No Passport Needed for Tastes of Thai and Jerusalem

There’s an ever-growing breed of small ethnic restaurant, midway between formica-top and tablecloth places: the glass table-tops.

Sometimes they’re as shiny as a big crystal structure, but at least they’re functional. Glass table-tops are easy to wipe clean and save on linen costs.

The quiet, modest Thai Cuisine in Seal Beach has taken over for the posher Rangthong Thai, which closed a few months ago. The dining room retains a veneer of elegance: soft, coffee-colored paint, diffuse lighting and an aesthetic selection of embroidered wall art. Fresh anthurium and shiny stainless cutlery make the settings more appealing, and the service is punctuated with frequent smiles.

The new owners come from Siam Thai Cuisine in Mission Viejo, and they’ve brought a team of good chefs along. Now, the majority of our Thai restaurants do it sweet, rather than hot, unless you instruct them otherwise. Thai Cuisine will make your food as you say; on our first visit, we told the waitress we wanted it hot, and we got a parade of spicy salads and fragrant curries.

But when the place is busy, it apparently defaults to sweet mode. We returned when the place was bustling, and this time we didn’t really get the chance to explain our wishes. As a result, almost every dish we got was sugary.

At least you’ll never have that problem with the spectacular hors d’oeuvres plate. Starting with the familiar, we find the following terrific Thai finger foods: dense little egg rolls with a subtle minced chicken filling ( poh pia ); beef satay, skewers of grilled beef eaten with fresh cucumbers and peanut sauce; spicy shrimp in noodle wrappers, deep fried ( koong kabok ), and pun krib , which are in effect Thai samosas, tiny pastry triangles with a curried potato and onion filling.

Every Thai restaurant serves the barbecued chicken entree called kai yang , but Thai Cuisine goes its competitors one better with something called yang jim . It’s chicken with a ginger, coriander and garlic marinade, the boneless meat cut into thin strips. The famous Thai beef salad, num nuea , is not on the menu, but the kitchen will make it at the drop of a hat.

Kang keaw whan and panang are a couple of curries flavored with mint, lemon grass and galangal root. The first is fiery green, made with bamboo shoots, green beans and a choice of meats. Panang , a red curry beef thickened with coconut milk, may be the most opulent dish in the Thai Cuisine firmament. It’s certainly the most filling.

Thai Cuisine is inexpensive to moderate. Appetizers are $4.50 to $6.50. Entrees are $5.95 to $11.95.

This is Ramadan, the month during which people of the Islamic faith fast from sunup to sundown. Anaheim’s Jerusalem Restaurant and Bakery is a wonderful new Middle Eastern restaurant where you’ll be tempted to eat as if you’ve been fasting, even if you’ve had a big lunch.

You may already have surmised that this is another glass table-top restaurant, but you might not have guessed that this room is airy and downright woodsy. It’s quite pleasant in here, sitting at rustic wooden booths under plant-filled trellises. For decor we have a plastering of poster art depicting Jerusalem’s Arab Quarter.

Behind the range, a native Palestinian named Shadra Issa prepares some of the most appealing Middle Eastern cuisine I’ve tasted. Before you decide what you will have, she plies you with a complimentary plateful of hummus, olives, turnip pickles and hot pita bread.

The hummus, in particular, is great--a garlicky sesame-garbanzo dip dusted with paprika and chopped parsley. It’s pressed out flat on a dish, with a small depression in the surface filled in by a pool of greenish-yellow olive oil. Mmmm. I was half full before I even got a chance to order anything.

One way to fill up fast is to order a bowl of frikeh , a cracked-wheat soup as thick as quicksand. There are wonderfully soft and fragrant grape leaves stuffed with a rice and pine nut filling here, and great balls of kibbeh , too--little oval lamb and cracked wheat meatballs with a meat and pine nut stuffing.

Issa’s stuffed falafel is a new version on me. The feather-light deep-fried balls of garbanzo flour and spices, normally stuffed into pita pockets as a meat substitute, come in unique fashion. Issa stuffs the falafel themselves--with a pinch of tart dried sumac berries. A winning idea.

Most of the main entrees are familiar and fine: grilled kebabs, stewed lamb shank, a splendid stuffed chicken (stuffed with rice, ground beef, pine nuts, almonds and an abundance of cardamom). There are usually two specials daily, affording the chef a chance to show off a little. One day she might do a dense cauliflower and meat preparation that evokes a non-vegetarian version of the Indian staple alu gobi . On another, she’ll stuff an entire leg of lamb.

This brings me to the most irresistible of her efforts, the bakery part of the equation, featuring an array of cookies and pastries. Before you try the delicious, multilayered baklava, try ghreibeh , a grainy white mound that crumbles in your mouth, or mana’ish , a flat, sesame-studded cookie with the texture of a prize-winning shortbread.

Jerusalem Restaurant and Bakery is inexpensive. Main entrees are $5.99 to $7.99.

* THAI CUISINE

* 600 E. Pacific Coast Highway, Seal Beach.

* (310) 596-5156.

* Lunch daily, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.; dinner Sunday through Thursday 5 to 10 p.m., Friday and Saturday till 10:30 p.m.

* American Express, MasterCard and Visa accepted.

* JERUSALEM RESTAURANT AND BAKERY

* 808 S. Brookhurst St., Anaheim.

* (714) 991-7500.

* Open daily, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.

* Cash only.