San Diego Spotlight : Home Cooking From Russia Arrives in Town Via Minsk

RESTORAN YASHA

2321 Fifth Ave., San Diego

696-0071

Lunch and dinner Monday through Saturday, closed Sunday

Entrees cost $2.50 to $12.50; dinner for two, including a glass of wine each, tax and tip, about $15 to $35

Credit cards accepted

One of the true pleasures of dining in an ethnic restaurant is the liberty the experience affords to travel the globe on the savory wings of knife and fork. The world is changing faster than our tastes, and the effort to keep up is an enjoyable challenge, especially when the menu at hand offers such things as pirozki , olivie salad and siberski pelmeni .

The bulk of the change at the moment is in Eastern Europe, of course, in a country that until quite recently was known as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or more manageably as the Soviet Union. Most of us were content to refer to this now quasi-existent state as “Russia,” and to the people and things pertaining to it as “Russian,” although the style books that guide the word usage of publications specified “Soviet” as the proper adjective in all situations except those in which an inhabitant or aspect of the state of Russia was involved. Hence the abominable term “Soviet cuisine,” which suggests a commissar-decreed style of cooking washed to a dull gray sameness by the pseudo-egalitarianism and guns-over-butter realities of the Soviet state.

In the coming winter, “Soviet cuisine” may well specify a diet of boiled potatoes--for those lucky enough to get their hands on some. On the other hand, real Russian cooking, including blinchiki , solyanka and tabaka with tremali sauce, has finally come to San Diego, and, although not quite everything may be wonderful, the opportunity to sample what passes there as prime restaurant fare--and as good home cooking, too--is definitely difficult to ignore.

Restoran Yasha, all of a month old, has taken over the space on 5th Avenue near Juniper Street occupied for some years by Lone Star Barbecue, an eatery which was owned by an immigrant from Georgia (the former Soviet Socialist Republic of Georgia, that is) who sojourned to Texas on his way West. In the classic manner in which immigrants to America succeed one another in business establishments, Lone Star was taken over by the Slavins, a family of Byelorussians (which not in the Russian Republic either). Israel, his wife, Tatiana, and their cousins, Igor and Polina, came to San Diego in 1989 under the sponsorship of Jewish Family Services.

Israel, an economist who was general manager of a large restaurant in Minsk, washed cars during his first half-year here, while Tatiana cooked at the San Diego Hebrew Home until the family opened Restoran Yasha.

The menu lists dishes that would instantly be familiar to a Russian and in some cases (including the beef Stroganoff, borscht and chicken Kiev) familiar to non-Russians as well. Those dishes sampled on two visits varied considerably in appeal--the beef Stroganoff, if not the mushroom souped-up concoction common in American home cooking, certainly cannot be the creamy dish known to Nicholas and Alexandra--but there are some clear winners among them.

First and foremost would be the olivie salad, or cubed potatoes with chunks of sour dill pickle, peas, shredded cheese and bits of meat--whatever is left -over, evidently--along with a highly seasoned, rich mayonnaise. With apologies to this country’s mothers and grandmothers, the potato salad of American picnic fame should be half as good as this savory, zesty mixture.

Other appetizers, none sampled, include tuna and seafood salads, cole slaw (a version of which garnishes most entrees), a plain old green salad and baked beans. The soups generally sound more interesting than these, including the chicken soup with matzo ball, the only item that specifically reflects the Slavins’ Jewish heritage; the solyanka (broth garnished with vegetables, bites of several kinds of meat and sour cream) and a very classic, very well-done borscht. This last, tartly sour as it should be and tinted vermilion by the cubed beets, is loaded with chunks of potato and cabbage--all as red as Lenin, to be sure--and bits of carrot, along with a spoon of sour cream and a surprisingly effective sprinkle of freshly chopped parsley that really brings up the flavor. The serving, as is true of several offerings, is enormous, perhaps too large if you have ordered an entree.

The pirozki are listed as an entree, but since the plate is ungarnished, the trio of large, stuffed pastries, which costs all of $2.50, can easily double as a shared appetizer. Shaped like muffins, the puffy fried pastries contain a mixture of ground beef scrambled with onion and seasonings; far more delicious than it sounds (and it is delicious), the filling tastes much like the meat mixture that, sandwiched in hamburger buns, used to be sold at Midwestern stands under the name “Maid-rites.”

The beef Stroganoff is basically stewed-to-shreds beef with mushrooms and gravy, and lacks both sour cream and flavor. At $12.50 the costliest entree, it is easily avoided. The chicken Kiev, breaded and fried to a deep, rich brown, also is heavily herbed, especially with dill, and includes cheese along with the butter stuffing. The flavor is so strong that the dish becomes overwhelming after a few bites. The stuffed cabbage, again highly seasoned, comes off much better, and even though the tomato sauce is sufficiently piquant to bring moisture to the eyes, the strength of the sauce works with the cabbage. Other choices include pelmeni , or Russian-style ravioli stuffed with broth and minced meat, in a cloak of garlic-flavored sour cream; blinchiki , thin pancakes stuffed with meat and onions; tabaka , Cornish hen in Georgian-style pomegranate sauce, and the St. Petersburg chicken breast, which is fried and topped with mild cheese.

Plate garnishes generally include, even with the stuffed cabbage, a tangy, slightly pickled-tasting cabbage slaw, and often french fries, rather than the noodles or boiled potatoes you might expect to find at a Russian restaurant.

The one dessert attempted, the “cake Moscow night,” may be authentic but could use some work. It consists of many layers of stiff pie dough separated by very sweet frosting. There is wine, if just barely, while the list of vodkas goes to some length.

This is a true mom-and-pop restaurant, furnished on a shoestring budget with the barest of amenities. Mirrors and neon signs from beer companies provide some of the decor; the walls were inexpertly papered by the family, and Russian pop music blares from a boom box whenever Israel remembers to pop in a tape.