RESTAURANT REVIEW : A Fanciful Bit of Thai in Van Nuys

On my way to Lannathai, where I am to meet my friend Henry, a playwright, for dinner, I get stuck in traffic on the Ventura Freeway. By the time I walk in, Henry is already working on a tall, fancy drink, an order of satay and the first act of a brand new play--a play he’s just conceived right here, in the last 20 minutes. “How come there’s never been a play about a Thai restaurant?” he asks. “Just look at this place: the perfect setting for a screwball comedy.”

I look. Lannathai looks like a fancy Thai restaurant sitting in the courtyard of a 1960-vintage Van Nuys apartment building. There’s rock work, philodendron, a miniature kidney-shaped swimming pool. Floating in the pool is a gold-roofed Thai temple; its platform is strewn with pennies and those pastel-colored mints that are offered free at the door. Guarding the pool, up on a rock wall, sit large brass deer with real antlers. There’s also a big wooden elephant, a Buddhist shrine, golden images on the wall. On closer inspection, I see that long, long ago, judging from the tile floor and carved wood furniture, this must have been a Mexican restaurant.

“The pool alone has great dramatic pull,” says Henry.

“Yes,” I say, “it’s a great set, but what are you drinking? And how’s the food?”

He offers me his tall glass of a dark orange, opaque liquid topped with a heavy swirl of whipped cream. I’m prepared to taste an exotic tropical knock-out formula, but it’s just Thai iced tea--albeit the Lannathai, or gilded lily, version thereof. Now, Thai iced tea is always sweet, but this is corrosively sweet. And before I say a word, Henry says, “I know what you’re thinking, but it’s redundant to say the whipped cream is redundant.” The pork satay, however, is definitive and delicious; well-flavored, mildly spicy, tender and accompanied by a good peanut sauce.

Our waitress is tiny, cheerful, and, like the other waitresses, dressed in pretty black silk pantaloons. Right after we order, a whole bevy of waitresses converge at a table across the great water from us. They carry a candlelight dessert and, in their young girlish voices, sing “Happy Birthday”--the Lannathai version. After every clause, they scream: “Happy Birthday to you-- Scream ! Happy Birthday to you-- Scream !” The scream at the end is the loudest and the best. If I ever want to take revenge on a shy person, I now know where to bring him.

Shortly, we’re given a large platter of stuffed chicken wings. Stuffed chicken wings are probably a Thai-American creation; no one I know who has lived in or visited Thailand ever ate a stuffed chicken wing there. At any rate, they’re a standard here, good, and an eternal riddle: How does the chef get such a huge wad of ground meat, transparent noodles and spices into the upper, deboned part of chicken wing? The secret, we decide, must be a distinct breed of big-armed chicken.

Next, we have a sausage salad and, frankly, it’s the best Thai sausage salad I’ve ever had: exactly the right proportions of lettuce, chopped jalapeno, chewy grilled Thai sausage and slivered onion in a refreshing dressing. Each bite is a textural, tasty pleasure. So much for trying to pace ourselves--the whole generous bowl of salad disappears.

In fact, on this and other visits, we discover that Lannathai is a reliable old hand with those Thai-American favorites such as satay, pad Thai, sausage salad, spicy soups. We especially like the garlic-sauteed shrimp our waitress recommends. Other dishes prove more problematic: Some spicy mussels are swimming in oil; the yum het , Oriental mushrooms with onion, chilies, lemon and cilantro look, taste and chew like canned mushrooms; the stir-fries are sloppily thrown together, bland. If there’s a trick to ordering here, it is, I think, to stick to the tried and true and do one’s exotic culinary adventuring elsewhere.

Overall, Lannathai is tried and true. It’s been here 10 years, the service is attentive and smooth, the clientele pleasantly relaxed. The birthday table is composed of five good women friends, behind them is a couple with their two young children. Next to us is a couple on their first date. As Henry says, “Life takes place here.”

Before we leave, he calls the waitress over. “Just out of curiosity,” he asks, “has anybody ever fallen into the pool?”

She thinks hard. “Just the staff. Once, the floor was wet.” She pantomimes a skid and tumble into the pool. We all laugh. “Never a customer,” she says.

“That’s good, it means the drinks aren’t too strong,” says Henry. But later, after she leaves, Henry taps himself on the chest. “In my play,” he says, “everybody ends up in the pool.”

Recommended dishes: gang jert pahk (vegetarian bean curd soup), $2.75; moo s’tay (pork satay), $6.25; yum goong-chieng (Thai sausage salad), $6.75; goong gahtiem (garlic shrimp), $8.50; pad Thai, $6.50.

Lannathai Restaurant, 4457 Van Nuys Blvd., Sherman Oaks. (818) 995-0808. Open for lunch from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, dinner nightly from 5:30 to 10:30. Full bar. All major credit cards accepted. Parking in rear. Dinner for two, food only, $14 to $40.