Warszawa’s Menu May Be Difficult to Say, But Food Is Easy to Like

Maybe it’s just panic that keeps me away from Warszawa. Maybe I’m just afraid I’ll make a fool of myself with that unpronounceable Polish menu. (Hey, I’m kidding--Polish is easy to pronounce. Take pstrag , the word for trout. All you have to do is remember that it rhymes with honk.)

No, that’s not the reason. I think my real problem is that somehow I only remember a couple of disappointing dishes. Bigos , for instance, a traditional stew of beef, bacon, sausage and sauerkraut in a sweetish sauce that has a long and glorious history in Poland--a mighty rep, in other words--and sounds as if it has to be stupendously hearty. Somehow, though, it has never knocked me out the way I expected.

Or wolowina (pronounced voh-woh-VEE-nah , by the way), a sort of beef stroganoff with a peculiar starchiness about it. Or Warszawa’s version of veal paprikash, the dauntingly spelled paprykarz cielecy (go ahead, give it a try: pah-PREE-kash cheh-LEN-tsy ), which always tastes more like tomato soup than paprikash to me.

Recently I went back to check Warszawa out again, with good cheer but not really expecting to rave. But, as it happens, I’m going to rave.

For one thing, to acknowledge the fact that most Americans don’t know where to begin with this large and unfamiliar menu, Warszawa has started letting diners order half portions of two entrees for a single price (only a couple of dishes at the bottom of the menu are excluded).

It was only because of this highly educational practice that I ever got around to trying kolduny : thumb-sized ravioli filled with rich, gamy ground lamb in a slightly sweet and very oniony broth. You really have to like lamb, but if you do, it’s the heart’s desire.

I came back another time and had duck with apples ( kaczka z jablkami ), with a marvelous, complex spiciness to its skin, and zrazy , which are thin beefsteaks wrapped around a wonderful, rich filling of mushrooms and onions and served in cream sauce. I came back again and had stuffed cabbage with a sweet-sour paprika cream sauce and a pretty unexpected entree called placki ziemniaczane (get ready: PLAHT-ski zhem-nyah-CHAH-neh ), amazingly smooth-textured potato pancakes served with cinnamon apples, spiced plums and sour cream.

By the time I was through with Warszawa, I’d had just about every entree on the menu. I’d even had a couple of the dishes you can’t order by half portions, like rather homey pork chops with heavy, crisp breading in cream sauce and a beefsteak with mild juniper flavoring (the traditional seasoning for wild boar) and tart lingonberry sauce on the side.

And a couple of appetizers; yes, I got around to those too. The Warszawa salad is still an original combination that works spectacularly well: fresh sauerkraut, apples and carrots with a dash of dill. There’s also a more subtle salad of red cabbage with bell peppers and walnuts.

And there are homely appetizers like a split pea soup sprinkled with sharp-flavored bits of ham and pumpernickel croutons, and the frumpy old-fashioned sort of fanciness of a beef-and-carrot aspic, saved by the fact that it comes with staggeringly fierce horseradish. The wildest appetizer is sliwki w boczku ( SHLEEVE-ki’v BOATCH-koo ), more of the spiced peaches that come with the potato pancakes, only wrapped in bacon and baked like the world’s most exotic rumaki .

Rum walnut torte is the only dessert I remembered from Warszawa, but now I find I actually like a lot of others at least as well. Nalesnik z serem is a dainty sweet crepe filled with cream cheese flavored with lemon and vanilla, with stewed raspberries on the side, not exactly photogenic but very good. The hot apple tart, szarlotka (surely you recognize the French word charlotte in there), is simple but fresh-flavored. The best might well be the poached pear Solidarnosc , with vanilla cream and cranberry sauce representing the colors of the Polish flag.

Actually, I think my biggest revelation about Warszawa was the unusual after-dinner drinks served in narrow, elegant glasses, like wisniowka (you’ve got it by now: veesh-NYOOF-kah ), a cherry vodka with a surprisingly winy bouquet like old port and Madeira. Krupnik , despite a name that looks faintly rude in English, is a wonderful honey liqueur rather like Drambuie.

I’m over my Warszawa block. Someday soon, I swear, I’ll go back and have the losos z sosem szczawiowym . I don’t even care what it is.

Suggested dishes: sliwki w boczku , $5; Warszawa salad, $4; kolduny , $14.75; kaczka z jablkami , $17; poached pear Solidarnosc , $4.75.

Warszawa, 1414 Lincoln Blvd., Santa Monica. (213) 393-8831. Open for dinner from 5:30 to 10:30 p.m. daily. Street parking. All major credit cards accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $36 to $62.