The restaurant opened under new management earlier this year and offers an extensive menu, including 14 different lunch specials for $6.99 that are served with soup of the day and choice of a fresh spring roll, egg roll, cucumber salad or Crab Rangoon. 
Often Thai is lumped in with Chinese and thought of as rather like chop suey, but the flavors are unique here, so read the menu descriptions and share around the table to sample different sauces. The wait staff was very helpful in navigating the menu.
The selections are designated as spicy on the menu by a pepper, but seemed to vary greatly in the degree of “hotness.” The soup was on the high side of hot, but an entree seemed barely hot at all. Ask how hot a given dish is and adjust up or down according to taste.
The Pad Thai, stir fried flat thin rice noodles with tofu, bean sprouts, green onion and egg in a delicious tamarind sauce, was topped with lime and crushed peanuts so that the nutty flavor could be stirred in rather than just whole peanuts. The flavors were fresh and robust.
The bright lively decor lends itself to a special occasion or to making an everyday lunch feel like a bright spot in your day. In the mall with the hardware store, the launder mat that washes your special things, a dollar store, the resale shop, lunch at Ariya lends itself well to combining errands with lunching out.
Aryia is awarded three acorns (out of four).
