Armenian Gem Gets Its Shine From Spectacular Food

Orange County’s only Armenian restaurant is a basic, unpretentious place by a windowless pool room in a dreary Anaheim strip mall. The address is on Katella Avenue, but Ararad is set so far off the street you aren’t likely to spot it unless you’re on foot (look for the sign on Katella instead; the restaurant is about 100 feet back).

But the food is nothing short of spectacular. I believe it was a gentleman by the name of Amarillo Slim who said that good poker players are good on their own but that bad poker players have to have luck on their side or they wouldn’t still be playing. The fact that Ararad has been open for three years implies that it’s good, because the restaurant business doesn’t have much room for luck these days.

Ararad is your basic box--a big dimly lit space, sparsely furnished with a few silly-looking booths upholstered in mint green vinyl and about half a dozen bridge tables draped with scarlet polyester. Some tables have narrow vases holding red silk flowers. One wall sports an Armenian calendar. So much for atmosphere.

Eyeball the menu’s rock-bottom prices however, and the picture comes into a much sharper focus. Proprietors Khatcho and Margo Bartoumian have been running restaurants for 30 years, and they know their trade. The couple actually had a restaurant in Madrid, of all places, before immigrating to the United States 11 years ago.

Margo is from Lebanon; Khatcho is a native of Syria. Their appetizer list of Syrian/Lebanese mezzeh is greatly enriched by the addition of Armenian specialties. Among the Lebanese dishes is labneh, a thickened yogurt which has equivalents all over the region. This yogurt is condensed to impossible richness, almost like Devonshire cream, seasoned with fresh mint and dappled with olive oil.

The more familiar Lebanese appetizers are here, too, such as the mint, parsley and bulgur wheat salad called tabbouleh. Hummus is justly described on this menu as “cream de garbanzo beans”--an elegant garbanzo puree gently blended with sesame paste, garlic and lemon and destined to flavor the nearest hunk of pita bread. Mutabbal , more often called baba ghannuj, is a light dip made from eggplant puree with similar flavorings.

The Armenian appetizers are somewhat richer, contrasting perfectly with the lightness of the Arabic kitchen. Margo Bartoumian makes a high-powered version of yalanji sarma, the stuffed grape leaves with a meatless filling that are always served cold. They’re bite-sized dense cylinders with a rice and pine nut filling.

Plaki is made from red kidney beans, a staple legume throughout the Caucasus. (The Georgians, for instance, have a terrific dish called lobi, spicier and heavier than plaki , which is flavored with red chili and walnuts.) This dish seems ultra-simple, just beans slowly marinated in olive oil, lemon juice and spices. But the average cook couldn’t make them taste this good in a million years.

Ararad is also one of the rare restaurants that serves fresh lahmajune, sometimes called Armenian pizza. Lahmajune isn’t exactly an appetizer or a main course, but no Armenian restaurant worth its salt would be without it. This version is a stack of three slightly crisp wafer-thin “pizzas,” each topped with an amazingly light mix of minced beef, parsley, tomato sauce and onion. If you’ve ever tasted one that’s been frozen, you’ll appreciate just how much better it is fresh.

With all these wonderful starters, it’s easy to pass on main dishes. That would be a mistake, though. You won’t want to leave here without trying one of the dolmehs, vegetables with otherworldly stuffings made from chopped lamb and seasoned rice. Order badenjan dolmeh and you get four--count ‘em, four --baby eggplants, swollen almost to double their original size from stuffing. Squash dolmeh comes out firm and crisp and can be sliced like a galantine. Then there’s green pepper dolmeh, where the natural tang and sweetness of the vegetable makes a perfect host for the stuffing.

The heart of Ararad’s main dishes are kebabs, served with fluffy rice pilaf. These kebabs can’t compete with ones served in Iranian restaurants in terms of sheer bulk, but they are more than a match with regard to taste. Shishlik is prepared from small cubes of lamb and served on skewers with onions, tomatoes and green peppers. Think of luleh kebab as a lamb hamburger, heavy on the onion and parsley. Lighter appetites will appreciate chicken kebab, the most delicately marinated of the meats.

Call in advance for kibbeh nayyeh, the wonderful Lebanese/Syrian dish made from pureed raw lamb--or, as here, beef. Kibbeh nayyeh is more majestic than steak tartare, perhaps, because of the inclusion of pureed bulgur wheat and olive oil in the mixture. A dish called dinner kuefteh is always available, though. This happens to be a cooked variety of kibbeh.

A bit of linguistic confusion was inevitable, I suppose. Kibbeh is the Arabic term for the smooth paste of meat and bulgur wheat that is kibbeh nayyeh when served raw. When the mixture is cooked, though, the Armenians and the Turks call it kuefteh or kofte , which is basically a word for meatball.

But by any name, a meatball would smell just as sweet. Dinner kuefteh is my permanent entree choice in here, a ball of lightly fried minced meat and pine nuts in a kibbeh crust. (OK, I confess: I’m a closet dinner kuefteh freak. Thank goodness that’s over.)

Desserts take you right back to the Near Eastern basics: tiny squares of good homemade baklava and miniature cups of mudlike Armenian coffee ( soorj ), which you turn upside down when you’re finished so you can read the silt-fine grounds. I’ve just read mine, and I predict: The bad poker players will continue to run lucky, if they run at all, and this family-style gem will stick around for quite a while.

Ararad is inexpensive. Appetizers are $2.25 to $4.25. Dinners are $6.75 to $9.50.

* ARARAD

1827-A W. Katella Ave., Anaheim.

(714) 778-5667.

Lunch and dinner noon to 9 p.m., Tuesday through Sunday.

American Express, MasterCard and Visa accepted.