The soothing main dining room at Thai Excursion is decorated with ethnic details such as this large Buddha head.

WARWICK — You can head toward the airport to get an authentic taste of Thailand, but you never have to board a plane.

That’s because the Thai Excursion restaurant is just a stone’s throw from T.F. Green. Here you can savor the heady flavors of the Southeast Asian country — from curries to satay to pad thai — in a quaint, very pretty setting that’s colorful and yet restfully subdued.

Thani and Toni Sae-eung opened the eatery about 18 months ago in space formerly occupied by the Jefferson Grill on a corner of busy Jefferson Boulevard. Thani’s originally from Thailand and met Toni, who is of Italian descent, when his parents sent him to study in high school in West Haven, Conn. After graduation they were separated for a time when he moved on to Boston to manage a string of parking lots. Each married other people in the interim, but they eventually got back together. He came to Rhode Island to be the general manager of Hooters for 15 years, eventually opening Thai Excursion in February 2007, with Toni often behind the bar.

Thai Excursion is an oasis that beckons with tiny holiday lights in the trees while, inside, Buddha seems to be everywhere along with a couple of huge Thai vases. Walk in the front door and you’ll find yourself in a large, inviting bar with black-and-white checkered floor tiles and the equally inviting Toni behind the bar. At the front of the restaurant, separated by a partition from the bar, is a small railroad car-style dining room with booths.

The main dining room, where we sat, is painted in a rich, soothing lemon shade with paintings of orchids scattered about the walls. There’s brown wainscoting around most of the room, save for three-quarters of one wall dominated by a floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace which, Toni said, blazes during the colder months. The black tables, covered by glass sheets, each had a little gold-colored vase containing a plastic orchid. It may sound kitschy, but it’s actually very charming.

There are several tables, too, in a greenhouse-style room behind French doors off the dining room, where light glows from pinpoints cut into big hanging stars. On the other side of the bar there’s outdoor seating on a pretty patio, although the surrounding view, seen between the plants, is more post-industrial Rhode Island than colorful Bangkok.

Thai Excursion also bills itself as a martini bar and so, in addition to Thai beers and sake on the drink menu, there are several concoctions that range from the familiar to the more exotic. A Mai Tai ($7) can be found at many Asian restaurants and here it’s served in an Easter Island-head glass with a little parasol on top, although not as sweet as I had expected. My Excursion Life Saver ($7.50) was tall, refreshing and sweeter. It was a potent mix of mango rum, coconut rum, pineapple rum and cranberry and pineapple juices. I wouldn’t hesitate to order it again.

The menu is extensive and has a wide variety of sauces that range in taste from very mild to hot, hotter and hottest, at least judging by the one to three chili peppers next to some menu items. We bypassed the chili peppers in favor of milder dishes. There also are various curry dishes — red, green, yellow, Massaman, Panang and Pik Khing — that add zest here to chicken, beef, pork, shrimp, even duck.

A good place to start with a flavor of Southeast Asia is the Excursion Grill ($7.95), a collection of three different Satays — chicken, beef, pork. There are two of each kind of Satay which are marinated, pounded thin and then grilled on skewers. So tender you could almost cut each with a fork, they’re served with two dipping sauces — a robust peanut sauce and a sweet red sauce. We happily dipped slices of the meat and poultry into each, discovering that the chicken was good with either, the pork was best with the sweet sauce and the beef had such a hearty flavor all its own that it didn’t really need to be dressed up with a sauce.

High marks also went to the lemongrass shrimp ($6.95), four large shrimps that had been marinated with lemongrass and gentle Thai spices, then grilled on a skewer with a pineapple chunk, slices of carrot, yellow and green squash and a cherry tomato. Served with a sweet carrot sauce that was unobtrusive, it sat on a bed of soft, thin noodles that certainly didn’t overpower the delicate shrimp.

Much appreciated was the fact that between courses our waiter, Jeffery, offered clean plates and silverware, a custom that seems somehow lost at many other restaurants.

We ordered as one might in any Asian restaurant, with three shared entrees. The third had to be, of course, Pad Thai ($8.95), which has become a national dish in Thailand. At Thai Excursion it was both familiar and delicious (you can also order a spicier version that has a touch of chili sauce, plus various other noodle dishes as well). In the Pad Thai, soft Thai noodles are stir fried with shrimp and slices of chicken along with egg, crunchy bean sprouts, scallions and ground peanuts. We’d had the Pad Thai brought to the table after nearly finishing our other two entrees with the idea that if we didn’t finish there was always leftovers. But despite the large portion on the plate, we managed to eat every bit of it. And that was after the other entrees had already won rave reviews.

Both of them were house specialties, designated by little lotus blossom symbols on the menu. The Ocean Treasure ($14.95) was a delicious blend of scallops, good-sized shrimp, chunks of filleted fish and calamari, the latter presented as long curlicues of squid bodies as you’d see them before they had been sliced into rings. A handful of mussels were on the side of the dish as well. The seafood mix featured a mild, slightly salty light brown sauce that also had an array of crisp-tender vegetables — pea pods, carrots and zucchini — plus mushrooms and pineapple chunks, all of which made for a presentation that looked as good as it tasted.

The light brown sauce that accompanied the Floating Market ($13.50) looked very similar to the Ocean Treasure sauce, but one taste and the difference was readily apparent. It was much sweeter and not salty. Thani, who also is known as T, said the sauces in Thai cooking depend on slight changes in the amounts of spices used in cooking. He said a lot of the recipes at Thai Excursion are from his family.

The Floating Market had large shrimp, along with slices of tender chicken and beef, plus crisp-tender slices of carrots, yellow squash, zucchini, onions and broccoli florets. It was a delicious and mild variety of flavors, each piece of meat, shrimp, poultry and vegetables maintaining its integrity in the sauce. Neither this nor the Ocean Treasure were served with noodles or rice, and after a few bites we ordered a small bowl of steamed white rice ($1.50) to add texture and help sop up the juices.

Despite all that food, dessert was not out of the question. Thai Excursion has more of a selection than you’ll find at most Asian restaurants and the two we ordered are highly recommended. The fried bananas ($3.50) had been sliced into bite-size pieces and covered in a thin pasta noodle shell wrapper before frying. This made for a wonderful crispiness on the outside before one got to the banana inside which was meltingly delicious although Thani said that the secret to making this dish is using green, never ripe, bananas. They came to the table covered in honey which added just the right sweet touch.

My dining companion’s Princess Tia Sundae ($4.50), named for one of the owner’s daughters, is a big chunk of creamy fried ice cream that was crispy on the outside. Thani said Wonder Bread, its crust removed, is wrapped tightly around an ice cream brick, then quickly frozen so it can stand up to the heat of frying . . . and always in fresh cooking oil. It came to the table smothered in whipped cream and a light chocolate sauce, the candy sprinkles on top giving it a festive look. It certainly completed the party mood we were in . . . all the way home.BILL OF FARE

Dinner for two at Thai Excursion might look something like this:

Mai Tai…$7.00

Excursion Life Saver…$7.50

Floating Market…$13.50

Pad Thai…$8.95

Fried Bananas…$3.50

Total food and drink…$40.45

Tax…$3.24

Tip…$8.00

Total bill…$51.69

Thai Excursion, 137 Kilvert St., Warwick. (401) 921-5582. thaiexcursionri.com. Casual. Handicapped accessible. Child seats. Reservations. AE, MC, V, DIS. Parking lot. Open 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Mon-Fri; 4 to 10 p.m. Sat., 4 to 9 p.m. Sun. Take out. Appetizers $5.25 to $7.95. Entrees $8.95 to $16.95. A large selection of beers, martinis and cocktails offered; wines $4.95 to $5.50 by the glass.

mjanuson@projo.com