Don’t Let the Name Fool You

Sri Lankan food is so rare in L.A. that it’s weird to find a place that serves it--and at bargain prices, to boot--hiding behind a name like California B.B.Q. Yet here it is in a Tarzana strip mall.

This is actually a big step up from the old location, a Van Nuys takeout stand that indeed sold barbecue. Owner Hershi K. Ruwanthi kept the name when he moved because it’s well known to local Sri Lankans.

A few barbecue items remain, but I’d concentrate on the Sri Lankan stuff. Above all, the hoppers. These are lacy, bowl-shaped rice flour crepes, browned and crisp at the edges, thick and soft in the middle. You get four (one with an egg cooked into the bottom) with a curry. They’re lighter than traditional hoppers; Ruwanthi cuts the coconut milk in half with cow’s milk.

The rather different string hoppers are dainty steamed patties of vermicelli-like rice flour “strings.” The daily buffets often include string hopper biryani, the “vermicelli” tinted yellow with turmeic and combined with shrimp and vegetables, a la the famous rice dish biryani.

Then there is godamba, a big, soft flat bread served with curries. For an appetizer, a piece of the pizza-like dough is folded around a curried filling (fish, beef or vegetables) and grilled.

Only the 30 miles of Palk Strait separate Sri Lanka from India, and Sri Lankan cuisine uses many of the same ingredients as south Indian, but with different results. Sri Lankans have their own spice blends, do not add yogurt to cooked dishes and use pandanus leaves and lemon grass, both more typical of Thailand or Indonesia.

Hoppers (appam) and string hoppers (idiyappam) are also eaten in south India. And both countries make pittu, which is rice flour and coconut steamed in a tube. In Sri Lanka, this rather heavy, earthy-tasting mixture is eaten with coconut milk, curry and hot sambol, as California B.B.Q. serves it.

Sambols are the distinctive Sri Lankan spicy condiments, and the restaurant does them very well. Pol sambol is a rosy blend of grated coconut, red chiles, dried fish and lemon juice. Kutta sambol is red-hot; mint sambol (great with lamb curry) is mild, just grated coconut and fresh mint. California B.B.Q. also handles Sri Lankan-style chutneys well. The apple chutney is spicy hot, not very sweet, and tastes of ginger. The mango chutney is extremely hot and barely sweetened, vastly different from the sugary mango preserves common in north Indian restaurants.

The “deviled” meats on the menu are not as hot as they sound--they remind me of old-fashioned Cantonese tomato beef. The deviled sauce incorporates tomato sauce, soy sauce, ginger and garlic as well as curry spices.

The pepper curries are hot with black pepper, and Ruwanthi tosses in a few serrano chiles too. The red curries are seasoned with red chiles, the white curry a mild sauce based on coconut milk.

Vegetable dishes include an inky-dark fried eggplant curry that includes coconut milk, tomatoes, fresh pineapple and jalapen~os, a simple lentil curry and the very Sri Lankan cabbage mallum, flavored with shredded coconut and mustard.

For the greatest variety of food, go on a weekend night for the buffet. This impressive spread includes meat and fish dishes, hoppers, rice and/or string hopper biryani, sometimes pittu, vegetable curries, potatoes, lentils, sambols, chutneys and dessert. The price is amazing: $7.95. Weekday lunch buffets are more limited, but still a bargain at $3.99.

A Sinhalese friend suggested starting dinner with a beer shandy--beer cut with soda pop. “It’s very British,” she said. I like Ruwanthi’s fruit punch, a blend of fresh mango juice, Sri Lankan passion fruit and mango cordials and vanilla.

At Indian restaurants, rice pudding is a common dessert. Sri Lankans prefer watalappam, a steamed coconut milk pudding; Ruwanthi sweetens it with jaggery (unrefined sugar) and flavors it with cardamom, cinnamon and allspice. His rendition must be good. It was sold out by the time I ordered it.

This unusual restaurant is certainly worth a visit, even more now that a Sri Lankan market has moved in next door. If you like the food, you can pick up the necessities to cook it yourself, even pans for hoppers, a device for cranking out string hoppers and the tall tubular mold for pittu. I may never make pittu, but the steamer was worth the money. It’s the top conversation piece in my kitchen.

BE THERE

California B.B.Q., 19014 Ventura Blvd., Tarzana; (818) 996-9124. Open daily, 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., 10:30 p.m. on weekends. Lunch buffet daily. Dinner buffet Friday through Sunday, starting at 5:30 p.m. American Express, MasterCard, Visa. Lot and street parking. Wine and beer. Takeout. Food for two, $8 to $16 from the buffets, more if ordering off the menu.

What to Get: Hoppers, string hopper biryani, stuffed godamba, deviled pork or beef, chicken pepper curry, cabbage mallum, fruit punch.

Sambols are the distinctive Sri Lankan spicy condiments, and the restaurant does them very well.