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ARMENIAN FARE FILLS THE AIR IN L.A.
By John Henderson
Denver Post Staff Writer
Denver Post, CO
Dec 13 2006
I found a suburb that has real charm, an identity. Credit the ethnic
makeup for Glendale becoming more than just another boring bedroom
community built on off-ramps and Macaroni Grills.
Glendale, Calif. - Suburbia is America's culinary wasteland. It's
where you must get in your car to buy a gallon of milk or pint of
beer, where your best dining options are Chili's or Black-Eyed Pea
and where Olive Garden is considered just one step away from Italy.
Suburbia's great contribution to urban planning is the cul-de-sac.
There is no there there.
But just northeast of Los Angeles, where suburban life is a world unto
its own, there is one 'burb where you can tell what city line you're
crossing without a freeway map, and where you can dine somewhere
besides a strip mall.
Credit the ethnic makeup of Glendale for it becoming more than just
another boring bedroom community built on off-ramps and Macaroni
Grills.
Glendale has 85,000 ethnic Armenians - about 40 percent of the city's
population - making it the largest Armenian community west of the
Black Sea. Walk by shops in the tree-lined downtown, and you hear a
smattering of Armenian and Farsi, the national language of Iran from
which many Armenians emigrated after the overthrow of the shah in 1979.
You see Arabic-style lettering on ice cream shops and auto garages.
You see Armenian flags on houses.
But you sense something else. You sense the smell of roasted lamb
and charbroiled chicken and cumin and nutmeg. Glendale is blessed
with a plethora of Armenian restaurants. Step inside one, and you
won't think you're anywhere near a Tony Roma's, although one is also
right downtown.
People come from all over metro L.A. to Glendale for the food, and
so did I. I spent two straight weekends watching Southern California
botch another attempt at a national football title, and on a sunny
Sunday afternoon visited the flagship of Glendale's Armenian cuisine.
Raffi's Place has a brick outdoor patio surrounding a huge tree with
lamp heaters. The place is packed with Armenians, handsome people
with big, dark eyes and an innate sense of style. I saw two giggling
teenage girls speaking Armenian or Farsi into their cellphones,
a man in his 20s wearing a baby blue UCLA sweatshirt.
I was the only one speaking English and looked only slightly out of
place wearing blue jeans and a souvenir golf shirt from the Tour de
France and reading the L.A. Times sports section. I didn't look like
someone craving shirazi.
I did have one thing in common with everyone. I loved the food.
Denver has numerous Middle Eastern restaurants, and I want to visit
Beirut merely to see if I can find Lebanese food better than at the
Pita Jungle on University Boulevard near the University of Denver.
Armenian food is similar to Lebanese: It's big on kabobs, marinated
chicken and hummus.
But it's different in many ways. Armenians put shallots in their
yogurt. Eggplant is a big appetizer. Raffi's menu offers pomegranate
juice. Armenia, a tiny landlocked country squeezed between Iran,
Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, is surprisingly into fish.
I stepped away from the kabobs and tried the patient waiter's
recommendation of a true Armenian dish: chicken soltani. It's
marinated chicken barg (big chunks) and chicken koobideh (ground up)
with grilled tomato and green pepper over basmati rice.
The dish came in a Denny's-sized portion but had four-star quality.
The barg was a foot-long string of chicken, tangy and succulent, and
it rested on a giant slab of ground chicken. I could eat only about
three-quarters and spent the rest of my time watching the Armenian
families socialize and the line grow into the parking lot.
Glendale has been fairly accommodating during the Armenian invasion,
which began in the 1920s but attracted another surge in the '70s. The
Armenians turned ultra-WASP Glendale, home of John Wayne and Elvin
Bishop, into a cultural melting pot. The city even flies American flags
at half-staff on April 24, Armenian Genocide Day, commemorating the
slaughter of an estimated half-million Armenians during the Ottoman
Empire from 1915-23.
But Glendale did start a controversy when it tried applying its laws
against outdoor grilling to Armenian restaurants, which seems like
telling gardeners to cover up their rose bushes.
"It's barbecue," said Raymond Bakijan, Raffi's manager. "It's got to
be outside."
I'd say Glendale raised a stink, but it smelled too good. Still does.
By John Henderson
Denver Post Staff Writer
Denver Post, CO
Dec 13 2006
I found a suburb that has real charm, an identity. Credit the ethnic
makeup for Glendale becoming more than just another boring bedroom
community built on off-ramps and Macaroni Grills.
Glendale, Calif. - Suburbia is America's culinary wasteland. It's
where you must get in your car to buy a gallon of milk or pint of
beer, where your best dining options are Chili's or Black-Eyed Pea
and where Olive Garden is considered just one step away from Italy.
Suburbia's great contribution to urban planning is the cul-de-sac.
There is no there there.
But just northeast of Los Angeles, where suburban life is a world unto
its own, there is one 'burb where you can tell what city line you're
crossing without a freeway map, and where you can dine somewhere
besides a strip mall.
Credit the ethnic makeup of Glendale for it becoming more than just
another boring bedroom community built on off-ramps and Macaroni
Grills.
Glendale has 85,000 ethnic Armenians - about 40 percent of the city's
population - making it the largest Armenian community west of the
Black Sea. Walk by shops in the tree-lined downtown, and you hear a
smattering of Armenian and Farsi, the national language of Iran from
which many Armenians emigrated after the overthrow of the shah in 1979.
You see Arabic-style lettering on ice cream shops and auto garages.
You see Armenian flags on houses.
But you sense something else. You sense the smell of roasted lamb
and charbroiled chicken and cumin and nutmeg. Glendale is blessed
with a plethora of Armenian restaurants. Step inside one, and you
won't think you're anywhere near a Tony Roma's, although one is also
right downtown.
People come from all over metro L.A. to Glendale for the food, and
so did I. I spent two straight weekends watching Southern California
botch another attempt at a national football title, and on a sunny
Sunday afternoon visited the flagship of Glendale's Armenian cuisine.
Raffi's Place has a brick outdoor patio surrounding a huge tree with
lamp heaters. The place is packed with Armenians, handsome people
with big, dark eyes and an innate sense of style. I saw two giggling
teenage girls speaking Armenian or Farsi into their cellphones,
a man in his 20s wearing a baby blue UCLA sweatshirt.
I was the only one speaking English and looked only slightly out of
place wearing blue jeans and a souvenir golf shirt from the Tour de
France and reading the L.A. Times sports section. I didn't look like
someone craving shirazi.
I did have one thing in common with everyone. I loved the food.
Denver has numerous Middle Eastern restaurants, and I want to visit
Beirut merely to see if I can find Lebanese food better than at the
Pita Jungle on University Boulevard near the University of Denver.
Armenian food is similar to Lebanese: It's big on kabobs, marinated
chicken and hummus.
But it's different in many ways. Armenians put shallots in their
yogurt. Eggplant is a big appetizer. Raffi's menu offers pomegranate
juice. Armenia, a tiny landlocked country squeezed between Iran,
Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, is surprisingly into fish.
I stepped away from the kabobs and tried the patient waiter's
recommendation of a true Armenian dish: chicken soltani. It's
marinated chicken barg (big chunks) and chicken koobideh (ground up)
with grilled tomato and green pepper over basmati rice.
The dish came in a Denny's-sized portion but had four-star quality.
The barg was a foot-long string of chicken, tangy and succulent, and
it rested on a giant slab of ground chicken. I could eat only about
three-quarters and spent the rest of my time watching the Armenian
families socialize and the line grow into the parking lot.
Glendale has been fairly accommodating during the Armenian invasion,
which began in the 1920s but attracted another surge in the '70s. The
Armenians turned ultra-WASP Glendale, home of John Wayne and Elvin
Bishop, into a cultural melting pot. The city even flies American flags
at half-staff on April 24, Armenian Genocide Day, commemorating the
slaughter of an estimated half-million Armenians during the Ottoman
Empire from 1915-23.
But Glendale did start a controversy when it tried applying its laws
against outdoor grilling to Armenian restaurants, which seems like
telling gardeners to cover up their rose bushes.
"It's barbecue," said Raymond Bakijan, Raffi's manager. "It's got to
be outside."
I'd say Glendale raised a stink, but it smelled too good. Still does.