RESTAURANT REVIEW : Too-Familiar Deli Fare at Ziggy G’s

My friend Rachel, here from New York, was raised on deli food. She requires borscht, bagels and kashka varniskes the way other people require hamburgers and French fries. On previous visits, she’s developed skepticism regarding Los Angeles delis: Even though many conscientiously import their meats and smoked fish and cheesecakes from the great deli suppliers back East, something, she claims, often gets lost in the shipping. “Maybe L.A. is just too laid-back. Maybe only an East Coast level of Angst requires so much comfort food.”

I was a little nervous, then, about taking this discerning deli fiend to Ziggy G’s, the vast new delicatessen where Nicky Blair’s used to be on the Sunset Strip. We settled into a comfy green booth, a waiter dropped off a bowl of good pickles--half-dills, spicy dills and green tomatoes--and we opened our menus. Rachel was impressed right away: “I’ve seen some exhaustive menus before, but this takes the kugel.”

We pored so long over the endless laminated pages and groaned so much over sandwich names (“Tongues for the Memories,” “Fiddler on the Roof of Your Mouth,” “Much Ado About Noshing”) that our waiter showed up three times before we could even choose an appetizer.

Once relieved of our menus, we looked around. Ziggy G’s looks like a deli. Nothing fancy. A bar. A deli counter. A dining room and a back dining room, with booths and tables that can be pushed together to accommodate any size party. The place is patrolled by Ziggy G himself, David Ziggy Gruber. You’ll recognize him from an apt caricature on the menu: Ziggy G’s shoulders do seem perpetually caught in an amiable, have-it-your-way shrug. His wife and a young man who could only be their offspring also greet customers, keep an eye on things.

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It is Mrs. Gruber who stops at our table just as we’re digging into enormous, sturdy, satisfying steamed potato pirogen with fried onions. “Aren’t those terrific onions? I had some today--thought I’d try some of my own food--and hey, not bad!” We agree--at least about the pirogen.

Potato knishes, more big plugs of soothing starch, have flaky crusts, tasty mashed potato interiors; too bad the gravy tastes like bouillon.

Rachel’s face dropped when our smoked sturgeon appetizer arrived. The starch may flow generously at Ziggy G’s, but the sturgeon, sliced see-through thin, was paltry.

It was impossible, of course, even over several visits, to do more than randomly sample the menu. But we ate enough to get a sense that this is all too familiar, generic deli food: nothing sublime and nothing that tastes particularly homemade. Ziggy G’s accomplishment may be that he has stocked the place to make more than 400 items at a moment’s notice 24 hours a day. It’s like a commissary, set to serve the vast armies of the night life.

Sandwich meats--tongue, brisket, corned beef--are sliced paper-thin and heaped into dry, too-large to bite waddage between slices of decent corn rye.

Chopped liver has the sweetness of caramelized onion. Vegetarian stuffed cabbage is a stewy mess--no sense of individual rolls--of spinach, cabbage leaves and a very sweet tomato sauce.

Matzo ball soup is cluttered with shreds of chicken, noodles and soggy matzo balls that quickly fall apart.

Borscht, seemingly straight from the jar, is just fine.

A short rib or flanken dinner is a slab of plain boiled meat, zucchini sauteed with a wild amount of garlic and, for $1 extra, a potato pancake so eggy, greasy and strange that it didn’t even taste like potato.

Most of Ziggy G’s desserts are super-sweet, super-rich items from the Old Town Bakery; the “special” cheesecake isn’t bad, but far from transcendent. Rice pudding would be better if not kept next to deli salads in the cold case.

I didn’t check a takeout order and was across town before I found that instead of the nova and cream cheese sandwich I’d ordered, there was a (more expensive) appetizer plate--and no bagel.

Ziggy G’s did not meet Rachel’s or my standards for deli heaven. Still, some night about 2 a.m., those pirogen might sing a loud, enticing tune.

* Ziggy G’s, 8730 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood. (310) 659-1225. Always open. Full bar. Valet parking. All major credit cards accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $15-$66.