Steve Murgo, chef/owner of the small and eclectic Café Neva, first enjoyed Chinese food when he was eight and Mexican food when he was 10. Such early enthusiasm for cuisines outside the realm of American fast food has definitely influenced Murgo’s own cooking. This is abundantly clear the minute you glance at his nightly specials. For example, on a recent evening when we visited, listed on a white board were a ginger beef stir-fry, Korean BBQ baked ziti, and Chinese black bean-Thai basil pesto, among others.

Rubbing our eyes and wondering, "Where are we?," we settled in at a table near the open kitchen to study the menu, as well as the Thursday night dinner-for-two options ($45). The entrée choices for this special during our visit are beer-battered fish and chips (haddock with sweet potato fries), a lamb burger (stuffed with goat cheese), ziti of Eden (with veggies in a cream sauce), and pollo de mesteiza (chicken in a spicy tomato broth).

We opted for the last two, the ziti and the pollo. Other nearby diners were enjoying the jerk steak with a Guinness reduction, the cream sherry chicken, the baked haddock, and the chicken ’n’ taters (in a sweet potato cream sauce). From the three appetizers, the Thursday special allows one, so we chose the pork pot stickers and added the fresh tofu salad ($5.95).

The salad was done Korean-style, with a very hot lime-chili barbecue dressing drizzled over slices of tofu that sat atop a bed of greens, cukes, tomatoes, and peppers. At first, I thought the veggies and the bare-naked tofu would sufficiently lower the heat quotient of the sauce, but the fire continued to build and even registered "quite hot" on the Bill-o-meter.

The five pot stickers, filled with Asian-spiced pork, came with two dipping possibilities, a spicy peanut sauce and a soy-dim sum sauce. Bill liked the flavors, but he wasn’t completely taken with the wrappers, whose crispiness was not what he expected in a dumpling.

The pollo de mesteiza ($15.95 on the regular menu) made up for that disappointment, however. The generous Mexican gravy on and around the chicken breast was delicious, and it was liberally garnished with a nice avocado sour cream. Along with the chicken came a large flour tortilla stuffed with grated jack cheese, and though it hadn’t been warmed or melted, the tortilla roll-up provided another venue for that tasty gravy.

My ziti of Eden was described as being in a balsamic garlic cream sauce with asparagus, squash, zucchini, grape tomatoes, goat cheese, and basil (usually $15). The cream sauce itself was redolent with fresh basil, and the diced summer squash and zucchini were cooked nicely, but I couldn’t detect the balsamic or garlic. Perhaps my taste buds had been blown out by the Korean salad.

The Thursday night special comes with two desserts, which is convenient since this is the number offered by Murgo: Key lime pie and Mexican chocolate cheesecake (regular price $6). For each of these desserts, less would have been more. Both had graham cracker crusts that were too thick for my taste. The meringue on the Key lime was too dense to complement the filling, which was also quite heavy. The lime zest is always a good touch, but it was a little too strong for the delicate Key lime flavor. The Mexican chocolate cheesecake was, by definition, dense, and that was just fine, especially with its hint of cinnamon.

This fine restaurant, which is BYOB, is trying to find a place among the nearby diners and fast-food eateries, and its prices are quite moderate given the unusual ethnic ingredients, the emphasis on fresh vegetables and herbs, and the care taken with the dishes. The décor is bright and inviting: light wood paneling that looks like wainscoting with a cheery orange trim. Photographs and prints by local artists hang on two walls, and table-height windows run across the third wall, with a view onto the bustling urban neighborhood.

Murgo, who is self-taught, has worked in several restaurants around Rhode Island, including a wrap and pizzeria shop in Bristol, where he grew up. He opened Café Neva in May 2003, serving breakfasts every morning, but the diner scene didn’t fulfill his creative ambition, so he trimmed breakfasts back to weekends. Now, he spends Wednesdays shopping at the ethnic markets in South Providence and Pawtucket, using his finds to develop new specials for the dinner menu. His Italian grandmother, from whom he first learned to cook, might look askance at an Asian pesto or a Korean baked ziti, but she’d recognize how much heart Murgo puts into his cooking, and she’d know he learned that from her, too.

Although Café Neva is in deepest Pawtucket — call for directions — it’s definitely worth the hunt.