Kosher? Si! : At Ole, Jewish Dietary Laws Are Strictly Observed

When Ary Ben-Zion gets a yen for a taco, he doesn’t run for the border.

Because he strictly observes the Jewish dietary laws, Ben-Zion, 25, goes to the Westside’s only kosher Mexican restaurant, Ole, at 7912 Beverly Blvd., in the Fairfax District.

A converted storefront, the tiny self-service restaurant has strings of dried chilies on its whitewashed walls and a changing selection of paintings that reinforce the sense of being a stone’s throw from the beach in Baja. But while the menu and the decor are Mexican, the heart of the little eatery is its meticulous observance of the ancient Jewish laws governing the preparation and serving of meat and other foods.

Owner Robert Klein is proud of the fact that his restaurant is “kehillah kosher,” certified as kosher by one of the strictest groups of rabbis who supervise food preparation. Needless to say, Klein serves no cheese or sour cream with meat dishes because of the prohibition against mixing milk and meat, and he buys only ritually slaughtered chicken and beef.

He also checks the labels of soft drinks to make sure no colors from unacceptable animal sources have been added. And he is maniacal about washing and re-washing lettuce and other greens. “Kosher-wise, we have to be very careful about bugs,” he points out. “Bugs are just as unkosher as unkosher meat.”

Klein, 31, opened Ole a year ago. Owner of a nearby kosher fish restaurant, called the Fish Grill, Klein says he saw a need for a place where observant Jews could go for hamburgers, tacos and burritos--favorite foods of growing up. Klein gambled that the menu and relatively low prices ($7.75 for chicken or beef fajitas, served with rice and beans) would attract the young religious crowd. He was right. Ahsas Goldman, who is 22, says he visits Ole a couple of times a month because it allows him to eat dishes he has always liked without violating his relatively recent commitment to observant Judaism.

“It’s a phenomenon,” says Goldman. “A lot of people are becoming more religious, and they don’t want to give up the foods they ate before.”

Klein says he and wife Amy spent months perfecting their recipes to ensure that they were good as well as kosher. Klein praised Amy as an imaginative kosher cook who serves sushi on the Sabbath as well as matzoh ball soup (she also designed the restaurant’s sombrero logo).

In the course of finding Ole’s chili recipe, he says, they tried and rejected versions that included coffee and chocolate, finally settling on one that is spiced with cinnamon and cloves. To make sure the Mexican dishes have an authentic flavor, they had a non-religious neighbor with a broadly educated palate sample them. The result, according to regular customer Ben-Zion, who lived in Mexico City for several years, is pretty close.

Klein has had to be creative in reconciling his Mexican menu (there are “American” dishes such as barbecued ribs as well) with the dietary laws. He cannot use lard for frying, of course, since it is a pork product, but kosher oils are a healthy alternative. And to make sure his flour tortillas are kosher, he arranges to have the equipment at the plant that makes them cleaned before his run. He has also come up with a way to brighten up Mexican dishes that are traditionally garnished with cheese or sour cream. “We put a little salsa on them, and that livens them up visually,” he says.

Barbara Worthington, who lives in the neighborhood, says she goes to Ole about once a week, often with her 7-year-old daughter, Zoe. Worthington is not Jewish, but she says she likes the quality of the food and the casual atmosphere. “Kosher doesn’t necessarily mean just for Jewish people,” the actress points out. Recently, she had dinner at Ole with Eva Selski, who lives in Northridge. Selski says she enjoys the mix of people, which includes everyone from ultra-Orthodox men with side curls to the after-movie crowd from the Fairfax Theater across the street.

“It’s not the crowd I would see if I went to a Mrs. Garcia,” she says.

Both women say they appreciate the way Ole welcomes their children. “I never have to worry that someone’s going to be offended by a stroller in the place,” says Selski. While she ate her meal recently, a teen-ager at another table offered to distract Selski’s son Benjamin, who is 13 months old.

Klein’s wife and three children are among Ole’s regulars. His oldest, Adeena, who is 4, likes the burgers--with pickles, hold the onions. His 2-year-old, Yehuda, favors taquitos. Talya, only 6 months old, is still nursing, or as Klein puts it, “she eats whatever my wife eats.”

If Klein’s religious convictions have complicated his life as a restaurateur, they have an up side as well. Ole closes at 2:30 p.m. on Fridays in anticipation of the Sabbath and doesn’t open again until 11 o’clock Sunday morning.

A Sabbath without secular responsibilities is especially welcome when you are in a business as frantic as his, says Klein, who does not answer the phone or do any other work from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. “It’s wonderful to have a complete day off.”