40 Servings of Vegetables

Josephine Chung, who owns the Exotic Thai Cuisine restaurant in Burbank, has three words of advice for people who like to eat out but don’t want to go home feeling stuffed.

“Eat vegetarian!’ and “sawatdeeka!”

Sawatdeeka, says the gracious Chung, is the Thai greeting of welcome and hospitality--”hello” with a big dollop of warmth.

“We added more than 40 dishes of vegetarian food a few months ago,” says Chung, whose Chinese father immigrated to Thailand, where he met and married Chung’s Thai mother. “People these days just like to eat vegetarian, and so for every dish that we make with meat in it we have another dish made exactly the same way except that we substitute tofu or mushrooms for the meat.

“Otherwise, the recipes are the same,” she says. “This really is our specialty--lots of vegetarian dishes in a very exotic setting.”

Chung came to the U.S. 19 years ago and opened Exotic Thai Cuisine--her first foray into the restaurant business--3 1/2 years ago. She expanded into space next door eight months ago, so that she can now seat 50 guests.

“When I first came here, there were not many Thai restaurants, and nobody knew how to cook Thai food,” Chung says. “I learned to do it just by teaching myself, and because I love to cook good food for people. This is like my hobby.

“In Thailand a man says to his wife, ‘I love you because of your cooking,’ and she knows that he will never leave her. I like to do the same for other people.” A sampling of her dishes, prepared by Chung’s chef, Wanee Hae:

Pineapple fried rice with chicken and shrimp, steamed trout with ground pork and ginger, a deep-fried shrimp cake in a cucumber sauce, spicy whole stir-fried clams, honey duck and pineapple barbecued ribs.

Other dishes include stir-fried chicken, pork, beef or shrimp with broccoli, with baby corn and mushrooms, with ginger and onions, or with bamboo shoots and cashews. Or the meats can be sauteed with mint leaves in a spicy sauce.

Chung serves each of these dishes in vegetarian dress as well, of course. She also offers an extensive list of vegetarian specials not derived from the regular menu, plus a host of lunch and dinner specials. Prices range well under $10, except some fish dishes, which reflect seasonal availability and pricing. The restaurant also offers takeout.

* Exotic Thai Cuisine is located at 1212 N. San Fernando Blvd., Burbank, (818) 841-2555.

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Herb Newman, who runs the Steak Joynt in North Hollywood, recently tinkered a bit with his menu--tinker being the right word, since you don’t indulge yourself in change for the sake of change if, like Newman, you’ve run a successful restaurant for 14 years.

The new items on the Steak Joynt menu: French onion soup, a soup du jour, an appetizer of sliced tomatoes and onions topped with blue cheese, marinated roasted peppers topped with mozzarella, and--on the main dinner menu--a 16-ounce pork tenderloin served with a sauce made with Jack Daniels whiskey.

The centerpiece on Newman’s menu remains a 16-ounce sirloin, and you can also order an 8-ounce sirloin, a filet, a 13-ounce New York strip, a 16-ounce rib-eye, and a 20-ounce T-bone. Prices range to $18.95 for the big T-bone.

The lone chicken dish: 12 ounces of chicken breast topped with Parmesan cheese and baked in white wine and shallots.

If you want fish, you can have a 10-ounce salmon steak in a sauce of dill and horseradish. Or you can hike over to Newman’s other restaurant, the Oyster House, in Studio City, where the menu features seafood.

* Steak Joynt is located at 4354 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood, (818) 761-9899. Oyster House is at 12466 Moorpark St., Studio City, (818) 761-8686.

Look for Francine and James Alba, who run the Sisley Italian Kitchens restaurants in West Los Angeles and Valencia, to open Sisley’s in Sherman Oaks in October.

The Sisley restaurants specialize in family-style Italian cooking, with fresh produce and no chemicals or additives. The menu includes panini, a variety of salads, pastas, pizzas, and a host of entrees.

* The new Sisley will be located at 15300 Ventura Blvd. in Sherman Oaks.

Juan Hovey writes about the restaurant scene in the San Fernando Valley and outlying points. Call (805) 492-7909, fax (805) 492-5139 or e-mail JHoveycompuserve.com