A cheerful red-and-white cafe tucked away in a Bellaire strip shopping center offers a thoughtfully heat-indexed menu. Standouts include the crispy crab meat and cream cheese rolls with a spicy-sweet raisin sauce, and the velvety tom kha soup: chicken chunks and enoki mushrooms swimming in coconut milk spiked with lime juice and lemongrass. Diners choose their own degree of heat for red or green Thai curries; on the one- to five-pepper scale, three will gently prickle your scalp.
In timid Thai fashion, the owners of Thai Cottage tiptoed onto the Houston restaurant scene four years ago, settled into a nondescript storefront between a sprawling H-E-B and a Domino's Pizza and quietly started cooking. They concentrated on the food, spending their money on the freshest ingredients rather than extensive...