SUMMERTIME : Cheap Eats : Ventura Boulevard and other arteries are lined with places with delicious and unusual fare that costs less than fast food.

In writing my Friday restaurant review, I spend dozens of hours each week combing the San Fernando Valley for good things to eat, so I pass the following wisdom along with confidence: The relationship between how much one spends and how well one eats is highly overrated.

The Valley has hundreds of good small restaurants that practically give food away, places where spending $10 becomes a challenge. Ventura Boulevard, for example, looks like one giant buffet line to a food writer like me--a Protean stretch of doughnut shops, ethnic restaurants, fast-food joints and takeout stands, none of which require a particularly fat wallet. All our main arteries, in fact, have bargain spots worth visiting, so there’s no reason to settle for the assembly line fare put out by the bigger chains. It won’t taste nearly as good as what you get in these smaller places, and you don’t even save money in the process.

This short list of cheap local eateries could be expanded to fill an entire volume; there’s that much material. I just picked a handful of my favorites to get you started. Here they are:

Domingo’s

When you have a powerful hunger and a limited budget, nothing hits the spot like a good submarine sandwich. Domingo’s, an Italian grocery and specialty market where you can buy anything from wine to homemade sun-dried tomatoes to the most obscurely shaped pastas, makes the best one I have tasted in California.

Owner Anthony Magnanino starts with fresh mini-loaves of Italian bread from Italia Bakery in Granada Hills (owned, not coincidentally, by one of his brothers), brushes the bread with good virgin olive oil and then stuffs it liberally with thinly sliced capicola, mortadella, provolone cheese and roasted red peppers. It’s a soft sandwich with a yielding bite that must weigh a good pound and a half. And these cold cuts, thanks in part to high volume sales here, are always as fresh as can be.

They’ll make almost any kind of sandwich you want, from saucy meatball to all-American ham and Swiss. Don’t miss the meat-rich minestrone soup, swimming with sausage meat, or fresh pastries such as ricotta cheesecake or taralli , airy, sugarcoated Italian twists of bread stick dough.

Rubin’s Red Hot

I’ve never been able to understand why anyone would drive over the hill to get a hotdog at Pink’s, when we have far better hotdog stands right here in the Valley. So, with apologies to the excellent Wiener Factory, it’s time to treat yourself to a Rubin’s red hot, my favorite hotdog in Los Angeles at the present time.

It’s easy to find this place, because it ranks right up there with the Burger That Ate L.A. on Melrose and the original McDonald’s (on Lakewood and Florence in Downey) as one of the great pieces of local restaurant architecture. It’s almost under the San Diego Freeway on Ventura Boulevard and impossible to miss, a 17-foot span of railway track from owner Norm Rubin’s beloved EL in Chicago, also home to Best’s Kosher Meats, suppliers of these classy dogs.

Sit outside at one of the fire-engine-red patio tables and watch traffic rush by as you down your Big Red, a poppy seed and onion bun splotched with dill pickle, red onion, relish, mustard, a chili pepper, celery salt and a large, meaty frank. Great, spicy Polish dogs, too, the perfect foil for deli-style brown mustard and sauerkraut, hand-cut fries cooked in pure peanut oil. Enjoy.

Zankou Chicken

In its own way, Glendale’s Zankou Chicken, a bright, cheery Armenian-owned business located just east of downtown, is nearly as sophisticated an operation as any large hamburger chain. The heart of this operation is three enormous metal rotisseries, each of which cook up to 50 chickens at one time on rotating metal spits, manned constantly by a team of ever-vigilant chicken roasters. These are crisp-skinned, golden brown masterpieces, good enough to make the bigger franchises hang their heads in shame. No wonder this restaurant is always packed, even in the middle of the afternoon.

This might be the best roast chicken in town at any price, moist, juicy and fragrant with a garlic-infused marinade. But the one more component that makes it really special is thrown in for free.

Zankou’s secret calling card is an intense, pasty white garlic sauce, created to be rubbed directly onto the meat. You’d better like garlic if you take on this stuff; one whiff, and you’re hooked. Wrap up the chicken and sauce in some of the steamy-hot house pita bread, and voila , you have the Peking duck of the masses, possibly the best cheap meal in Southern California. Round out the meal with some of Zankou’s great pickled turnips and pepperoncini, available on request.

Turo-Turo

The exotic cuisine of the Philippines requires an adventurous palate, but you don’t have to spend much money getting acquainted. Turo-Turo is a full-service restaurant and market in a quiet corner of Chatsworth, where good, homey specialties from all over the islands are dished up from a huge steam table. The name Turo-Turo, I’m told, means “point, point” in Tagalog. Bring all 10 fingers when you visit.

You can start with snacks such as lumpia , dense cigars of spicy meat wrapped in egg roll skins and deep fried. Filipinos eat them with a sweet, unctuous red sauce served alongside. Longanisa are Filipino sausage, fat, thick and short clumps of succulent barbecued pork that spit red juice when they are popped with a fork. Chicken adobo, stewed chicken parts in a dark sauce made with soy, vinegar and sugar, is one of the most popular choices.

Choose from well over two dozen cooked dishes, all perfect foils for the mound of rice that accompany them. There are always a few types of baked fish dishes on hand, crispy pork cracklings, kare-kare, a peanut-based stew, spicy beef and much more. And don’t miss good fried noodle dishes such as bihon , a wispy rice noodle sauteed with shrimp, pork, cabbage and onion. The noodle dishes are the closest things to familiar coming out of this kitchen.

Amir’s Falafel

Falafel, little deep-fried balls of garbanzo bean flour and spices stuffed inside pocket (pita) bread with a variety of vegetables and sauces, is one of the world’s great snacks. It’s Middle Eastern in origin and a big favorite with the many Israelis who inhabit the Valley. I like to eat mine at Amir’s, a bright, cheery Studio City storefront with a black-and-white checked floor and lurid Formica tables. Oh well, no one really comes here for the atmosphere.

They come for this falafel, five or six to a sandwich, extra crispy balls that are golden brown on the outside and tender soft on the inside, a vegetarian sandwich that fills you up as much as any made with meat. Amir’s adds chopped green vegetables, sour pickle, onion and tomato, then drizzles the entire thing with hummus, an unctuous paste made from pureed sesame and garbanzo.

There are other good things to eat here, rainbow-colored salads all laid out in metal tubs behind the counter; tabbouleh salad, made from parsley and cracked bulgur wheat, creamy red cabbage and cumin-spiked cooked eggplant. Nothing costs more than a few dollars. Meat eaters can feast on shawarma, slices of spiced turkey and lamb cooked on a metal spit, for about a dollar more.

WHERE AND WHEN

Location: Domingo’s, 17548 Ventura Blvd., Encino.

Suggested Dishes: Submarine sandwich, $4.25.

Hours: Tuesday-Saturday 9 a.m.-6 p.m., Sunday 10 a.m.- 4 p.m. Closed Monday. Visa and MasterCard accepted.

Call: (818) 981-4466.

Location: Rubin’s Red Hot, 15322 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks.

Suggested Dishes: Big Red, $2.95; Chicago Polish, $3.45; fries, small 95 cents, large $1.35.

Hours: Daily, 9 a.m.- 9 p.m. Cash only.

Call: (818) 905-6515.

WHERE AND WHEN

Location: Zankou Chicken, 1415 E. Colorado St., Unit D, Glendale.

Suggested Dishes: Whole chicken, two pita bread, two garlic sauce, $6; half chicken, one pita bread, one garlic sauce, $3.25.

Hours: Daily, 10 a.m.-11 p.m. Cash only.

Call: (818) 244-1937.

WHERE AND WHEN

Location: Turo-Turo, 20907 Devonshire St., Chatsworth.

Suggested Dishes: Lumpia, 75 cents; longanisa; 75 cents, one-item combo (with rice), $2.25; two-item combo, $3.25; bihon, $4.50.

Hours: Monday-Thursday and Sunday, 8 a.m.-8 p.m., Friday and Saturday 8 a.m.-9 p.m. Cash only.

Call: (818) 709-2129.

Location: Amir’s Falafel, 11711 Ventura Blvd., Studio City.

Suggested Dishes: Falafel with hummus, $3.29; shawarma, $4.29.

Hours: Open daily, 10 a.m-9 p.m. Visa/MasterCard/Discover accepted.

Call: (818) 509-8641.