sauce to dip them in, as well-cooked ground meat tends to be a little dry.

The cappuccino is excellent. The desserts renew our hope that this new little restaurant will indeed find its niche and clientele. What the waiter describes as “a sponge cake with an egg-type frosting” turns out to be a compelling, sweet yellow cake full of apricot preserves and a mysteriously good meringue topping. “You’re going to have to tell your readers that this apple strudel is one of the very best apple-baked things I’ve ever, ever had,” says John.

In fact, for a little bread and hot cheese, a bowl of heavenly soup, the best apple-baked thing a guy named John ever had and a Turkish coffee that kicks one right into turbo drive, I can’t think of a more cozy, charming, attractive little restaurant than the Red Rooster.

Red Rooster Grill, 5254 Van Nuys Blvd., Van Nuys. (818) 995-6118. Beer and wine. Open for dinner from 5 to 10 p.m. daily, until 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday. American Express, MasterCard and Visa accepted.

Recommended dishes: burek, $5; veal soup, $4.25; cevapcici, $9; apple strudel, $4.50; Turkish coffee, $1.50.