Go to Tosh’s Mediterranean With a Plan and an Appetite

The sign in the window at Tosh’s Mediterranean in Huntington Beach reads “Turkish-Greek.” I call that a masterful understatement.

Nothing about this boxy (though quietly charming) Beach Boulevard restaurant looks out of the ordinary--certainly not outside, and not inside either. Its best visual feature is an enormous pastry counter where those Turkish delights called baklava, kadayif and revani await. Less attractive are the glass table tops, which make the place feel a little like a coffee shop.

But a coffee shop this ain’t.

For 10 years the building housed an American-style rib joint called Tosh’s Barbecue. Then Esin and Erdem Denktash, who own the building, sold the business to a Frenchman who turned it into the ill-fated Voila, a bistro that folded last year. Now the couple has taken the restaurant back and turned it into something really special, a restaurant serving unique and delicious Turkish, Arabic, Greek and Armenian dishes. It’s a major cultural coup for this area.

If anybody should understand the cooking of this region, it is the chef, Esin Denktash. She’s a native of Izmir, one of Turkey’s major cities, and the daughter of a Turkish father and an Arabic-speaking mother. Her husband happens to be a Cypriot, and if you follow European politics you may notice that his surname is identical to that of the president of the Turkish Republic of Cyprus, Rauf Denktash. It’s no mere coincidence; Erdem is Rauf’s nephew.

There are so many wonderful things to eat here that you might never get past the appetizers if you don’t have a plan. On a first visit, I’d start with something like Tosh’s combination appetizer plate, which gives you the freedom to choose four starters from a long list. Afterward, order one of the distinctive kebabs. There’ll be time enough on a later visit to branch out.

Tosh’s most beguiling appetizers, ezme and muhammara , are dishes appearing for the first time in Orange County. Smashing up ingredients plays a major role in this cuisine, and both these appetizers get their unusual textures from that process. Ezme is a hot crushed salad composed of cucumber, fresh tomato, onion, parsley, mint, red pepper salsa and an abundant sprinkling of cayenne pepper--meaning it packs real heat. Muhammara , which itself is a sort of ceviz (walnut) ezme, is mostly crushed walnuts mixed with bread crumbs, cayenne and olive oil. It looks and feels like brick mortar, but it tastes rich and tangy smeared on hunks of Tosh’s homemade pita bread.

There are other mashed appetizers such as the garbanzo bean dip hummus , unctuous with sesame paste flavoring. Tosh’s baba ghannouj (also called patlican salatasi ) is a hummus-like dip made with smoky mashed eggplant, rendered smooth and elegant by the addition of yogurt. You can request an exotic cold dish called cerkes tavuk if you call a couple of hours in advance. It’s chicken pounded together with walnuts and paprika, to a surprisingly creamy consistency.

You will also find eastern Mediterranean standbys such as dolmas and spanakopita on the appetizer list. Be particularly on the lookout for boreks , flaky little pies stuffed with meat or cheese. Eat two or three of these and you’ll lose all resolve. No wonder those Ottoman pashas look so big in the portraits.

Most of the main dishes at Tosh’s are kebab plates, and all but a few of them are similar to what you find in most of our Middle Eastern restaurants. The Adana and doner kebabs, however, are definitely a breed apart. The former, a specialty of the southern Turkish city Adana, consists of tubular pieces of ground beef seasoned with onions, peppers, mint and other herbs, served sizzling on the skewer.

Doner kebab is basically the same as the Greek gyros : A giant mass of meat revolves on a vertical spit, and slices are hewn off the perennially browning surface. But Tosh’s version, doner kebab Alexander (which the menu claims was Alexander the Great’s favorite dish), has a twist. Instead of being served between pieces of pita bread with onions and a yogurt sauce--the way you’d get it on the street in the eastern Mediterranean--the browned meat slices are served on chunks of grilled pita that have been doused in yogurt sauce, and the whole thing is topped with a spicy tomato sauce.

The chef has recently added two new dishes to her menu, and both are worth planning a meal around. Izmir kebab is little patties made from a mixture of beef and lamb, smothered with spicy tomato sauce and grilled peppers. Bukhara pilaf (a traditional Turkish dish, though it’s named for a famous city in central Asia) is a buttery delight made from fragrant basmati rice, currants and pine nuts. I could truly eat this rice every day.

That goes double for Esin’s pastries, which she makes fresh daily. Her walnut and pistachio baklavas are soft, multilayered and honey-rich, nothing at all like the dried-out baklava you too often run across at Greek restaurants. Revani is a rich honey cake dripping syrup--my favorite thing to have with a muddy demitasse of real Turkish coffee.

Kadayif looks like a shredded wheat biscuit, but inside there is a honeyed nut mixture similar to baklava filling. Most seductive of all, when available, are simit --sweet fragrant pretzel-shaped twists of raised dough studded with white sesame seeds.

I’m seduced, I’m seduced, efendi. And that’s an understatement.

Tosh’s Mediterranean is moderately priced. Appetizers are $2.95 to $3.25. Main dishes are $6.95 to $8.45. Desserts are $2 to $2.50.

* TOSH’S MEDITERRANEAN

* 16871 Beach Blvd., Huntington Beach.

* (714) 842-3315.

* Lunch and dinner Tuesday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday till 11 p.m.

* American Express, MasterCard and Visa.