From The New Orleans Menu Daily By Tom Fitzmorris Originally published February 26, 2008 Thai Spice 2$ Covington: 1531 US 190 985-809-6483 Lunch and dinner seven days. AE MC V Thai. Thai restaurants were a long time coming to the North Shore. But the market was apparently ready for them, because no fewer than six of them have appeared since the hurricane. Overall, they're a good bunch of places. But none is as good as the Thai Spice, a restaurant I'm tempted to say cooks the best Thai food anywhere in the New Orleans area. Thai Spice is managed by a colorful, aggressively friendly fellow who calls himself just Ricky. Ricky has a long history in the restaurants of New Orleans; he tells me he worked on Bourbon Street at those insanely successful Takee Outee places for years. Ricky and his family opened the Thai Spice in the former Schwing's, a not-so-good seafood house whose Polynesian decor was perfect for a Thai restaurant. The food was good from the first day, but it took some time to catch on. Thai Spice reopened shortly after the hurricane. But then, one day, it was gone, and a new name appeared on the place: Thai Flavor. It continued with much the same menu and good food, but Ricky was gone. But not for long. A month or two after this, a new Thai Spice By Ricky opened in the strip mall across US 190. Ricky's fans checked it out, and we learned that the family had a falling out. Ricky's sister was in the old place, but Ricky had the name. This messy development was confusing, but one good thing came of it: it fired up Ricky's competitive spirit. As good as the old place was, the new restaurant was even better--probably because Ricky himself was in the kitchen. He still is, most of the time. Thai cooking in these parts hasn't been around long enough to have moved far beyond the basic canon of classic dishes. Thai Spice's menu will be entirely familiar to fans of Thai cooking. You have the various kinds of curries and noodle dishes, each available with chicken, pork beef, shrimp, or duck. You can order the entrees mild, hot extra hot, or Thai hot. (The latter, of course, is about as hot as anything gets, right at the threshold of pain.) The menu also includes a handful of appetizers, soups, and salads. All of that is made cleanly and vividly, with first-class fresh ingredients. The vegetables in the dishes that have them are particularly crisp and flavorful. A sort of all-purpose dish called jungle curry, for example, is loaded with vegetables, and is so large that you wonder whether you'll be able to consume the whole thing. (You will.) Thai curries (which have almost nothing in common with Indian curries) come in four flavors here: green (best with chicken and eggplant, with an admixture of coconut milk), red (the spiciest, at least if you let them know that you like it that way), Panang (a yellowish curry with a complex, mild flavor and fresh basil), and masaman (the mildest, with peanuts and raisins and a less-insistent herb component.) Then we get to the noodle dishes, and find a few new things in here with the inevitable pad thai. (Which is good, although so common a dish that I rarely order it here.) The pad kee mow was something new for me: wide noodles in a sauce with tomatoes, onions, and bell peppers and no shortage of hot chilies, with whatever meat you like. And there are a few more offbeat dishes. The premises were converted from a fast-food-style taco shop, and is comfortable enough, although the expanses of glass make the place feel a little stark and naked. Some blinds would be welcome, especially on sunny days. The service is orchestrated by Ricky himself, who could hardly be friendlier or more eager to please. He says he may be opening a second location somewhere around Covington. This was a restaurant in the Top Sixty Ethnic Restaurant Countdown. To view the entire list, click here. Click here for an index of all restaurant reviews. © 2008 Tom Fitzmorris. All rights reserved. news@nomenu.com.