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Elbow-shaped Doyers Street, thick in Chinatown’s urban-grit-meets-Hello Kitty bustle, teems with subterranean culinary finds, like this Southeast Asian restaurant. Though windowless and wanly lit, it’s ripe with merry, utilitarian gumption: Batik tablecloths are topped with tubs of plastic chopsticks, and Balinese shadow puppets are tacked over the peeling wainscoting. Palate-piquers include the crisp rujak salad: Hunks of pineapple, mango, and jicama get a jolt from the sea, via an aromatic, deep-brown fish sauce. Stingray is exceedingly mild on the plate, its milky-white meat separating easily from the flat, wide bone. The mellow fish pairs especially well with a steaming bowl of coconut milk curry, bobbing with okra and eggplant. Malaysia’s nod to India emerges in the roti canai, a teepee of paper-thin fried dough meant to be torn and dunked a mild, tasty curry sauce. Once satiated, there’s little reason to linger; there are always cheap foot rubs around the corner. — AnneLise Sorensen

Stingray, $12.95; Indonesian fried noodles, $5.50; roti canai, $2.25