LIFESTYLE : Taking a Bite at a Time : In a rush and just want a nosh? Valley spots offer mini fare--from the sweet to savory.

The movie begins at 7 on a Wednesday evening, which doesn’t leave much hope of escaping the office early enough for dinner at a restaurant beforehand. And waiting until 9:30 for a sit-down meal will get us home well past our bedtime.

Oh, the perils of the daily grind. So much to do. Not enough time.

But we might squeeze cocktails or appetizers into our busy schedule. Or dessert afterward. A “quick bite” not only dresses up the evening but offers us a chance to sample from some of the San Fernando Valley’s best and priciest restaurants without gobbling all the cash in our thin wallets. Lord knows, we love to eat well on the cheap.

Papri chat at Akbar Grill. Homemade ice cream at Pinot Bistro. Adventurous and tasty.

Or perhaps a cool drink at the end of a long, hot day. Even in this era of increasing temperance, cocktails remain an honored tradition. But choosing from Valley bars can seem like tiptoeing through a minefield. Meat markets and shabby, strip-mall pubs abound.

So, after a sweltering afternoon of shopping at The Promenade mall, we stop just down the street at Piacere.

The cocktail bar is small and quiet, with sufficient stools and comfortable chairs, a pleasant spot to cool our heels in the shadows that tall willows cast from the street. It seems a shame to sit by as more fortunate diners are seated on the patio to enjoy an escargot and garlic butter pizza followed by a plate of rigatoni or perhaps linguine with clams and white garlic sauce.

Alas, time and money are of the essence. We suffice with our $4 drinks and venture off into the muggy twilight.

Another candidate for cocktails is just down Ventura Boulevard from the Laemmle Town Center 5 movie theaters in Encino. Tribeca has a long, sleek bar with a facing counter. “A scene,” says Max Jacobson in a Times review. On a busy night just before the dinner hour, we take our place among a dozen or so patrons as innocuous R&B; whispers from overhead speakers. Televisions above the bar go unnoticed. The crowd here is dressed for success: men in suits or khaki, women in fashionable outfits.

Most of the bar patrons eventually drift, in twos and threes, out to the balcony for dinner al fresco on a summer night. As for us, we are ready--after a $3.25 imported beer--to embark on another adventure. Tribeca has the advantage of being centrally located in the Valley, making it a likely starting point for excursions in any direction.

In fact, all of the restaurants we scouted for this grand experiment are on the boulevard, leaving us close to cinemas, malls and, to the east, small theaters.

Planning to catch an early showing of “Species,” we stop at Delmonico’s with thoughts of all those alien mutations piquing our hunger. Standing at the bar, where revelers talk and laugh loudly, we wonder if we might order solid sustenance.

“Anything at all,” says the bartender, presenting a menu.

He spreads a white napkin across the bar and sets our place just in time for the arrival of a bowl of steamed clams in a hearty garlic sauce. Perfect nibbling while we gaze out the window at twilight traffic that rolls past.

The total cost with a drink: $13.45.

Thus fed, we begin to form our Theory of Appetizers: In this grand country, fried cheese bits and greasy stuffed mushrooms sadly constitute the majority of available fare. Finding satisfaction requires looking outside the norm.

Which brings us to the Akbar Grill and a likely corollary--for our limited purposes, more is better. A single order of papri chat involves no fewer than six flour crisps dabbed with generous scoops of spiced potatoes and a variety of chutneys, from spicy to sweet. The accompanying aloo aam tikka includes thick slices of tomato and potato patties stuffed with seasoned green peas and spices, served with homemade mango chutney.

And do not be misled by the grill’s dingy facade. The small dining room is elegant. Muted lighting underscores the gentle strains of sitar and tabla.

In the end, a plate of garlic nan leaves us both satisfied and full, again for less than $15.

“Are you sure you don’t want dessert?” the waiter asks.

Not on this particular evening. But when the craving for something sweet arises, there are plenty of establishments happy to oblige.

At Cha Cha Cha, much of the dinner crowd emerges, waiting for their cars at the valet, by 9:30. There’s no wait for a table inside the gaily colored Caribbean restaurant.

The desserts here are served on bright plates decorated with powdered sugar and chocolate and fruit sauces. But the well-reviewed banana cream pie is not among the choices on this particular night.

“We should have that every night,” the waiter says. “I’ll put that in the suggestion box.”

So it can be summarily torn up?

“Right,” he says with a laugh.

We settle for vanilla bean cheesecake with chocolate crust--very rich--and fresh lime pie with mango sauce, raspberries and blueberries--quite tart. The cost for two desserts is about $13.

Farther east, and closer to the NoHo theater district, the small patio at Pinot Bistro presents a delightful setting for a late evening visit. Dwarf citrus trees, white tablecloths and comfortable chairs make the scene. On a nearly moonless night, our maitre d’ offers his small flashlight by which we read an extensive dessert menu.

Two selections spring immediately to the fore. A single scoop of vanilla ice cream, served in a silver goblet, and an upside-down apple tart a la mode. Pinot makes its own ice cream and the result is nearly indescribable.

That and the bill--just $8--is enough to make us forget about the occasional rumble of street traffic.

Of course, there are so many more places we might have gone. Cinnabar in Glendale, for example, where the bar’s centerpiece is a Chinese antique that once graced L.A. Chinatown’s Yee Mee Loo. We might have savored what Jacobson refers to as the “addictive” Parmesan chips at Posto in Sherman Oaks or the tapas at Van Nuys’ Barcelona. And La Pergola, in Sherman Oaks, serves pumpkin pie made from pumpkins grown in a garden in back.

So many restaurants. So little time.