RESTAURANT REVIEW : Moscow Nights: a Russian Version of Copacabana

Moscow Nights are not weeknights, at least not at the outrageously ornate Studio City nightclub/restaurant bearing that name.

The establishment is open for dinner Wednesdays through Sundays, but the action is confined to Fridays and Saturdays, when an elaborate Russian floor show is staged. When friends joined me for a Wednesday night dinner, the place was so empty, I swear I heard echoes. We were the only customers.

Not so the following Saturday. “I can’t seat you on the floor because you’re late,” says our stunning Russian hostess, a former dancer at the Leningrad Music Hall. Looking around, we can see that the only seating available is in the rear banquet room, which has no view of the stage, or on red velvet stools at a narrow marble bar overlooking the main floor. We choose the stools to get a bird’s-eye view of the singers and dancers.

If you can picture a Russian version of the Copacabana, this place is it. Blue-uniformed security guards man the front door on weekends, looking slightly silly under a giant lacquer mural depicting various Russian folk legends.

The kitsch bar, the next thing you encounter, houses a collection of obscure international vodkas such as Arctic, Boyar and Izmira, displayed on a giant mirrored shelf along with flavored vodkas such as okhotnichya (honey), pertsovka (pepper) and limonnaya (lemon). Don’t even think about doing a tasting. There are 134 of them.

Most of the patrons are seated at long tables set in horizontal rows facing the stage. The gaudy crystal chandeliers overhead look as if they have been lifted from the Winter Palace, and a host of Russian tchotchkes-- such as jewel boxes, samovars and matryoshka (the Russian nesting dolls)--are on display throughout.

The menu is similar to what you would find in a Moscow hotel, with one ironic difference--at Moscow Nights, they are not out of absolutely everything but the chicken Kiev.

Start with one of those cold appetizers that Russians love with vodka. Eggplant Russian style is a creamy dip, ideal for spreading on the trademark house brown bread. Caspi is simply good pickled herring, unembellished. Stolichny salad is a mishegas of potato, egg, pea, chicken, beef, onion and mayo.

Hot appetizers such as vareniki and pelmeni are meant to keep you warm in winter. Pelmeni , Siberia’s answer to won ton, are round, garlicky, meat-filled dumplings served in reduced chicken broth. Vareniki are little Ukrainian pasta pillows stuffed with cheese, potato or cherry, and they are hard to stop eating. These vareniki have a chewy bite, almost al dente , and come drowned in melted butter. Don’t bother with the blini with caviar, though--the caviar is salmon eggs, rather than sturgeon caviar, and the greasy rolled pancakes are made from what appears to be Bisquick (real blini are made from buckwheat flour).

Hearty Russian dinners come with rice, potato, kasha, pickles and a choice of green salad or hot borscht. Go for the borscht. It’s light but chock-full of little chunks of carrot, beef, potato, onion and beet.

My favorite among these entrees would be the simplest--chicken shashlik. Shashlik is marinated, skewered meat, traditionally cooked on a sword. Moscow Nights prepares it with a choice of beef, lamb, pork or chicken. I like the chicken because it is tender and spicy. The lamb, cut into big unwieldy cubes, is just OK.

You may be disappointed with the tabaka , though it’s reasonably good to eat. This is supposed to be a whole fried hen, flattened under an iron weight in the pan. Instead, you get a plump, ultra-lemony fried chicken with slightly soggy skin.

Beef stroganoff here is nothing special, either. It drew a rave from the person who ordered it, but I find this cream-heavy version, full of mushrooms, onions and slivers of beef, to be bland.

Needless to say, there’s always chicken Kiev, served with a heavy but deliciously buttery breading. It’s a chicken breast stuffed with dill butter, but it’s about as big as the Battleship Potemkin.

The music starts about the time you finish your entrees. Misha Shufutinsky and orchestra kicks off with a honky-tonk interpretation of “Midnight in Moscow” and, before too long, the Russians at the banquet tables are swaying back and forth, doing the Russian version of the wave.

Maybe Paul Mazursky could be talked into a remake of “Moscow on the Hudson.” We’ll could call it “Moscow on the Boulevard,” and we’d never run out of vodka.

Suggested dishes: potato vareniki , $9.95; eggplant Russian style, $4.95; chicken shashlik , $17.95; chicken Kiev, $17.95.

Moscow Nights, 11345 Ventura Blvd., Studio City. Dinner 5 to 10 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays, 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. Fridays through Sundays. Full bar. Valet parking only. MasterCard and Visa accepted. Dinner for two, $45 to $70, including $4 entertainment charge on weekends. (818) 980-8854.