From the outside, Pi's Place looks like any other Spotsylvania pizza joint. Step inside the foyer and find a small clue that there is more here than tomato sauce and mozzarella: A small note reads "Thai food now available all day."

I had heard good things about Pi's Thai menu, and I know that it is a favorite spot for many lovers of the Asian cuisine. So I stopped by the unassuming restaurant off Lafayette Boulevard recently.

Our waitress--the daughter of the owners--presented a menu decorated with a photo of fishing boats in front of Thailand's jagged mountains. I opened the menu to find one side listing standard pizza parlor fare.

The other side held what I had come for--a nice variety of Thai specialties.

Our young waitress helpfully recommended dishes. I was in the mood for "drunken noodles," but didn't find them on the menu. No problem, she said. Her mother could make the special request for the same price as the pad see ew--fresh, wide rice-flour noodles with broccoli and chicken or beef (dinner $8.25). If I wanted the noodles with a mixture of shrimp, scallops and squid--and I did--the cost would be $13.

The noodles arrived piping hot with a thick, spicy brown sauce. The seafood was tasty and fresh. Small, tender scallops were seared on the outside, juicy inside. The squid were tender, and the shrimp delicious.

Pi's Place makes a good Thai curry, too. In the gaeng kiew wan ($9), a spicy green curry of coconut milk, tender chunks of bamboo shoot, straw mushrooms, tiny corn and licorice-tinged Thai (holy) basil, graced slices of moist chicken breast. It was served with steamed rice.

Thai appetizers include most of the standard American Thai restaurant choices. Tom kha gai soup ($4.75 or $7)--chicken and mushrooms in coconut milk with flecks of coriander--was fresh, if a little salty.

I recommend Pi's tender grilled chicken satay. It comes with a relish of crisp cucumber, onion and spicy pepper, and also a flavorful peanut sauce.

Pi's spring rolls were less satisfactory, with a filling of almost all cellophane noodles and the occasional mushroom, and the outsides were greasy. They were served with iceberg lettuce and the traditional spicy sweet dipping sauce.