5878 Leesburg Pike, Falls Church, Va. (703) 820-5775 Hours of Operation and Prices Lunch: M-F 11:30-2:30, Sat-Sun 11:30-3; Entrees: $7-21 Dinner: M-Th 5-10:30, F 5-11, Sat 3-11, Sun 3-10:30; Entrees: $10-$21 Other Information • All major credit cards • Reservations recommended • Dress: casual • Free parking lot • Entertainment: Thai classical dancing Sat evenings Jan-April • Handicapped accessible

The dining room is spacious and pastel-pretty, and the waitresses wear silk gowns in sherbet colors. The menu is long, divided between old-familiar and exotic-new dishes such as cod with pickled mangoes and cashews in chili-lime dressing, assorted fish fillets with stir-fried vegetables in sweet-and-sour lychee fruit sauce, appetizers of salmon and potatoes fried in a purse-shaped shell, or crab and shrimp with coconut and cilantro in rice paper.

It's hard to miss with this kitchen. I'm enthusiastic about the new things I try - meltingly soft plantains in a tempura batter, chicken bhram in its mellow, spiced peanut sauce with crisp fried shallots. And the old favorites are often done with special flair here; the crab-and-pork-stuffed fried chicken wings are the most succulent I know, and shrimp (or pork or beef) with crisp garlic and white pepper has that crunchy, chewy, fried-garlic texture and hauntingly delicate flavor that I haven't found elsewhere in years.

A few dishes slip, particularly the weak and vapid mustard-greens soup, and the heat and acid could be turned up in the seafood-lime salads. Yet all's well with dessert. The Thai sweet I adore, sticky rice with mango, is here accompanied by cubes of smooth amaretto custard, and the rice itself, simmered with faintly sweet coconut milk, glossy and chewy, is beyond wonderful.