Thammada Thai Cuisine focuses on making ordinary Thai comfort food extraordinary with Thammada meaning ordinary in Thai. 

The halal menu includes traditional street foods of Thailand such as khao soi, pad kee mao, curries and pad see ew, and Asian flavours, as well as care put into the dishes, come through in every bite. 

The Etobicoke restaurant features a neon-lit sign to drive the mantra home and comes from Chef Oyy also behind Simply Thai, which has been on Bloor Street West for nearly two decades. 

One of the rice noodle dishes on the menu, pad kee mao ($15.95 to $18.95), is a spicy, more savoury version of the nutty and sweet pad thai. The name translates to drunken noodles because of its tried-and-true hangover-curing powers. 

Some Thai restaurants serve pad see ew as pad kee mao but here they celebrate the differences, however nuanced, between the two. The sweeter Pad see ew is made with dark soy sauce, unlike pad kee mao that gets its tastes from lots of basil and red peppers. 

Khao soi ($15.95 to $18.95) is done with egg noodles and from-scratch coconut curry that has a surprising depth of flavour without going too overboard on sweetness, a common downfall of khao soi.

Break the crispy noodles on top for crunch. Added bean sprouts come cooked or raw, it's up to you. 

Curries include red, green, yellow, Panang and Massaman, a marriage of Thai and Indian-style curry with flavours of cumin, coriander, nutmeg and cinnamon. Chef Oyy's best-seller is the red ($16.95 to $19.95). Rice from high-in-fibre, purple rice berry goes on the side. 

Crying Tiger ($15.95) gets its name from the spicy dipping sauce (it's a good idea to have milk tea at the ready to help control the heat) and comes with AAA ribeye, grilled until medium-rare. 

Fried, boneless red snapper is wild-caught and costs $25, give or take $5 depending on its size. Sauces include red curry, sweet and sour, and a fresh and pungent seafood sauce with garlic, chili, cilantro and lemon. Pour just a bit on top, a little goes a long way.

Breaded shrimp ($18.95 to $19.95) also comes with your choice of sauce on the side and about six large shrimp, tails intact. 

Leave room in your stomach for some dessert. Mango sticky rice ($7.95) has fresh pieces of mango and creamy coconut milk to pour over the rice topped with cashew. 

Thai lemon iced tea, hibiscus tea and Thai milk tea ($5.95) are brewed in-house. Milk tea is steeped with whole cloves, cinnamon and star anise and topped with lighter evaporated milk instead of condensed. 

Chef Oyy uses her 19 years of experience to make each dish on the menu memorable, but couldn't do it without the help of her Thammada team, who she considers family.