Decorated with leafy half-roofs over its bar and booths, and watched over by waitresses in brightly colored long dresses, the underground dining room at Malaysia Kopitiam always puts me on the other side of the globe, if only for an hour at lunch. Fostering the illusion is the "rotiwich" ($6.95): slices of marinated beef or pork, a little sweet and a little sour with tamarind, served on the thin, crisp, flaky -- and addictive -- Indian flatbread known as roti. "Do they really eat this in Malaysia?" a skeptical diner asks his waitress. "Yes, but they don't use mayonnaise," she tips him off.
--Tom Sietsema (July 2, 2006)
