A Taste of the World : * When visitors demand to be fed ‘something we can’t find back home,’ try the Valley’s diverse dining opportunities.

Summer’s upon us and so are the relatives, many of whom need to be fed almost constantly. Demanding, aren’t they?

Need you be reminded that they didn’t come here, America’s great ethnic stewpot, expecting to fill up on burgers and pizza?

“We want something we can’t find back home,” you hear them cry, making a mental note that home is places like Muscatine, Iowa; Asheville, N.C., and Madawaska, Me. Well, lift that head up high. You’ll be ready for them this year.

The San Fernando Valley’s ethnic diversity is staggering, and this is the perfect time to take advantage. Try wowing Aunt Martha and Cousin Harold with the following half-dozen restaurants:

Cha Cha Cha

Chef Toribio Prado, who founded this colorful place, is an original and so is this restaurant, a sun-splashed palace of Caribbean camp. This is the Valley’s offshoot of the slightly fruity and wildly successful Melrose Avenue eatery; a restaurant that mixes Cuban, Jamaican, African and “pan-island” sensibilities. Walls are the colors of molting tropical birds. Pineapples perch precipitously on every table.

Most people begin a meal here with silly tropical drinks in tall, cool glasses crowned with plumeria , then progress to such items as jerked chicken pizza, crispy, spicy chunks of fried Jamaican pork with three salsas; camerones negros , fat shrimp in a hot black pepper sauce served over a bed of coconut-infused rice, or a variety of piquant, grilled meats.

This is the place to go when you want a lively evening. The staff is lighthearted and energetic, there’s a boisterous, party-on clientele, and everyone is cheered by the outrageous desserts, a perfect metaphor for this madhouse.

17499 Ventura Blvd., Encino. (818) 789-3600. Moderately priced.

Haifa

Greater Los Angeles has the largest concentration of Israelis in the United States outside of New York, and therefore a plethora of Israeli restaurants. Haifa is Glatt Kosher, a restaurant conforming strictly to Jewish dietary law. This means no dairy products, as the restaurant serves meats, which are taboo around dairy.

The restaurant is bright, boxy and basic, the food distinctly Middle Eastern. All meals are accompanied by little dishes of spicy Turkish salad, a relish made from chopped tomatoes, cumin and olive oil; purple-colored pickled radish; bitter green olives, and stacks of grilled pita bread. The wonderfully hearty Yemeni soup is a rich, highly spiced lamb broth full of beans, potatoes and spices. Eggplant tahina is a smoky puree, chopped baked eggplant mashed with tahini, a paste made from ground sesame.

This can be heavy food, some dishes having been transplanted to Israel from chilly Eastern Europe. The comforting baked chicken is a bit fattier than what you might be used to, served with a mountain of green beans and rice. On weekends the restaurant features cholent, a Jewish cassoulet of white beans, stewed meats, potatoes and carrots. Don’t order this one on a warm day.

Haifa, 15464 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks. (818) 995-7325. Inexpensive.

Balalayka

Reseda’s Balalayka has a Russian-sounding name (a balalaika is that three-stringed lute being plucked in “Doctor Zhivago,”) but the cuisine here really speaks for an entire continent. Owner Robert Chargchian is an Armenian who learned to cook in Ukraine, and his repertory of dishes is nearly as wide as the Volga itself.

Our Russian restaurants tend to be housed in vast, dark chambers, cavernously empty during the week, jammed to the rafters on weekends. On busy nights you dine alongside a colorful crowd, assembling to feast on a fabulous spread of hot and cold Russian hors d’oeuvres: marinated mushrooms; assorted pickles; pureed eggplant; a creamy salad of potato, pea, sour cream, chicken meat and dill called Stolichny , and tkemali , a traditional Georgian condiment made from pomegranate, garlic, coriander and red pepper.

Entrees run to Siberian dumplings called pelmeni ; Pokarsky, lamb chops marinated in pomegranate juice, garlic and coriander; tabaka , crisp, flat grilled Cornish game hen, and the ubiquitous chicken Kiev. Better skip lunch.

19655 Sherman Way, Reseda, (818) 349-5300. Moderate to expensive.

Angkor

Thai cooking has become almost mainstream, and Vietnamese cooking is available in limited fashion in every corner of this country. But one cuisine that remains relatively unknown is Cambodian, which I would describe loosely as a cross between the two.

Angkor is the only Cambodian restaurant I know of away from Long Beach, where the Cambodian-American community is centered. The flavors are subtle in this cooking, plenty of exotic lemon grass, lime leaf, tamarind seed and ginger. It’s milder than its Thai cousin, and hearty soups play a major role.

Angkor itself is simple and unpretentious, a slightly dark room filled with framed photos of ancient Khmer wats (temples) and glass-topped tables. You’ll be on familiar ground if you try any of the stir-fried meats, many of which resemble Chinese dishes.

But appetizers such as nhorm yihoer , quick-boiled squid with onion, shallot and a Cambodian herb dressing, or plear , thinly sliced beef with cabbage, carrot and a difficult-to-identify blend of spices, are definitely a new experience. And so are soups like samlaw korko , chewy vegetables in a roasted rice broth.

16161 Ventura Blvd., Encino. (818) 990-8491. Inexpensive to moderate.

Kushiyu

Sushi is synonymous with Japanese food, but there is far more to the cuisine than that. Kushiyu is a nomiya , or drinking pub, where the specialty is something called kushiyaki , a dazzling array of skewered grilled meats and vegetables. In Japan, kushiyaki is practically a way of life.

This is a nice-looking place, late 20th-Century Pacific Rim. Order off a paper list, figuring about five dishes per person. Orders consist of two sticks, three or four pieces per stick, and portions are bite size. Don’t expect to be filled up quickly.

The best dishes include negima , little pieces of chicken grilled with pieces of blackened green onion, renkon tsukune , minced chicken paste clinging to rounds of lotus root, swordfish, squid and shishiamo , three smoky whole smelts that have been spared the skewer treatment. Good non- kushiyaki dishes are onigiri , triangles of grilled rice stuffed with salted salmon, and yukari age , deep-fried shiso leaves wrapping halibut, chicken and black mushroom.

18713 Ventura Blvd., Tarzana, (818) 609-9050. Moderately priced.

Norah’s Place

It’s well known that we have an enormous Mexican community, but Southern California is also a magnet for South Americans, and many interesting cuisines from there have surfaced here.

The most alluring of them might be Bolivian. Given Bolivia’s high and remote Andean location, it is certainly the most unusual.

Come here on a weekend and you can experience folk entertainment, mostly tango music and other dance forms indigenous to owner Norah Lopez’s native country. This is another dark, smoke-filled room where people sit in long rows facing the stage. The napkins stick straight up out of their glasses, like little flagpoles.

You’ll eat dishes like sopa de mani, a piquant peanut-based soup; wonderful lapping steak, beef with treads like a Goodyear tire served sizzling on an iron platter, and pukas , a cheese turnover in the empanada family that is filled with olives and fresh chili. Wines are Chilean, cheap, red and delicious. Bands such as Trio Sud Americano perform exclusively in Spanish, so bring that diccionario .

Norah’s Place, 5667 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood. (818) 980-6900. Moderately priced.