When Khao Sarn replaced Pandan Leaf in this handsome little room in Coolidge Corner, the progression from Malaysian to Thai food seemed a reasonable one — a routine border crossing. But in fact, the new owners took the woks out of the kitchen and put in regular stoves, the better to simmer sauces. And the sauces they had in mind were from Northern Thailand, pretty far from Malaysia — in both geography and cuisine. Khao Sarn does the expected Thai classics, but really sets out to introduce some new dishes — and some of them are very exciting indeed.

One of my favorites is the appetizer " Miang Kum (a native dish) " ($6.95). It comes as a pretty platter with confetti-like nibbles set out on seven spinach leaves. You’re instructed to put a little marmalade-like sauce on them, roll up a spinach leaf, and pop the whole thing into your mouth. What a burst of contrasting flavors! The high note comes from the lime peel on a teensy wedge of lime that you may not even notice till it hits your tongue. There’s a lot of crunchiness from dried coconut, dried shrimp, roasted peanuts, diced onion, and red bell pepper. The marmalade is actually a mild shrimp sauce, adding a rich middle note. The flavors shift impressions. The platter is decorated with an orchid.

I didn’t find another appetizer as exciting, but several of the signature dishes (not to be confused with the longer list of specialties) are new and remarkable. Haw Moak salmon ($13.75) is wrapped in a banana leaf with coconut milk and a hot red curry. That sounds good, and what you eat when the fragrant bundle is opened has the texture of mousse. This is spicy soul food with elegance in the texture. Stuffed omelet ($10.25) is a nifty purse of eggs around a fine dice of chicken, shrimp, fresh peas, bell pepper, onion, and fresh tomatoes. What is that oddly familiar flavor holding everything together? Something Chinese? Ah yes, soy sauce and onion. It feels out of context in this Thai restaurant, with its modern décor. But, in fact, Northern Thailand is rather Chinese in both ethnic and culinary terms.

Desserts are also special. The mango and sticky rice ($4.50) features a sliced fillet of fresh mango with a little coconut cream, a pile of sticky rice made with a lot of coconut cream, and just the salt you want with the mango. It’s a terrific combination. Fried banana ($4.50) is 10 little packages of banana in egg-roll wrapping, fried crisp outside, gooey good inside, sprinkled with sesame seeds.

The rest of the food I tried at Khao Sarn doesn’t reach that level, but it’s all quite good. Crispy shrimp ($6.25) is five medium shrimp rolled up in egg-roll cigars and fried, but on my visit, they were somewhat greasy. No such problem with fried calamari ($5.95) on the same night; they were dry-fried, crispy, all rings, with a sweet hot-pepper sauce. Mee-Grob ($5.50), the Northern Thai answer to crackerjack, are deep-fried rice noodles in a sweet-sour sauce, here mixed with tofu cubes and bean sprouts. Fun to eat, but not at the level of the Miang Kum. Tom Yum Goong ($2.95), the classic Thai sour-and-hot shrimp soup, is very sour, not very hot, and somewhat slapdash with a couple of shrimp, a couple of straw mushrooms, and not much else. A more pastel style of tofu soup ($2.75) is actually livelier to eat, with tofu, straw mushrooms, baby corncobs, pea pods, dried mushroom, Napa cabbage, and fresh cilantro in a broth that tastes of the vegetables.

Goong Lychee ($13.50), another signature dish, is a provocative combination of shrimp, asparagus, and lychees, but in a light, sweet curry with fresh Asian basil that doesn’t do enough to bring the contrasting elements together. Good eating, no fireworks, in a light, sweet Masaman curry that doesn’t hold it together.

Moo Pa Lo ($9.75) is the kind of soul-food hot pot that sometimes scores big in Chinatown. Here the braised pork hocks, two hard-boiled eggs, and cubes of fried tofu are all the same color and taste pleasantly but not importantly of anise. I’m guessing this dish makes a lot more sense with about seven silhouettes’ worth of hot chili peppers in it.

Tamarind duck ($12.75) is very, very good eating, both crunchy and boneless, with a nice assortment of vegetables — snow peas, broccoli (the best Western vegetable in Asian food, I think), red bell pepper, and a few straw mushrooms. Rod-Na ($8.50) is a pretty good version of chow foon, the soft, wide, hand-cut Chinese noodles. Your choices are chicken or beef. We took the beef, and it was the classic, soul-satisfying beef and broccoli that work well with these noodles.

You can order steamed jasmine, brown, or sticky rice. The jasmine ($1.25 cup/$3.50 bowl) is the real thing, with a good earthy aroma, if not the literal fragrance of jasmine.

Wine doesn’t really go with Thai food, but Khao Sarn has a wine list, as well as bar drinks. The house red is Chilean merlot from Concha y Toro ($4/glass), and the list also features the 1999 " Explorador " merlot from the same maker ($4.50). I can never resist a journalistic challenge like, is the fancy one worth another 50 cents? I think it is, or would be with European food. Non-vintage Concha y Toro merlot is a soft, venous (that’s wine talk for fruity but nondescript) wine, kind of what central casting would send over when you put out a call for house red. The Explorador is clearly related, but in comparison it's almost a textbook example of the wine-talk concept of " length. " The taste lasts longer after you swallow; it’s stronger that way. It’s also a little more structured, with a drier flavor impression, though neither wine could be called " austere " or " elegant. " It’s certainly 20 percent better. But of course, beer is what goes with this food. As does water, which is refilled well and often. In fact, both our servers at Khao Sarn were truly excellent.

You can eat all kinds of exciting things, have a very pleasant experience, and still be able to stroll over to the Brookline Booksmith and afford to buy a new novel. This isn’t true everywhere. Some American cities have cheap, greasy Thai restaurants. Khao Sarn is very much the other kind, and it’s opening some doors to adventures in Thai regional cuisine.

Robert Nadeau can be reached at RobtNadeau@aol.com