But yes, she confided, the kitchen did prepare authentic fare. That's what the staff ate once the restaurant closed for the night.

Persuading them to make it for four Westerners was trickier, but resulted in a meal that should put Erawan on the map for American connoisseurs of Southeast Asian cooking. Anyone who's returned from Thailand smitten with its cuisine sooner or later utters the same lament: Stateside Thai restaurants just don't cook the same stuff.

THE REAL DEAL: We persuaded Erawan's manager, Kaysone Lam, to let us try un-Americanized Thai cuisine, such as nam sod kao tod, a pungent pork salad, and ga pao, a basil-heavy minced chicken dish. : Michael T. Regan

Our pursuit of Erawan's "real Thai food" began with a meeting with the restaurant's manager, Kaysone Lam, who goes by Toun. Skepticism about the resilience of our palates ran high. Tapping my limited linguistic memory, I said firmly, "Aahaan Thai gin dai"—I can eat Thai food. So Lam brought out the Thai-speaking chef. "I could make X and Y," she said about different recipes, "but they can't eat it!" Ultimately we were asked to return the following evening, at which time the hostess served us a compulsory portion of papaya salad that blazed with chili peppers and shrimp paste.

"Is this a test?" I asked.

"Yes. We still don't think you can eat real Thai food. We don't want you to order all these dishes and then have to pay for something you can't eat."

To our delight and everyone else's astonishment, we passed. A week later, we sat down to a full meal.

We began with the familiar tom yum soup, tweaked to include sea bass in place of the more common chicken or shrimp. Any worry that we'd gotten our hopes up too high vanished in the delicate broth, which expertly melded the sour, spicy and salty elements prized by Thai gourmets. Red chili tubes burst in the mouth like packets of heat playing off the clean citrus note pervading the thin liquid. Splendid start.

But rarer treats were in store, beginning with nam sod kao tod, a pork salad with shallots, scallions, ginger, peanuts, chilis and, of course, fish sauce. The pungent smell of raw fish sauce is off-putting to many Westerners, which leads many Stateside restaurants to pull back on that ingredient. But it's a bedrock of Thai cooking, and besides, its characteristics change when subjected to heat. Every dish at Erawan was fishy in the best possible way. But what pushed this one over the top was the presence of crispy rice, which gave the salad a texture that sent my mind reeling back to the Laotian side of the Mekong River. I thought it would take a plane ticket to put that taste in my mouth again; now I can get it a stone's throw from the Schuylkill.

Laap neua, a fiery mix of minced beef, chilis and lime, rounded out our salad fare. A masaman curry was brimming with peanut goodness and delivered its heat quotient in a slow buildup, exactly how a coconut-milk-based curry should. Completely different was ga pao, a minced chicken dish loaded with enough Thai basil to impart a powerfully herbaceous flavor that's hard to come by on this continent. Lam is an exacting judge of ingredients, and she hit the mark with the Thai basil.

One dish that packed no heat at all was lad nar, which featured shrimp, fish fillet, squid and the most perfectly cooked scallops I've tasted in months. The key flavor to that dish is another that American diners shy away from: fermented soybean paste. But Erawan's rendition proved how crucial it is, providing a mellow and mouth-coating background flavor that married the seafood with fresh broad noodles and greens.

As a surprise dessert, Lam delivered a dish of sweetened coconut milk loaded with slices of jackfruit and fresh water chestnuts. Like several of the earlier offerings, this deserves to join Erawan's official menu. For the time being, if you have a hankering for the best real Thai food in Philly and can handle the heat, you may want to call or drop in a day in advance to make your case.

Just be ready for a preliminary tongue test.

Erawan Thai Cuisine

Not wheelchair accessible. No smoking. Reservations accepted. All major credit cards. BYOB.