“Rarely do I order a curry that it so good I just want to drink it,” a friend said a few bites into a meal at the new Thai Mint restaurant near Chapel Hills Mall.

He was leaning over a steaming bowl of Masaman curry — a creamy brown mix of coconut milk, peanuts and roasted spices swimming with tender slices of potato, long slivers of red pepper, ornate stars cut from carrots and sweet, tender shrimp.

Masaman ($7.50) is a curry from the south of Thailand, where a peninsula dips into what were historically spice-trade routes. While other Thai curries developed relying on mostly native ingredients, Masaman soaked up cinnamon, cardamom and other spices from different countries until it half-resembled an India curry. In fact, the name is thought to be derived from a word meaning Muslim, referring to the Muslim spice traders from the east.

You don’t have to know any of this to enjoy the curry. The rich, deeply aromatic and spicy stew, ladled over a touch of white rice, speaks for itself. So does the rest of this tiny, well-priced restaurant, which does standards well and has a few regional specialties that, as my friend said, will have you licking your plate.

Thai Mint is not much to look at — a small, tidy strip mall space with a few Thai paintings on the mint-green walls, but it is a nice neighborhood antidote to Thai Basil, its fancy but too-Americanized neighbor around the corner. At Thai Mint, you will find authentic dishes that I had not seen before in Colorado Springs.

Take the Som Tum Gai Yak — the dish of grilled chicken and a cool, spicy green papaya salad ($11) is hard to say but easy to love, especially on a hot summer day.

This is actually two dishes. Som Tum is a classic shredded slaw of cool, crunchy green papaya, which tastes and feels somewhere in between shredded cabbage and shredded cucumber. It is tossed with lime, fish sauce and hot chilies to make a tangy salad that is at once hot and cool, then sprinkled with salty chopped peanuts.

The Gai Yak, another recipe from the south, generally calls for marinating the chicken overnight in fish sauce, garlic, turmeric, coriander root and white pepper — giving it a sweet, floral fragrance — then grilling it until is streaked with char marks. A hot and sour, sweet dipping sauce on the side gives it a devilish bite.

More-common dishes here stand out, as well. The free egg roll with every lunch special ($6) is phenomenally fresh, crisp, and full of crunchy carrots and cabbage. An appetizer of Tod Mun ($4), the classic and addictive Thai fried fish cake snack, was textbook perfect: crisp on the outside, chewy on the inside, flecked with fresh kaffir lime leaf and served with a sweet vinegar sauce with cucumber and minced shallots.

Green curry ($7) comes packed with ribbons of tender bamboo shoots and crescents of red pepper. Whole kaffir lime leaves lent a citrusy brightness and tender beef (there is also a choice of chicken, shrimp or tofu with most dishes) added richness. A few fresh sprigs of basil on top were a welcome touch.

Ordering “medium” should give most people plenty of heat. Save “hot” for dares.

Stir-fry here is a lighter, more vibrant version of Chinese takeout. It is called Pad Pak Ruam Mit ($7). It is a crisp sauté of meat with firm, perfect broccoli and what tastes like a hint of lime and fish sauce, maybe some ginger and garlic. It is finished with a flurry of chopped fresh cilantro and served with cucumbers and rice.

Thai Mint also does takeout. The service is fast and friendly. Overall, it is a great addition to an already strong offering of Thai in the city.

The only unimpressive offering is pad Thai, the national street dish of stir-fried noodles. At its best, pad Thai features fresh ingredients slaked in a subtle sweet-and-sour with the foundation of fish sauce. Here it was too oily. The tender rice noodles had been broken by too much stirring, and the savory and sour base of fish sauce and tamarind was too subtle.

Dessert does not, unfortunately, include sticky sweet rice with mango, but it does include a surprise, fried bananas ($4), delicious and caramelized.

Taken together, Thai Mint offers the best in a neighborhood Thai place. I didn’t lick my plate clean, but there were no leftovers.

Masaman Curry Shrimps from Thai Mint restaurant Photo by Jerilee Bennett/The Gazette