RESTAURANT REVIEW : Little Russia Could Put a <i> Babushka</i> to Shame

Russians in Glendale? You bet your boots, boychick. Right here at Little Russia, we’ve got the real thing.

The place has an ultra-authentic Russian look, like the sort of moody, neglected restaurant you’d find in a second-rank Moscow hotel. The dining room is large and boxy, crammed with maroon tablecloth-covered tables with matching maroon napkins standing straight up in the water glasses. There’s a parquet stage for musicians and a dance floor just beyond it. Red neon lights give off a mournful glow. Tango, anyone?

But first let’s eat. Little Russia serves a combination of homey Russian and Armenian specialties that would make anybody’s babushka go green with envy. I haven’t had a single bad dish in this restaurant, and some were the equal of any I’ve ever had.

Take the combo appetizers, a large, showy plate of exotic finger foods representing a variety of cultures. They include baklazhannaya ikra (literally, “eggplant caviar”), a piquant, grainy Russian eggplant dip; hummus from Syria; thin slices of a spiced Armenian beef called basturma , a sort of Caucasian carpaccio ; and Turkish-style sarma , cold stuffed grape leaves with a meat-and-rice filling. There are also roasted eggplant slices, Russian pickled vegetables and huge hunks of Bulgarian feta. Every component is superb.

Khinkali , boiled dumplings from Georgia (the Soviet one, that is) with a thick skin and a dense, garlicky filling of minced beef are about the most sensuously juicy dumplings found in any cuisine. Their intense fragrance borders on the overwhelming. Each is approximately the size of a baseball, and at six to an order, even Mischa the bear would have trouble finishing a plateful.

About now you’ll want to get up and dance your calories away. With luck, the musicians won’t be playing one of those droopy-lidded Gypsy slow dances. Fortunately, they do perform some aerobic numbers. After a rousing rendition of Khatchaturian’s “Sabre Dance,” I could have sworn the musicians broke into a square dance tune along the lines of “Turkey in the Straw.”

Whether you decide to dance or not, the food keeps coming. The soup and salad course includes a refreshing Greek-style chopped number full of sweet onion, feta cheese, tomatoes and iceberg lettuce in a powerful wine vinegar dressing. The soups are peasanty. You can order either kharcho , an Armenian meat soup with vegetables, or borscht, which is particularly good, just loaded with cabbage and stewed meat.

The entree plates--mostly kebabs or chops, broiled with consummate skill--are loaded too, with either a chicken-rich rice pilaf or a mixed vegetable stew of eggplant, carrot and potato. Shashlik Pokharski , thick lamb chops with garlic and parsley, are wonderful: tender, flavorsome and wonderfully spiced. Chicken tabaka is a flattened Cornish game hen, pressed on the grill to perfect crispness. The fish of the day one night was grilled swordfish, a man-sized chunk broiled with lemon and garlic.

If you’re a stickler for authenticity, there are some dishes--beef stroganoff and chicken Kiev, to name two--that you’d actually find served in those moody Moscow hotels . . . if you were lucky.

A deep red glass of Georgian wine would suit this sort of food, but as yet Little Russia has no wine license. You’ll have to content yourself with an imported Georgian mineral (and they do mean mineral) water called Borjomi--alkali-heavy, even chalky, poured from a blue-green bottle. For many, Borjomi is an acquired taste. Myself, I like the stuff a lot better than Perrier.

For dessert, try the sticky, Armenian-style baklava , the cylindrical kind with a walnut filling and pistachios on top. There is also a second option, something the waiter referred to as a naplion. I think he meant Napoleon , but I’m still not sure. It was quite flaky, covered with shaved nuts and not particularly sweet. I liked it, and the name he gave it is just fine with me.

Wash everything down with the muddy demitasse known in this region as Armenian coffee. Then get up and swing your partner, do-si-do . . . I mean, give your partner a soulful look and burn your face into her shoulder. They don’t really square dance in Moscow, do they?

Recommended dishes: khinkali , $5; combo appetizers, $6.57; eggplant ikra , $2.82; shashlik Pokharski , $7.93; chicken tabaka , $6.57.

Little Russia, 1132 E. Broadway, Glendale; (818) 243-4787. Lunch and dinner from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily. No alcoholic beverages. Parking lot. Visa and MasterCard. Dinner for two, food only, $20 to $30.