RESTAURANT REVIEW : Sanamluang’s Cooking Is the Thai That Binds

The dizzying array of restaurants on Ventura Boulevard creates the illusion that you can get virtually anything imaginable to eat there. That is a great exaggeration.

The southern part of the San Fernando Valley simply lacks sufficient concentrations of most ethnics to support restaurants offering authentic fare of their native lands.

But this changes as you go north of the boulevard. Consider North Hollywood. When you happen on the neon-lit Bangluck Plaza at night, it shimmers like a mirage in the clear darkness of a Santa Ana night. It’s almost a mini-modern Asian village: Thai supermarket, video store and restaurant and Chinese barbecue shop. And, in the parking lot, a Buddhist shrine the size of a VW bug, encrusted with glass mosaic and adorned with a herd of small carved wooden elephants.

The market is so close that you can see the produce that goes onto your table. And this proximity must be one reason that Sanamluang Cafe’s cooking is as fresh and vibrant as any I’ve encountered. Compared to most other Thai places, the cooking is more pungent, more flavorsome, less delicate in the Western sense, yet wonderfully complex.

For example, yen-ta-pho, a hot and sour soup whose red broth is laced with nam pla (fish sauce) and chiles, sends out beautifully mixed messages, some of them highly spiced. The solids--among them squid, shrimp, jellyfish and fried won ton and rice noodles--add a generally welcome variety of textures.

Another almost magical dish is listed on the menu simply as duck salad. What’s in it other than duck, red onions and lime juice is difficult to say, but it’s worth going back to order merely that.

Sanamluang also does admirable versions of more familiar dishes. Larb --a salad of ground beef (or pork or chicken) with onion, mint leaves, chile, lime juice and powdered rice--was fully realized. Tom-yum-goong --a chile-spiced soup with lemon grass, beautifully textured shrimp and lime juice--should wake up even a long-dormant palate. Especially pleasing was a squid salad of such outstanding texture that its preparation should be required of any chef attempting to prepare this challenging sea creature.

All of this is served in a slightly updated version of the once-standard Formica-heavy design of ethnic restaurants. Sanamluang’s prices are slightly old-fashioned too: Six people could eat very well for less than $40 and have plenty to talk about the next day.

Though virtually all of Sanamluang’s dishes seem accessible to the Western palate (the degree of spiciness is, as always, a personal one), there are a couple that just might be too odd.

Koou chai is a patty of translucent glutinous rice paste filled with Chinese greens. Its slimy texture, somewhat like that of sea urchin, might be off-putting; the mild taste is certainly not. Som-tom, a salad made with shredded translucent green (that is, unripe) papaya with salty dried tiny shrimp is also slimy. There is no reason to believe that these dishes are less than the best they can be; it’s just that it would be difficult to recommend them to cautious eaters.

In spite of the variety and vitality of the choices available at this Sanamluang (there are others in Pomona and Hollywood), a whole section of the menu headed “Dishes” is not offered here. This includes such intriguing items as fried morning glory with soy bean sauce and duck feet stew.

Nonetheless, even with the shorter menu, the North Hollywood cafe should whet your appetite for the exotic.

Recommended dishes: tom-yum-goong ($4.75), larb ($3.75), duck salad ($4.50).

Sanamluang Cafe, 12980 Sherman Way, North Hollywood; (818) 764-1180. Open 10 a.m. to midnight daily. Beer and wine. Parking lot. Cash only.