By Paul Reidinger

FROM THE CORNER of Judah and 46th Avenue, the westerly prospect descends by gentle stages to ethereal pearl: fog and sea. Nearer at hand the situation is less mystical: a 7-Eleven and, kitty-corner, Thanh Long, the Vietnamese place with its famous roast Dungeness crab and valet parkers. Valet parkers in deepest Sunset? A bad sign. And a convenience store is not exactly the jewel in the crown of any neighborhood. (Apu's memorable warning to Homer, when the latter accepted a graveyard shift at the Kwik-E-Mart to pay for the pony he had to buy Lisa after fouling up as a father, ran more or less as follows: "I will not lie to you. In this job you will be shot at.") Completing this odd urban tableau is Muni Metro's N train, which rumbles to and fro with some frequency, as if to remind the valet parkers and 7-Eleven parkers that sometimes there is an alternative to driving and, worse, parking.

Given the crush of people and cars at Thanh Long (and on a Sunday evening yet!), I was glad we were going elsewhere – to Thai Cottage, in fact, a narrow, pinkish slice of neighborhood restaurant that opened last summer on the next block, directly opposite the 7-Eleven. Thai Cottage doesn't offer valet parking, but it doesn't generally require a wait, either, and is just easier to deal with all around. It also serves a menu that, while lacking a marquee item like roast crab (overrated, in my experience), is the match of any Thai place in town for bright concentration of flavors. After our first visit I found myself reminded as we left of minuscule Thai Time, over in the Richmond – home of one exceptional dish after another, including a fabulous hor mok talay – and that is the highest compliment I can pay to any Thai place.

Thai cooking has become familiar in this country in the past 20 years, but so far I do not detect the sort of sagging that afflicts so much Chinese cooking. Certainly there is no sagging at Thai Cottage. One interrogates the usual suspects with care and finds them ... carefully made. Squid salad, for instance, must be on virtually every Thai menu in town; Thai Cottage's version ($6.95) blanches the squid to tenderness – not beyond – and tosses it with a head-clearing mix of ginger, lemongrass, mint, and red onions in a vigorously sour chili-lime dressing.

And the kitchen invests the classic Thai coconut-milk soup, tom kha gai ($2.50 for a cup), with an extra creaminess, as if the coconut milk had been allowed to separate and the soup then made (along with plenty of galanga coins, bamboo shoots, and shreds of dark chicken meat) only from the thick cream that floats to the top.

It is possible that Thai Cottage will become to duck what Thanh Long is to crab. The cottage duck ($8.95), in particular, shows signs of becoming a signature dish, mainly because of a sensuously thick chili-basil sauce that's been scented with orange. The duck itself is twice cooked, then served in boneless slices, each trimmed with a length of crisp bronze skin.

And if you are a frustrated seeker of pad see-uw ($5.50) – the tangle of broad noodles typically tossed with broccoli; unaccountably tricky to find around here – you will be relieved to learn that Thai Cottage has it, at least at lunch. And while I like pad see-uw's characteristic mildness – it can provide a welcome interval of calm in a procession of flamboyantly spicy dishes – I also liked the charge of ground white pepper the kitchen added to its version. Strips of beef brought additional tasty, low-key heft, so much, in fact, that given the size of the serving platter (huge), a single order will easily satisfy two people, unless they are insane with hunger. If only one of them is insane with hunger, kao nha ped ($5.50), or sliced roast duck, with the slices nested atop rice and wilted spinach, would probably suffice.

We did come to a divided decision on a single dish: larp (more typical English spelling: larb; $6.95), the spiced-and-diced meat generally presented with onions, cilantro, lime, fish sauce, chile pepper, and leaves of iceberg lettuce for scooping. Thai Cottage offers larp in chicken, beef, and pork editions, and it also adds rice powder, which the dissenter immediately fingered as the faint offender in the palette of flavors. I, on the other hand, liked the almost Indian, starchy-peppery effect – not what one generally expects in the Thai universe of sweet, sour, and spicy. But we returned to full agreement on goong pad prik khee mao ($8.95), prawns sautéed with chile, garlic, lemongrass, basil, and bamboo shoots – the last evoking, with the hot pepper, a distinctly Chinese and even Szechuan aura.

Nightfall. Fog, sea, and sky melt into a single blot of ink. The madding crowd continues to pour into Thanh Long, its constituents apparently oblivious or indifferent to the pair of police cruisers parked at strange angles on the next block, their red-and-blue beanie lights playing eerily on the sides of buildings, including the 7-Eleven – from which, perhaps, someone tried to duck out without ponying up?

Thai Cottage. 4041 Judah (at 46th Ave.), S.F. (415) 566-5311. Mon.-Fri., 11 a.m.-10 p.m.; Sat.-Sun., 5-10 p.m. Beer and wine. MasterCard, Visa. Not noisy. Wheelchair accessible.