Published by: World Tibet Network News, Wednesday, March 27, 1996

The San Francisco Chronicle Sunday,

March 17, 1996

Even if you've never been to Tibet, after a meal at Lhasa Moon on Lombard Street near Scott Street in San Francisco, you'll have a good idea of the climate and culture. The food at this exclusively Tibetan restaurant is rustic and almost harsh, much like the country. Most dishes are practically devoid of the aromas found in other Asian food. Flavors are based on barley, ginger, peppercorns, dried chiles and onions sauteed to a rich caramel color.

Even though the flavor range is limited, the food has a certain straightforward honesty that makes it very enticing.

Because Tibet is a remote country -- an arid plateau surrounded by mountains -- much of the the land cannot be farmed. Vegetables are scarce and most spices are dried. One of the few flavorings produced in the country is salt, and it's used liberally. Lhasa Moon owners Losang Gyatso, Tsering Wangmo and Tseten Paljor have produced an authentic-tasting cuisine. Paljor, the chef, worked in Tibetan restaurants in India. Gyatso, who has never been in the restaurant business before, is from Tibet and worked in advertising for 15 years in New York. His girlfriend, Wangmo, is a well-known Tibetan dancer. They decided to open the restaurant because they wanted to do something together.

The specialty at Lhasa Moon that most defines the food is butter tea, a fairly strong brew mixed with butter (in Tibet it would be made from yak cream), salt and soda. It seems rather salty at first, but the creaminess works to balance and smooth the rough edges of many dishes.

Any meal needs to begin with momo ($7.50), which are much like the Chinese steamed or pan-fried dumplings. At Lhasa Moon, the rosette-shaped dumplings are plumped with various savory fillings: One has beef and vegetables; another has cabbage, bok choy and mint. The elastic shells hold in the juices, which burst out when the shell is punctured. The fillings, while substantial, have that marvelous, distinctive texture that comes from hand chopping. The momo are served with a cilantro and chile-infused soy sauce.

A similar dough is used on the shabhaley ($8.50), a stuffed pancake filled with meats and vegetables. It's cut into quarters like a quesadilla and served with the same accompaniments that come with the momo.

Few people will be able to resist jhasha khatsa ($4.50), nuggets of chicken marinated in a spicy curry sauce and then deep- fried and eaten as finger food. Lephing ($3.50) might appeal to more specialized tastes, but it's by far the most interesting dish on the menu. Made from mung beans, it looks like a giant white creme caramel. It has an almost translucent appearance and is flecked with bits of chive. It's surrounded and topped with a soy-based sauce that has a powdery heat from dried chiles. The cool, gelatinous texture goes only partway in taming the spiciness; the thick pitalike bread that comes with it is a much more effective weapon.

Gyatso says that in his homeland peo ple eat mainly meat, potatoes and daikon because most other vegetables are rarely available. He's made a concession at Lhasa Moon, where diners will discover many excellent vegetarian dishes.

In most cases, however, the flavors are authentic. One nonmeat dish, tsel shogok ($7.50), consists of spinach, slices of al dente potatoes and snow peas flavored with a broth infused with dried chiles. On the meat side of the menu, shogok ngopa ($8.50) blends beef into a similar mixture of potatoes and spinach. The flavor of the sauce is so robust that the meat adds very little.

Few restaurants do as many things with daikon, which has a peppery radish flavor. In tsel labu ($7.50), chunks of daikon are stewed in a vegetable broth with spinach. The daikon is soft but has a refreshing juiciness that counters the heat from emma, a Tibetan peppercorn. In dhang tsel ($2.50), the white radish is blended with cabbage and a touch of sesame and vinegar, offering crunchy relief from many of the stewlike combinations.

Most meat dishes are made with beef, the rest with lamb and chicken. Loko petsel ($8.50) consists of marinated slices of beef paired with sauteed cabbage ($8.50), red peppers and carrots in a dark, rich sauce with smoky overtones and a touch of heat. Luksha shamdeh ($9.50), curry with yogurt-marinated lamb, has a rustic flavor but lacks the perfumed qualities found in Indian dishes.

Another section of the menu concentrates on pasta. One of the most unusual is gutse rithuk ($9.50), doughy hand-rolled noodles in a rich lamb stew. Thukpa ngopa ($8.25) is described as baked noodles, but it's similar to pan-fried Chinese noodles. These are topped with green beans, bell peppers, celery, carrots, bok choy and onions, among other things.

The desserts at Lhasa Moon certainly aren't what Westerners are used to, but they are very satisfy ing. A warm rice pudding ($3.50) has a texture like sticky rice and is topped with raisins and a tart house-made yogurt sauce. A handmade pasta rolled in brown sugar ($3) is similar to steamed cinnamon rolls and has a sauce with ground roasted barley that tasted like a rich caramel sauce.

Unfortunately, unless you're prepared to spend the entire evening here, you might not have the patience to wait for dessert. The 45-seat dining room is run by only two people, and the kitchen crew, which makes everything from scratch, can't be hurried. Waiting 45 minutes to an hour between courses is more the rule than the exception. Still, if you're not rushing to a movie and enjoy the company of your dining companions, the meal will be very enjoyable.

While the atmosphere isn't going to compete with Fleur de Lys, it's much nicer than many neighborhood restaurants. Green, leaf- patterned carpet, forest-green tablecloths overlaid with brown paper and black-and-white photographs of Tibet give the place a very pleasant look. The beam down the middle of the room is painted orange, with Tibetan designs painted on each support column. On the back wall, on either side of the kitchen doors, are portraits of the previous and current Dalai Lama draped in white silk as a sign of respect.

Even if Lhasa Moon weren't the first to feature a little-known cuisine, the warmth of the staff and the integrity of the food would make it worth a visit. Lhasa Moon represents another rich thread in the culinary fabric of the city that loves to eat. --- The wine list at Lhasa Moon has only three wines: Foxhollow Chardonnay, Rutherford Cabernet Sauvignon and Montpellier Merlot. All are priced at $15. The best choice, given the rustic nature of the food, is one of the three beers on the menu, particularly the robust Anchor Steam ($3.25).

For more adventuresome tastes, there's the traditional butter tea or a Tibetan-style rice wine ($2.50 a glass) made by Takara U.S.A.

LHASA MOON ADDRESS: 2420 Lombard Street (near Scott), San Francisco PHONE: (415) 674-9898 HOURS:

Open for lunch noon-2:30 p.m. Tuesday-Friday; dinner 5-10 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday. Beer and wine. Reservations and credit cards accepted.

PRICES: $

PLUSES: First Tibetan restaurant in the area featuring unique combinations; don't miss the momo MINUSES: Service can be forgetful; expect a long wait between courses, as the kitchen gets backed up