RESTAURANT REVIEW : A New Borscht Belt : Eateries around Coldwater and Victory offer home-style favorites of Soviet emigres.

NoHo is one way insiders refer to North Hollywood, meaning to compare it with Manhattan’s SoHo district. Actually, it’s look ing as if ExSo might be a better name. The area near Coldwater and Victory has begun to sprout businesses operated by emigrants from former Soviet republics. Restaurants included, of course.

Such as Tamara’s Family Restaurant. It’s named for proprietor Tamara Stern, a Jewish Ukrainian woman who greets her customers like old friends. It’s a simply appointed place with the look of a late-’60s coffee shop: a long counter, pastries twirling on a carousel, pink vinyl booths big enough for six.

I’d describe the food as Denny’s with an Eastern European twist. You’ll find everything you’d expect from a family restaurant, such as an American breakfast, meatloaf, turkey and burgers, plus several home-style dishes from the Ukraine, ranging from stuffed cabbage to something Stern calls her Napoleon cake.

Soup, from a rotating list made fresh daily, is one place to begin. On weekends there is a good sweet-and-sour cabbage borscht served with sour cream--a meatless version, conforming to Jewish tradition. During the week, try the comforting chicken soup with noodles, or that deli standby, mushroom barley.

Dinners, which come with soup or salad (take the soup), are mostly familiar to anyone who has been inside a coffee shop. There is turkey: freshly roasted, a generous portion, with bread stuffing that boasts walnuts and apples. Or stuffed cabbage rolls: two to an order, with a dense meat stuffing and a watery tomato sauce.

If you crave meatloaf, proceed at your own risk. Tamara’s serves a thick slab colored an unappetizing brownish-gray, blanketed with a russet-hued gravy you could stand a spoon in. I recommend the beef stroganoff instead: chunky beef in a sour cream sauce with mushrooms and buttered noodles. You won’t find that at Denny’s.

The desserts are distinctive as well. Stern bakes four cakes on the premises, and all, save an opulent carrot cake, are in the Eastern European mold. The Napoleon cake consists of several layers of a crepe-like pastry, alternating with a creamy butterscotch-vanilla filling. Chocolate walnut and strawberry walnut cakes are also multilayered (and cloyingly sweet). If the kids insist on American, though, the restaurant’s traditional banana split should do the job.

The sign at Cheers is a replica of the one used on the television show of the same name, and owner Nick Hakopian may actually come over to your table and introduce himself as “Sam Malone.” But what you eat here is Russian and Armenian cuisine, not Beer Nuts and Cheese Doodles.

Altogether, you’re not very likely to imagine that you’re in a Boston bar. On warm nights, you can sit outside on a spiffy outdoor patio shielded from Victory Boulevard by a wrought-iron fence and a dense thicket of plants.

The huge menu spans a good number of the former Soviet republics. Beside the spicy Georgian lamb soup known as kharcho , for instance, you find salty red salmon from Russia, Siberian pelmeny and Armenian dishes such as the spicy cold cuts basturma and bujinina .

Don’t miss the wonderful pelmeny , about two dozen tiny meat-filled ravioli served in a light broth. The most expensive dish on the menu, at $11.50, is the delicious marinated lamb chops po-Karsky , nicely trimmed and grilled on a charcoal brazier. Lula kebab is the poor man’s shish kebab, made with ground meat mixed with onions and spices. It’s a bargain at $5.25.

You can make an entire meal of the appetizers here, mostly salty fare supposed to encourage drinking. (Unfortunately--and ironically--Cheers’ beer and wine license is pending.)

Try sarma and bujinina , my two favorites. Sarma are wonderful little cigar-shaped stuffed grape leaves with an oily but tasty meat and rice mixture. Bujinina is a kind of roast pork that has been sprinkled rather generously with cayenne pepper. You’ll need about two glasses of the house ice tea to wash an order down.

WHERE AND WHEN

* Location: Tamara’s Family Restaurant, 13075 Victory Blvd., North Hollywood.

* Suggested dishes: beef stroganoff, $7.95; mushroom barley soup, $2.25; roasted turkey, $7.75; Napoleon cake, $3.75.

* Hours: Open for breakfast, lunch and dinner 7 a.m.-11 p.m. daily. Beer and wine only. Parking lot.

* Price: Dinner for two, $14-$22. MasterCard and Visa.

* Call: (818) 763-5344.

* Location: Cheers, 12916 Victory Blvd., North Hollywood.

* Suggested dishes: sarma , $3; bujinina , $3; pelmeny , $5.25; lamb chops po-Karsky , $11.50; lula kebab, $5.25.

* Hours: Open for breakfast, lunch and dinner 8 a.m.-11 p.m. daily. No alcohol. Parking lot in rear.

* Price: Dinner for two, $14-$25. Cash only.

* Call: (818) 760-3377.