News Bites

Terrazza Toscana restaurant in Encino is offering diners complimentary pre-dinner tastings of such Italian staples as cheeses, prosciuttos, olive oils, Tuscan-style breads and wine.

Chef Agostino Sciandri says the wine, vino novelli, is a light red, the Italian equivalent of a French Beaujolais nouveau. It’s imported from Italy and has a fruity flavor that goes well with pasta and other dishes.

Twenty types of olive oils will be offered. Patrons will be able to compare oils from Tuscany, such as Tenuta San Guido Bolgheri and Ornellaia, to olive oils from other regions of Italy. Restaurant personnel will answer diners’ questions regarding the different regions, and the consistencies, aromas and flavors of the oils.

Terrazza Toscana will offer the pre-dinner tastings from 5:30 to 9 p.m. Sundays through Thursdays only.

Terrazza Toscana, 17401 Ventura Blvd., Encino, (818) 905-1641.

MORE FISH

The Beach Head Cafe is adding more seafood entrees to its menu. After the first of the year, the Encino restaurant will add five or six fresh “fish of the day” items plus some seafood pizza and pasta dishes.

“We just feel that it’s time to add some other things,” co-owner Gerri Rothschild said. “In this area, our seafood plates went over very well.”

Rothschild said although most of the restaurant’s menu is less than $10, the new seafood items will be priced at about $12.

The Beach Head Cafe, 17200 Ventura Blvd., Encino, (818) 501-7600.

LESS OIL

Chin Chin, the Chinese restaurant chain, is offering a lighter menu featuring dishes made with little or no oil. The new “Chin Chin Lite” menu includes dim sum, salads, noodles, moo shu , rice and entrees the restaurant calls “banquet specialties.”

Spokeswoman Diana Foutz says no fats, including lard or oil, are used, except for those noted on the menu. Dim sum appetizers are steamed or boiled and contain only a small amount of sesame oil for flavor, while sesame oil has been removed from the salad dressings, according to the menu. The restaurant says its blanched vegetable dishes are tossed in oil-free sauces. Dishes such as kung pao chicken, beef and broccoli, garlic chicken, cashew shrimp, shrimp with lobster sauce, and sweet and sour orange chicken are prepared with no oil. These entrees range from $7.75 to $8.95. The moo shu , rice and noodle dishes are $4.75 to $7.95 and are prepared with no oil, according to the menu.

Chin Chin’s crispy rice noodles are fried in peanut and a combination of corn and canola oils, and they can be withheld from dishes upon request.

Foutz says the new menu is a response to customers’ requests.

In the San Fernando Valley, Chin Chin is at 16101 Ventura Blvd., Encino, (818) 783-1717, and 12215 Ventura Blvd., Studio City, (818) 985-9090.

LESS MONEY

Milano Ristorante in Sherman Oaks has lowered menu prices by about $2 per entree and, for the first time, is offering beer and wine.

Dinner prices now start at $9.95, and half of the menu items are less than $12, spokesman Ray Rosenbaum said. Lunches start at $6.95. Entrees include pizza, pasta, seafood, veal and chicken. Italian-style steak dinners have been reduced from $15.95 to $12.95.

The restaurant will feature three imported beers, Peroni Messina from Italy, Maccabee from Israel and Bass from England, plus Italian, French and California wines.

The restaurant, owned by Rocco Coluccio, is not affiliated with any chain.

Rocco’s Milano Italian Ristorante, 15466 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks, (818) 783-2405.