By MERIDITH FORD
Journal Restaurant Critic

CRANSTON -- Of all the Southeast Asian cuisines, Thai has earned the brightest spotlight on the culinary runway.

At Thai Orchid on Park Avenue, the exquisite food reflects the Thai tradition of serving dishes that appeal to the eyes and the taste buds. Everything brought to the table has the subtle visual nuance -- a thin slice of lime or orange, or a carefully arranged salad. But what you'll walk away with is how exceptionally good the food is.

For many years it's been hard to find really good Asian food in Rhode Island. So many restaurants cater to the more-the-merrier menu notion of offering dozens of items, and usually from a melange of cuisines -- Thai is mixed in with Chinese, Cambodian, Korean, even Japanese.

A few restaurants such as Apsara, Asian Delite and Thmoda have stood out. Now Thai Orchid can stand among them. It's owned by a couple from Thailand, Sujita and Mate Phmlm -- he cooks and she runs the front of the house. He cooked at Thai restaurants in Boston and other parts of Massachusetts before coming to Rhode Island.

At Thai Orchid, pad Thai soars with the salty power of nam pla (fish sauce), the astringency of lime, the sweetness of shrimp and rice noodles -- all balanced with crunchy, fresh bean sprouts and peanuts.

Dumplings are deemed ravioli here, and they are fat little puffs of flavor. Steaming and stuffed with seasoned pork, they are at their best when dipped into Thai Orchid's ginger sauce -- a dark, rich, soy sauce-laden dressing perked up with warm tones of brown sugar and sesame seeds.

Spring rolls are often something best passed up -- they can fall into the mundane category that mozzarella sticks take up on a pub menu. They're usually premade or frozen, and there's little interpretation from the kitchen to spruce them up.

At Thai Orchid, though, they are ethereally crispy -- but not greasy -- and filled with cellophane-thin bean sprouts, carrots and celery.

Northeastern Thailand is known for meat salads, called "larb." They are characterized by the juxtaposition of crunchy lettuce or cabbage with onions and sliced or ground meat in very hot chili sauces. One, often referred to as nuam nom thok and called simply at Thai Orchid "spicy beef salad," is a personal favorite, and seldom seen on local menus.

Thai Orchid's version is pulse-pounding: Crisp iceberg lettuce is surrounded by delicately thin slices of tomatoes and cooling cucumbers, with tenderly grilled slices of seasoned beef in a salad of carrots, mushrooms, mint and red onions. Tiny seeds from the chilis dot the beef and the vinegary sauce, making it hot and flavorful.

It is the contrasts between crunchy and soft, hot and salty, sweet and sour that make this dish take flight -- and Thai Orchid's is as a good a meat salad as I've eaten.

I no longer judge a Thai restaurant's kitchen by pad Thai; my new benchmark is hot and sour soup. Here the broth is delicate and thin, but deep-flavored with chilies, cilantro and lemon grass. Fresh tomatoes, colorful red peppers, mushrooms and Thai basil swim inside it, along with plump, pink shrimp.

Just to round things out, an order of Thai fried rice was due. Studded with large chunks of chicken and shrimp, as well as peas, carrots, scallions, snow peas and fried egg, it managed to rise from the ordinary to the extraordinary with slices of gingerly arranged tomatoes and sliced cucumbers and a splash of lemon juice.

The restaurant is tiny -- a mere 10 seats among three tables. A sliding glass window separates the dining room from the pristine kitchen and works doubly as a takeout window -- something that seemed popular on this less-than-busy night.

This is actually a good idea, considering how tiny the dining space is.

Thai Orchid, 800 Park Ave., Cranston, 780-8889. Very casual. No reservations. Not wheelchair accessible. No smoking. Open Mon-Sat for lunch and dinner from 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. V, MC. On-street parking. BYOB.

There are many curries -- green, red, massaman -- on the menu for $6 to $7.95. Appetizers are $2.75 to $4.95. Thai soups and meat salads are $3.50 to $7.75. Noodle and rice dishes are $6 to $7.95 and other entrees are $7 to $11.50.