Madam Mam’s sets itself apart from the Thai-American restaurants around Austin with a variety of ingredients you don’t normally see at the others, like pickled ginger, galangal, and magrood leaf. It’s still pretty lame that we barely have any authentic Thai cooking in town—it’s like having every Italian place serve just spaghetti or pizza. Chiang Mai and Issan are responsible for some of Southeast Asia’s most complex and exciting flavor combinations, but the south’s creamy curries still account for the majority of our Thai experiences here. It’s great that you can now find the northern staple som tam (green papaya salad) almost everywhere; when done right, the fishy-limey-nutty-hot-tart combination is wonderfully crunchy and addictive. Madam Mam’s gets pretty darn close to the real deal.

We also appreciate the Madam’s willingness to take requests of “very spicy” seriously—although super-hot peppers are used in this cuisine to amplify your perception of its kaleidoscopic flavors, not just to balance a sweet oiliness, as in the case of this version of a normally light and green-garlicky khao soi. In fact, that sweet oiliness is universal from dish to dish, by varying degrees (it’s what’s meant by the menu’s repeated “tasty” descriptor) and is offset best by pickled and sour ingredients. Go with any of those, and the cute, colorful Madam Mam’s locations (date-friendly Anderson is almost chic) will be some of your best Austin Thai bets.