West Indians with a hankering for macaroni pie or doubles can satisfy it at Timehri, a small restaurant in a Pembroke Pines shopping plaza.

The friendly, bare-bones eatery is named for the city where Guayana's international airport is located, but most of owner Cindy Narain's customers are from Trinidad. Separated by only 400 miles, the two Caribbean countries have a shared East Indian, African, Chinese and European heritage.

Cindy's great-great-grandparents came from India to Guyana, which is sandwiched between Venezuela and Suriname. By the time she was born, her parents had immigrated to Toronto, where they ran two restaurants, also named Timehri. The single mom puts in long hours, and her 5-year old son, Kadin, hangs out at the restaurant on weekends.

Open one year, Timehri serves up Caribbean-style Chinese dishes and dhalpuri (flat bread with a layer of ground split peas) folded like a handkerchief and used as a mop for curries.

Start a meal here with battered potato balls or phulouri (fritters) made from seasoned split pea flour served with tart tamarind sauce. Fried fish snacks are made with bangamary (yellow-mouth salmon). Pepper shrimp are fried, then seasoned with hot chiles and garlic.

The Chinese menu offers fried rice, lo mein (soft wheat flour noodles with choice of protein or veggies) and chow mein (the same noodles but with everything mixed in). Curries include shrimp, potato, beef and channa (chickpeas) with rice or bread. Look for them all on the bargain-priced weekday lunch buffet.

The weekend brunch buffet adds macaroni pie (mac and cheese baked until crisp on top), goat curry, chicken curry, doubles (crispy fried bread folded around stewed chickpeas), smoked herring with bakes (fried bread), salt fish and bacon, pancakes, mashed pumpkin, and tomato choka (roasted mashed tomato with spices), eaten with roti bread.

Coconut water or mauby, a natural energy drink made from tree bark, is a fine accompaniment, and mango mousse makes for a sweet ending.