Sigiri

At this cozy walk-up Sri Lankan restaurant, the décor is cute, the sambals are mouth-numbing.

If you find the pork black curry ($9) too tame, a little dab'll do ya. Scoop them up with string hoppers ($8), rice noodles shaped into soft, single-serving disks.

Also shown below: the appetizer sampler ($8.50), headlined by fish-and-potato spring rolls; chicken lamprais ($12), a Dutch-influenced dish of "flavored rice served with chicken, fish cutlet, ash plantains, and egg," slow-cooked in a banana leaf; watalappam ($3.50), a spiced, eggy pudding with Malay roots that sometimes bears signs of excessive refrigeration; assorted sweets ($4.50) that can also be a little stiff; a nontraditional but pleasing mango pudding with vanilla ice cream ($3).

Sigiri
91 First Ave. (5th-6th Sts.)
212-614-9333
www.sigirinyc.com