Restaurants : Dairy Dining: Home-Style and Kosher

Under kosher dietary law, there are no restrictions on food from plants--the guidelines deal exclusively with the killing and eating of birds, fish and animals. To be eaten, animals must have a “split hoof,” and chew their cuds; cattle and sheep are OK, swine, horses, reptiles, elephants and all carnivorous beasts are not.

Only fish with fins and tails can be consumed, therefore shellfish and crustaceans cannot. Of feathered and/or airborne creatures, birds of prey and insects are forbidden.

To be classified “kosher,” meat must be slaughtered and prepared under the supervision of specifically certified Jewish officials. These rules also forbid the eating of meat and dairy products together. In fact, separate pots and plates are used, one set for meat and one set for dairy.

In the kosher restaurant world, this division translates into two distinct types of establishments: meat and dairy. Meat restaurants offer beef and lamb and fowl; dairy restaurants offer dishes made with cheese and fish.

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The name of Los Angeles’ newest kosher dairy restaurant, Milk ‘n’ Honey, clever as it is, is somewhat deceptive. The menu largely resembles the most trendy and popular menus in Los Angeles: pizza, pasta, salads, entrees. Entrees, however, are exclusively fish.

Umbrellas and sidewalk tables cluster around the corner location. Just 3 months old, Milk ‘n’ Honey retains the look of a classic downtown restaurant with lots of old wood and mirror. There’s a dark, cozy bar area, but the most popular room is the bright, corner room with its wrap-around windows.

Milk ‘n’ Honey is popular and the wait staff is friendly, earnest. Sometimes the kitchen gives staffers the job of soothing hungry diners forced to wait and wait for their dinners.

The food here tastes home-cooked, as if you’ve gone to a relative’s house for dinner. This can be good, and this can be not so good.

My favorite items all happen to be salads. A fresh and ample Caesar is topped with anchovies and, inexplicably, garnished with plum tomatoes. The Nicoise is just like one you’d make at home: leaf lettuce, creamy boiled red potatoes, steamed green beans, hard-boiled eggs and fresh, rather well-done tuna. The Greek salad is beautiful, brightened with red and yellow peppers and crumbles of a delicious snow-white feta. The only trouble is, all the salads are meal-sized; there are no appetizer portions so if you want a salad before your main course, you need to share one with a friend.

Pizzas, however, come in two sizes: a hefty individual portion and large. The crust is unremarkable. A spinach pizza is made with thick layers of tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese and only a negligible sprinkling of fresh, raw chopped spinach leaf. I was surprised that the smoked salmon pizza had the same base--tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese--which tasted incongruous, no, downright weird with slices of smoked salmon and daubs of sour cream.

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As far as I could see, pastas are probably the most popular item here. There are the usual suspects: capellini alla checca, fettuccine alfredo, ricotta-stuffed ravioli. I like the penne “Marengo,” quill-shaped pasta in a classic combination of tomatoes, black olives, capers and basil. While three kinds of mushrooms are promised in the rigatoni, we find only one kind--the most common supermarket variety.

Grilled tuna tends to be tasty, but over-done. I am seriously disappointed with my baked sea bass, a tasteless slab of poorly trimmed fish served with dull roasted potatoes and steamed vegetables. In comparison, mushroom blintzes seem quite edible, even if the blintzes themselves are rather sweeter, breadier and less supple than I generally like in a savory blintz.

Desserts are made on the premises and worth saving room for. They look lavish, but are pleasantly, lightly sweetened. I enjoyed a moist cinnamon cake with raspberries, and the cheesecakes, particularly a chocolate-cherry cheesecake, is rich without being cloying.

* Milk ‘n’ Honey, 8837 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, (310) 858-8850. Lunch and dinner Sunday through Thursday. Beer and wine. Major credit cards accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $26-$53.