The room itself echoes the experience—simple, but tasteful. Lacquered mahogany chairs flank tables topped with sea-blue cloth and white butcher paper, while modular bookcases display food mags like Saveur and Food Arts alongside small cellophane bags of the restaurant’s secret weapon: traditional Thai butter cookies, baked by the owner’s wife. There are a handful of varieties, including subtle lemongrass, sesame seed, toasty coconut and the standout buttery clove. A plate of them arrives, gratis, at the end of the meal, but trust us—you’ll also want to take a bag or two home.

Even beyond the cookies, the sweets (generally referred to as “khanom” in Thai) were what stood out the most during our two visits. The three-tiered dessert sampler ups the ante on the standard offerings found in most Thai restaurants. It includes honey-drizzled, banana-filled wonton wrappers; sugar-sprinkled pockets of sweet rice flour filled with a paste of mung bean and coconut milk; tiny balls of toasted coconut and poppy seeds rolled in palm sugar dough then lightly salted coconut; and a savory take on Thai custard studded with caramelized shallots and baked until golden. The sweets alone are worth a separate stop, either for an afternoon snack or dessert.

That’s not to say the savory food here isn’t noteworthy. Fans of basics like pad thai and panang curry will be satisfied (just be sure to ask for extra lime and chile paste to amp up the pad thai). The papaya salad, though, needs no doctoring and stands out for its balance of bright citrus, fiery chiles and just-funky-enough fish sauce. True, the thick fish filet was the wrong cut and variety to fry (the meaty texture turned chewy instead of flaking as a thinner snapper filet would) and its chile sauce was overly sweet, but it was nothing that the lovable owners’ smiles (and a plate of those cookies) couldn’t make up for.