The chef at Queen Curry did not exactly try to talk us out of it, but ordering the spicy tuna noodle salad drew a brief pause, and then a vivid description of what to expect. It would be strongly flavored; were we good with that?

We were great with it, as it turned out.

Soon we were twirling slippery noodles around raw, bouncy just-about-raw cubes of tuna, all awash with lime juice and hot chilies and fermented fish sauce, the biggest conspirator for that “strong flavor” caveat at ordering.

For me, that is a big, beaming green light.

Seeking street food

I’ve lately been exploring more Thai restaurants in our area. The flavors call to me in hot weather, and we have more, and better, Thai restaurants today around New Orleans than I’ve ever seen.

So I’ve been scouting them out, looking especially for those that bring the richness of Thai flavor beyond the standard Thai takeaway menu. I want to eat the dishes that the chefs would make at home or order when they visit other restaurants.

The tuna noodle salad was one based on a street food standard that Gip Benrud ate all the time after school growing up in Bangkok.

Today, she and her partner, Bon Sengsiri, run this hole-in-the-wall restaurant, well hidden on a Metairie side street.

On the menu

The menu centers on a build-your-own approach. Pick a type of curry or fried rice or noodle, and add a “protein.” I’d rather the kitchen present its best combinations as complete dishes. But building a bowl here of green curry with grilled pork and white rice brought a surprisingly composed presentation.

The green curry is the hottest on the menu but is not blazing, with more of a chile warmth in the creamy body of the curry. The appetizers and salads revealed more depth.

An appetizer called “just the tips” makes an enticing display with fried enoki mushrooms that look like small soft-shell crabs. Meaty at the base, they branch into spindles of crunch.

Another is the bird’s nest, a swirl of crispy fried egg noodles holding a clutch of fried quail eggs.

This, I learned at the table, is a customization from a Thai dish that uses fried chicken eggs (colorfully called “son-in-law eggs”). Quail eggs are the mini version. They give you one-bite bursts of flavor as they at first flex then pop under your teeth with a squirt of cooked yoke. The sweet and sour tamarind sauce is thick as caramel and adheres to the noodles so you can break them off in little clusters along with your egg.

Apron strings, shoe strings, heartstrings

Some people will remember the address as Thai Ocha, from the same family that now runs the more ambitious Thai restaurant Dahla in downtown New Orleans. It had a brief run as Hangout Secret, a Thai spinoff from the Japanese restaurant Hangout Ramen.

It became Queen Curry about a year ago, though Gip and Bon took over just a few months back. The family dynamic is made plain by the young children literally pulling on Gip’s apron strings as she works the dining room.

Restaurants like this are very often also run on a shoestring, and that’s evident here when some menu items are unavailable or substitutions have to swap in.

Still, the beautiful presentations and forays into regional specialties really shine here, and the character of this engaging restaurant seals the deal.