From the street, Pukk’s glass storefront has an eerie, alien glow. Inside, floor-to-ceiling tiles and recessed yellow green lighting give the faint impression of a futuristic subway tunnel or other public facility: Every corner is rounded, as though to allow for an easy after-hours hose down. Unexpectedly comfortable transparent gel cushions cover the tiled seats, and Lucite and gilded cement walls increase the visual intrigue. But the overall effect, scored with airy dance music and aided by warm, diligent service, is young and hip rather than sterile, and the colorful East Village clientele fits in easily.

The owners of downtown Thai favorites Highline and Peep opened Pukk in January, offering a plainer, all-vegetarian edition of the clean, stylish cuisine their other restaurants serve. The name means “vegetable” in Thai, and with the green of the lighting and the staff’s outfits establishes a theme. Gone are Highline’s adventuresome foie gras dumplings and Thai mole sauce; Pukk’s primary innovation is its meatlessness, while the dishes stick closer to well-known recipes. With no dish over $9, the lowered inventiveness is hardly a disappointment: Indeed, the restaurant falters most when it strays farthest from familiar ground.

A starter of crisp, hot, many-plied pancakes ($4) comes with a thin curried dipping sauce that’s loaded with pieces of fried tofu so it can double as a creamy soup. The kitchen’s touch with curry is particularly deft: not overly complex, but very well balanced, with flavors well married and smooth. Mushroom puffs ($4) have flaky, lightly greasy wheat-flour wrappers with knurled edges, filled with a dense, faintly curried melange of shiitake pieces and potato cubes. There’s no need for a dipping sauce; instead, a light salad of cucumber and carrot comes alongside. Other dumplings offer less inspiration. Bright chive-and-pea-stuffed ones ($4), cutely served in the sauce filled cups of a deviled-egg plate, have remarkably little flavor. What the menu lists as “rice crepe” with “marinara sauce” turns out to be more steamed dumplings ($4), but the basil-redolent marinara sauce is exactly that, a jarring Neapolitan inundation covering the piquant Thai morsels.

The spicy lime dressing on a tomato filled papaya salad ($4) complements the cellulose crunch of the immature papaya shreds nicely, but the absence of the usual nam pla fish sauce’s savory, salty kick, which can make this dish so satisfying, is regrettably obvious. Another salad, “All Green” ($4), with red beans, tomato, tofu, and mushrooms slathered in a rich peanut dressing, fares better; and a towering one ($4) with crispily convincing soy mock-duck pieces, cashews, and pineapple is superb.

Many of the restaurant’s best dishes fall in the noodles-and-curries menu category, where they can be ordered with a choice of ersatz chicken, duck, or beef. The coconut-based curry stews, in green, red, panang, and massaman flavors (all $7) are uniformly delicious: red, sweetened with pineapple chunks, has a smoky richness, while green, made with fresh chilies and filled with zucchini and bamboo shoots, tastes fresh and light. Panang “orange” curry, incorporating peanuts, may be the most flavorful of the bunch, while massaman brings up the rear with its distinctive tart, spicy character.

Of the soy- and wheat-based “meats,” none would quite pass for real, which is arguably a good thing. Chunks of duck have a bumpy molded “skin” and supple texture; moist, thin-sliced chicken thirstily absorbs whatever sauce it’s in, much better than real chicken would. Beef slices taste like the wheat gluten they’re made from, savory, hearty, but distinctly unbeefy. And these fake meats work best in this sort of saucy, spicy setting, where they don’t have to carry the whole dish on their vegetable-protein backbones.

Smoked tofu enlivens a sweetly chewy standard-issue pad thai ($7), but “spicy corn noodle” is more interesting: The broad, firm noodles aren’t made from corn, but rather tossed with fresh corn kernels in a fiery sauce.

In the “entree” category, basil-seasoned eggplant ($7) is exceptional, firm and flavorful and bathed in an oniony chili sauce. Prik king paste gives mock duck ($8), tossed with crunchy string beans and mushrooms, an intense, gingery bite. A couple of dishes fall flat: the wearisome raad na hed ($8) buries innocent, tasty shiitake mushrooms in a sweet, sticky goo. Steamed faux salmon ($9) is a pinkish filet replete with appliqued faux salmon skin that’s actually quite believable in appearance; but its firm, grainy texture, and barely-there flavor will obliterate vegetarians’ qualms that it might be any relative of real fish.

At dessert (all $4), a chocolate cake grievously damages the reputation of eggless baking, with a chalky, incoherent consistency and odd, raw flavor. But litchi rice pudding more than compensates: the delicate white-on-white dessert, consisting of hot, translucent sticky rice with litchis studded throughout, is excellent, with a subtle, lightly sweet flavor. A dark, heavily caramelized sugar shell seals the top.

Australia’s Lindemans holds a monopoly on Pukk’s wine sales: its easy-to-drink semillon-chardonnay and shiraz cabernet blends ($4/glass) are the only choices. The beer selection is better, and better suits the food: a list of five non-alcoholic beers and five alcoholic ones (all $4) includes Asian and European standards.

Pukk neatly fills its niche, offering an impressively affordable destination for the young, discerning vegetarian; but its stylish appeal is wide enough to draw in all sorts. The cooking is very competent, with occasional highs and lows, and fake meat is far preferable to the cheap meat that pollutes many a $7 entree elsewhere.

Pukk, 71 First Ave., 212-253-2741.