With a little bit of a New York City vibe and a whole lot of Thailand taste, Cozy Thai Bistro, 454 E. College Ave., is serving up Thai food as authentic as it comes.

Executive chef and owner Suksan Ruangpattana and co-owner Peeranee Musigchai are both Penn State alumni who majored in hotel, restaurant and institutional management (HRIM).

"When we were students here, we were looking for a place like this to eat," Ruangpattana said. "In HRIM, we did a business proposal for the restaurant and gave it to our professor and were able to make that a reality."

Ruangpattana and Musigchai said that, though most people want to get out of State College post-graduation, they had no intentions of leaving. They graduated in the fall of 2004 and opened up Cozy Thai in June 2006.

"We love State College, and many Thai students are happy that we're here serving authentic food," Ruangpattana said. "We're in an ideal location that's close to campus for walking, and there is a lot more parking available on this side of College Avenue."

Ruangpattana and Musigchai hired a Thai architect from New York City to help with the modern design of the inside of Cozy Thai.

"The architect designed a lot of Thai restaurants in New York, so we wanted to bring that touch of a big city restaurant to State College," Ruangpattana said. "Though it's a modern interior design, we try to be comfy [for everyone], whether it's parents with kids or students with friends."

Though Cozy Thai isn't the only Thai restaurant in the area, Ruangpattana said he doesn't consider Viet-Thai, 146 N. Atherton St., to be competition.

"They serve more Vietnamese dishes and only have about four or five Thai dishes," Ruangpattana said. "We're a Thai restaurant, so we're serving all Thai food only because that's what we are."

Viet-Thai owner, Vince Vuong, also said the restaurant and Cozy Thai are not in competition with each other.

"We haven't seen any decrease in sales since [Cozy Thai] opened," Vuong said. "I don't know if some of our customers also go there, but since it hasn't made an impact on our sales it's not much of my concern."

Ruangpattana said he suggests that first-time customers start off with one of the most popular dishes, a rice-noodle dish called Pad Thai.

"The flavor of Pad Thai is more familiar to Americans because it contains peanuts and is easy to adapt to," Ruangpattana said. "They should start with that because it isn't too strong with too many Thai-urban spices, and from there, they can get more into authentic Thai dishes."

The authentic Thai food is created by three authentic Thai chefs, overseen by Ruangpattana.

"We tried hiring non-Thai chefs but since this is a college town, they came and they left," Ruangpattana said. "Non-Thai employees that work here and have never had Thai food before end up trying everything on the menu and liking it, though."

Sarah Rosswog (senior-psychology), an employee at Cozy Thai, applied for the job before she had ever tried Thai food.

"I wanted a different, multicultural work experience to broaden my horizons," Rosswog said. "Before I worked here I had never tried Thai food. Now I love it."

Rosswog said that, though she wasn't surprised she took a liking to Thai food, she was taken aback by the spiciness of many of the dishes.

"It's spicy in a good way," Rosswog said. "My favorite dish is Pad See lew with beef, though, which is a sweet noodle dish and isn't very spicy."

Musigchai said that between the spicy Thai-urban flavors and the milder, nutty flavors, anyone could find a dish that will satisfy their taste buds.

"A lot of Thai restaurants in the cities are fusion-Thai food, but we're more of a home-cooking, authentic style and [we] use a lot of spices," she said. "If you have visited Thailand and have had Pad Thai there, our Pad Thai tastes exactly the same."