Cafe Creates Specialty Dishes From a Russian Favorite

Chef Vladimir Khehfets and his partners, Marina and Leo Zuber, opened Rasputin Unique Cafe and Restaurant in Sherman Oaks only six months ago, and already they are revamping their menu to emphasize the Russian roots of their cuisine.

All three hail from Russia, and Rasputin is their second venture in the restaurant business in Southern California.

To tempt people who don’t get enough of caviar at New Year, Rasputin now serves the fish from which caviar comes--the delicious sturgeon.

Common to the cold waters of northern lakes in America and Canada, sturgeon would also be the national fish of Russia, if Russians indulged in such fancies as naming “national” things.

They don’t, of course. They just eat lots of sturgeon. And they would understand why hardy souls in Minnesota consider no day better than one spent angling for sturgeon through a hole in a frozen lake, protected from howling winter winds by a flimsy tent. (And such Midwesterners laugh at California.)

At Rasputin, chef Khehfets poaches sturgeon and serves it Moscow style, with mushrooms and potatoes in a special Russian herb sauce. He also prepares a salad of sturgeon, caviar and potatoes. And he fashions an appetizer of eggplant domed like a Russian church.

* Rasputin will host a special dinner for singles Feb. 28. The restaurant is at 13615 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks, (818) 907-6336. Khehfets and the Zubers also run Uzbekistan Restaurant at 7077 Sunset Blvd. in Los Angeles.

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The Wine Bistro in Studio City has opened a very private dining room to cater to those who, like Greta Garbo, just want to be alone--for example, the big-name folks from the nearby CBS studios who give the restaurant a steady business.

The new dining room seats only eight, and owner J.B. Torchon and his partner, chef Alain Cuny, wanted it to look and feel like the dining room you might have at home if, like some folks you might name, you had tons of money.

It has a private entrance, of course, so you can get in and out without rubbing elbows with anyone you don’t want to. You can even lock the door from the inside, protecting you from any folks in the regular dining room who might seek to crash your private party.

And the menu? It varies with the taste and desires of those who make use of the room--multi-course feasts of rack of lamb, lobster and the like. You must reserve the room well in advance of your party and confer, early on, with Torchon and Cuny over the details of your menu.

The room is available for lunch as well as dinner parties. The price per person can range from $32.50 to $200.

Cuny opened the Wine Bistro 16 years ago. Torchon, formerly with Ma Maison in Los Angeles, joined him as a partner three years ago.

* The Wine Bistro is at 11915 Ventura Blvd., Studio City, (818) 766-6233.

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What kind of New Year’s resolutions do you make if you’ve run a successful deli for nearly three decades?

You vow not to change.

“We are what we are,” says Ron Peskin, owner of the ever-popular Brent’s Delicatessen in Northridge. “The one thing we don’t do is make a lot of changes. We just stay good.”

Peskin’s family brought him to Southern California from Cleveland in 1946, joining the great tide of Americans who wanted to raise their children in the sunny climes they first encountered during the war.

Peskin bought Brent’s in 1969 and became so successful that he dispatches catering and food-delivery trucks not only in the Valley, but throughout the Los Angeles area.

He and his children Brent, 32, and Carie, 28, manage about 100 employees, and although the deli’s huge menu doesn’t change much, they do add things now and then--for example, a new whitefish salad made from Great Lakes whitefish.

“That item’s just on fire these days,” Peskin says. “And we make the best blintzes in Southern California, and I think our potato salad is second to none.”

(It’s coincidence that Peskin’s son and the deli share the name Brent. Brent Peskin was born in 1964, and Brent’s Deli opened three years later under another owner. Ron Peskin bought the deli two years after that and, liking the serendipity, kept the name.)

* Brent’s Delicatessen is open seven days a week at 19565 Parthenia St. in Northridge, (818) 886-5679.

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Bob Mendler and the chefs at his five Southern California Chin Chin restaurants--including those in Encino and Studio City--have been busy trying out new dishes to put together the menu for the chain’s next restaurant, in Las Vegas.

The newest Chin Chin will be part of the super-glitzy New York-New York resort--a 4,000-room colossus on the Las Vegas strip with scaled-down models of such Manhattan landmarks as the Chrysler Building, the Statue of Liberty and Trump Tower.

The Las Vegas Chin Chin opens in the middle of January, according to Peter Cheung, who manages the Encino Chin Chin.

Among other items now on the Encino and Studio City menus and destined for Las Vegas is what Cheung calls tangerine beef--chunks of beef lightly battered and deep fried, crunchy on the outside and tender on the inside, with a sauce of tangerines and oranges.

Also new are the Singapore noodles--cellophane noodles with pork and shrimp--and a salad of mushrooms, bell peppers, and sweet corn with a garlic dressing.

Mendler founded the first Chin Chin on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles about 12 years ago. He opened the Studio City Chin Chin 10 years ago and the Encino restaurant five years ago.

* The restaurants are at 12215 Ventura Blvd., Studio City, (818) 985-9090, and at 16101 Ventura Blvd., Encino, (818) 783-1717.

Juan Hovey writes about the restaurant scene in the San Fernando Valley and outlying points. He may be reached at (805) 492-7909 or fax (805) 492-5139 or via e-mail at JH[email protected]