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$25 and Under

$25 and Under

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September 5, 1997, Section C, Page 20Buy Reprints
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No question, it's been an exhausting week. Back to work, back to school, back to serious business. It's the kind of week when cooking seems tedious and hot. Takeout beckons, but you groan, ''Not Chinese again!''

Here are three restaurants in Manhattan that specialize in takeout. Going to pick up the food yourself is a worthwhile alternative to piles of menus moldering in the kitchen drawer.

Haitian

In either French or English, the greeting is warm at KRIK KRAK, a little Haitian restaurant that opened two months ago. The bright surroundings, with half a dozen tables, a counter and walls covered with colorful Haitian art, are pleasant, but the real attraction is the authentic Haitian dishes, distinct from many other Caribbean cuisines.

Griot limbe ($6), small chunks of pork marinated in garlic, lemon and spices, boiled and then fried until the outside is crisp, is a huge and tasty plate of food that comes with an equally big order of rice and beans. Poulet maison ($6.50), small pieces of chicken on the bone in an extraordinarily peppery sauce, is just as big.

Some dishes sell out quickly at Krik Krak. I had hoped to try the lambi creole ($8.50), a traditional conch dish, but it's always gone by the time I arrive. Shrimp creole ($8.50) was more notable for its sauce of scallions, bell peppers and hot peppers than for the serviceable shrimp. The gateau Haitien ($2.25) has also been sold out. ''Oh, you've got to keep trying,'' I was told the second time I asked for it. I'm sure I will.

Rastafarian

There's barely enough room to turn around in tiny MOJA CAFE, a three-month-old Rastafarian takeout shop that specializes in what the menu calls ''natural, clean food.'' By that, Sohoba, the Trinidadian owner, means mostly vegetarian dishes with a couple of seafood offerings.

I loved the shrimp roti ($6), a circle of flat bread nearly a foot in diameter, sprinkled with ground yellow split peas and cunningly folded around shrimp in a wonderfully spiced potato curry with green peppers and green peas. It is spiced well enough to get your attention and goes well with a bracing sorrel ($2), a sweet and tart herbal drink flavored with cloves and ginger.

At most Caribbean restaurants peas and rice means red beans and rice. But here, peas and rice ($5) is just that, rice cooked in coconut milk with fresh green peas and, depending on the owner's whims, potato curry, chunks of bean curd or spicy callaloo, a spinachlike green.

Southern

If you like, you can pull up a chair at SOUL FIXINS if any of the dozen or so seats are available at this small storefront near Ninth Avenue. But this kind of Southern food travels well, and it's nice to be able to spread out in comfort at home, especially with a dish like meaty barbecued spareribs ($6.50) bathed in a gloriously smoky sauce that requires you to towel down afterward. I preferred the crisp fried chicken ($5.95) to chicken smothered in an oniony brown sauce ($6.50).

Side dishes (two come with each main course) were uniformly good, from the collard greens and green beans, both in tangy vinegar sauces, to the candied yams, fragrant with clove and nutmeg, to the sweet corn fresh off the cob. It's probably an exercise in futility, but you can save some calories by concentrating on the fine filling of the sweet potato pie ($1.50) and skipping the generic pie crust.

Primarily Takeout

KRIK KRAK, 844 Amsterdam Avenue, near 101st Street, Manhattan, (212) 222-3100; cash only; 11:30 A.M. to 9 P.M. Mondays, until 10 P.M. Tuesdays and Wednesdays, until 11 P.M. Thursdays and Fridays, 10 A.M. to midnight Saturdays, 10 A.M. to 8 P.M. Sundays; one step at entrance.

MOJA CAFE, 40 Clinton Street, near Rivington Street, Lower East Side, (212) 473-3581; cash only; noon to 10 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays, until 11 P.M. Fridays and Saturdays, closed Sundays; one step in front.

SOUL FIXINS, 371 West 34th Street, Manhattan, (212) 736-1345; cash only; 11 A.M. to 10 P.M. Mondays through Fridays, closed weekends; everything is on one level.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section C, Page 20 of the National edition with the headline: $25 and Under. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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