A Review of Topaz Thai Restaurant, in Belleville WANIDA REID took a roundabout route to opening a restaurant. Born into a political family in Bangkok, she remembers lingering in the kitchen and helping the housekeeper prepare food for her parents" frequent dinner parties. As a teenager she immigrated to New York to live with an aunt and took the surname of her uncle, a military officer. Before long, she had enlisted in the Army herself, working as a translator in Japan. Later, she studied cosmetology, did some modeling and ran a series of beauty salons, while raising a daughter and traveling the world at every opportunity. By 2006, Ms. Reid, who likes to be called Mama, was ready to retire when she learned of a Thai restaurant in Belleville that was for sale, and snapped it up. Her notion was simple: to deliver Thai cooking the way it was meant to be. "I remember how the food's supposed to taste," she told me on the phone after my visits. Her memory must be exceptional. Because despite the fact that Ms. Reid, 63, has almost no formal culinary training, the fare at Topaz Thai Restaurant is remarkably tasty. Take the tom yum soup: Ms. Reid, who lives on Staten Island, harvests kaffir lime leaves from a 15-foot tree in her own greenhouse there. These, along with lemongrass and galangal, a root that resembles ginger but is more peppery, go into the stock of her spicy and fragrant soup. She dresses it up further with house-made tamarind juice, which she produces (10 gallons at a time) by soaking dried tamarinds, scraping them out and boiling the pulp with palm sugar and fish sauce. Or take the crispy basil half-duck, a special that has been on the menu for months: lightly battered in tempura, fried, then bathed in a mixture of garlic, onion and bell pepper, oyster sauce, three kinds of soy and a reduction of sweet rice wine, and then topped with basil. Or the crispy tilapia, a generous portion of two seasoned filets, battered and fried and slathered in a similar brown sauce, without the basil but with caramelized ginger adding another dimension of sweetness and pungency. Ms. Reid treks across the Verrazano-Narrows and Brooklyn Bridges to Chinatown to buy fresh broad rice noodles for her pad see ew, a Thai street food. In her hands it makes a hearty, sweet and savory dish, with Chinese broccoli and egg in addition to meat or tofu, that was a winner with my two young daughters. A grown-up version is the more subtly flavored Bangkok noodles, in which Ms. Reid replaces the sweet soy sauce with mushroom soy sauce and oyster sauce, for a smokier, garlicky result. Topaz offers five curries; we tried the green curried chicken, my wife's favorite. Ms. Reid keeps the heat moderate and sweetens the curry with palm sugar before adding the meat, fish sauce, bamboo shoots, bell pepper and basil. The result was less a punch to the mouth than a bear hug of lasting flavor. Like a nurturing mother, Ms. Reid also provides a salad for each entree, and her homemade dressings - ginger, peanut and ginger-miso - are tangy and fresh. Try them all. That's in addition to the wide range of starters, of course, like vegetable spring rolls made fresh daily, filled with glass noodles, mushroom soy, garlic and sugar, and served with a tangy homemade plum sauce. Pastry puffs with chicken and onions, or with mushrooms and sweet potatoes, are spiced with a curry paste and served with a cucumber salad. But given the choice, I'd go with the pan-seared dumplings of ground chicken and minced shrimp, served with a chili-soy dipping sauce. I'm still debating how I feel about the "Loaded Thai Tacos." These are wontons fried into a lotus-blossom shape and stuffed with a kitchen-sink combination: ground chicken cooked in garlic, soy and sugar; mixed with sweet radish and ground peanuts; and then topped with diced ginger root, cilantro, peanuts and lime juice. They might be too much. But I'd have to try a few more to be sure. Dessert is an afterthought at Topaz Thai: her daughter, Aliyah, concocts some whimsical confections, like fried Oreos and brownies served with ice cream. But odds are you won't have any appetite left. As Ms. Reid said in her motherly way, explaining her seemingly contradictory attitudes about nutrition and portion size, "I want to make sure you're happy, you're healthy, you're full, and you take some food home - to be a memory of me." Topaz Thai Restaurant 137 Washington Avenue Belleville (973) 759-7425 topazthainj.com THE SPACE A storefront with 50 seats under cheerfully colored umbrella lights. Along the rear hallway, don't miss the glossies of the owner from her modeling days. Fully wheelchair accessible. THE CROWD First dates, double dates, parents with children - all are treated like family. The amiable staff is led by "Mama" herself, who likes to chat with customers. There is a liquor store a block away. THE BILL Appetizers, $4 to $12. Entrees, $10 to $22. Visa, MasterCard and Discover accepted. WHAT WE LIKED Spring rolls, pan-seared dumplings, tom yum soup, pad see ew, green curry, Bangkok noodles, crispy tilapia, crispy basil duck. IF YOU GO Open Monday to Saturday, 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Sunday, 1 to 9 p.m. Reservations recommended on Friday and Saturday. Parking on the street or in a lot next door.