Javan Stands Out With Standard Iranian Cuisine--and the Not So Standard

This blasted corner. I know it all too well. A year ago, when Angeli Trattoria in West Los Angeles was new and everybody in the world had to try it at once, I spent a chunk of my life standing around on this sidewalk. The local scenery would be etched in my mind, if there were any.

One thing did stand out. Across the street was a little shopping plaza dominated by a giant chef’s head, complete with toque. It was like many another restaurant’s stylized chef except that the jaw was a little rugged and the mustache a little wild. Javan was the name of the place, and it looked as if it had personality. One day, I gave up on getting into Angeli and crossed the street to find out what was going on.

The first thing I found was that Javan really needs the big sign, because it’s buried deep in the corner of this little plaza. And it did have personality--strongly Iranian at that. The moderately posh interior was dominated by another celebration of Iranian physiognomy: a painting of a strong-featured woman with what I guessed was a sunburnt shepherdess’s smile.

Well and good. When we go to an ethnic restaurant, we want a little pride in tradition. We want florid, elegantly melancholy foreign music in the background. We want a shaker of purple spice on the table and something unusual to chew while we’re waiting, like a whole raw onion. Iranians are possibly the greatest onion connoisseurs.

Iranian menus tend to be rather the same, one reason being that only a few Iranian dishes can be cooked as short orders. This is why we think of Iranian restaurants as reliable places to go for shish kebabs of tender beef and perfectly done chicken, and so it is here. Javan has the usual range of kebabs, all pleasantly aromatic with onion and a hint of saffron, served with a huge mound of rice.

But Javan makes a little more effort than most to serve the more ambitious dishes. Every day, there are at least two specials, such as zereshk polo , which happens to be the best version I’ve had. It’s basically chicken kebab, but with a rice pilaf thoroughly mixed with dried barberries. They look like currants that have been flattened by a steam roller, and they’re refreshingly tart. (By comparison, the albaloo polo , a better-known dish, is a little cloying since the flavoring is sweet cherries.)

There are also some unusual dishes on the regular side of the menu. Gheymeh , a boneless lamb shank with a sauce of yellow split peas, is particularly good, tart and faintly perfumed with dried lime peel. It is quaintly topped with the world’s stiffest French fries. Almost as good is bademjan , lamb shank with one of the great Near Eastern comfort-food ideas, eggplant and tomato cooked down until they’re practically one texture. This dish is made sweet-sour with pomegranate juice.

Javan is not one of the Iranian restaurants where the appetizers are the whole point. Kashk o bademjan is pretty good, eggplant cooked down almost to a rich puree and dribbled with a sort of sour whey preparation called kashk (it actually gets more flavor from sumac, that purple spice on the table). A thick, homey bean and barley soup called ash e jou has the same topping, though here the predominant flavor is spinach that has been cooked forever.

Every Iranian restaurant I’ve been to serves the same desserts, but Javan has some slightly unusual versions, baghlava , in particular. It’s the cigar-shaped kind of baklava , with a filling soaked with syrup (the pastry part is practically dry), and it’s unusually spicy, as if there’s cardamom and candied ginger in it.

Zulbia, the free-form fritter, is particularly well-made, practically spurting syrup when you bite into it. Bamyeh , the little syrup-soaked cake that is supposed to look like an okra, is, like a lot of the world’s soaked cake desserts (and I’m thinking of you, baba au rhum ), not quite as much fun as it should be.

There’s also Shiraz-style faludeh , which I think of as a summer dessert: a rose-flavored ice that, for reasons that have always eluded me, is mixed with white vermicelli made from cornstarch. It isn’t toned down for cold weather; it becomes a block of icy vermicelli with some canned cherries on top.

I’m glad I found Javan. Thanks, Angeli.

Suggested dishes: kashk o bademjan , $3.95; gheymeh , $5.95; baghlava , $1.30.

Javan, 11600 Santa Monica Blvd. 9, West Los Angeles, (213) 207- 5555. Open for lunch through dinner daily. Full bar. Parking lot. American Express, MasterCard and Visa accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $16 to $32.