RESTAURANT REVIEW : Middle Eastern Delight : Sasoon isn’t just a place for eating chicken. The storefront cafe offers many choices.

“Don’t compare my chicken with Zankou,” said a faintly bristling Garbis Kalaijian, handing me a plastic cup of his powerful homemade garlic sauce.

I had inadvertently done just that when Kalaijian asked me how I was enjoying his crisp-skinned, perfectly browned roast bird; I’d muttered something about how it reminded me of something I had eaten at one of the redoubtable Zankou Chicken rotisserie palaces. Big mistake. It struck some kind of nerve.

Not that the comparison is unthinkable. Roast chicken, sides of garlic sauce, olives, pickled turnips and the Armenian flat bread known as lavash have been the recipe for Zankou’s phenomenal success. Thinking back, I might have put it more diplomatically and said I liked his chicken even better than Zankou’s, which is true. The fact is that both Zankou and Sasoon are pretty impressive chicken vendors, especially on a bang-for-the-buck basis.

“Zankou Chicken is a big commercial operation,” Kalaijian continued, recovering his considerable grace, “and we are a family-run business.”

I immediately got the point, glancing at the modest counter and one busy rotisserie. Kalaijian shares cooking duties at this tiny Tarzana storefront cafe with his wife, Nelly, and the couple is proud of the fact that everything here is made from scratch.

Another difference is that Sasoon isn’t just a place for eating chicken but a restaurant that offers many choices. There are more than 25 Middle Eastern-style appetizers, for instance, as well as soups, kebabs and homemade pastries and cookies meant to be taken with soorj , that sweet, muddy demitasse also known as Armenian coffee. And practically anything you eat or drink here is infused with Lebanese aromas--garlic, pine nuts and spices--because the Kalaijians happen to be Armenians who were reared in Beirut.

Appetizers and small plates are the true focal point of Sasoon’s menu. Lahmajune is one (it’s often called Armenian pizza, a description I find a little misleading since lahmajune is lighter and contains no cheese). It’s a round, cracker-crisp flat bread topped with a dense coating of spiced ground beef. Frozen, reheated lahmajune-- the kind served at many Armenian restaurants--is good enough, but Sasoon proves that freshly made lahmajune is better.

Think of sujuk as a homemade sausage, redolent of garlic, cumin and other Levantine flavorings. Sasoon’s version is grilled crisp and sliced onto a bed of heavily vinegared onions. A wine buff would call its flavor long in the finish. Ras nana is basically grilled chunks of beef in a bath of what tastes like concentrated lemon juice. I liked it, but the three people accompanying me found it too sharp.

To tell the truth, Sasoon is decidedly liberal in its use of lemon juice, which means that some appetizers from the Syrian/Lebanese tradition may have far more sourness than you’re used to. Mutabbal (better known in this country as baba ghannuj ) is a puree of roasted eggplant flavored with garlic and sesame, an eggplant-based cousin of hummus; Sasoon’s mutabbal is crowned with a sprinkling of pomegranate seeds, and both it and the cafe’s version of hummus are quite lemony. Muhammara is a dark-red paste of bread crumbs, crushed walnuts, cumin, olive oil and pine nuts--and lemon juice, of course.

So far, so good, but I can do without the fool , which is boiled fava beans, a traditional breakfast dish. As sold here, it’s under-spiced and overdosed with lemon juice. Even hot steaming lavash couldn’t rescue it.

After appetizers, there are dozens of dishes to choose from: lamb tongue sandwiches, the cracked wheat meat cakes known as kibbeh , the thickened yogurt spread labneh , exemplary meat-and-rice- stuffed grape leaves and that garlicky chicken, of course. If you want a full meal, you can order one of the somewhat generic but tasty meat kebabs, which will be served with pickled vegetables, mounds of fluffy white rice and all the lavash you can eat.

Just make sure you save room for one of Nelly Kalaijian’s finely crafted desserts. My favorite is probably maamul , a crumbly, butter-filled cookie with a minced pistachio filling. Basbusa is a square of semolina flour cake perfumed with rose water and clove. And of course there is terrific baklava, syrup-drenched strudel leaves piled one atop the other, interspersed with crushed walnut and pistachio.

The baklava actually reminded me of one I ate as a child, but I decided to hold my tongue. I plan to come back here for chicken and baklava some time soon, and you’ve got to think ahead.

WHERE AND WHEN

Location: Sasoon, 18970 Ventura Blvd., Tarzana.

Suggested Dishes: Whole chicken to go, $6.50; whole chicken to eat on premises, $7.50; sujuk , $3.99; muhammara , $2.50; lahmajune , $1.50; maamul , $1.25.

Hours: Lunch and dinner 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday through Saturday.

Price: Dinner for two, $12-$25. Beer and wine only. Parking lot. Carte Blanche, Diner’s, MasterCard and Visa.

Call: (818) 708-8986.