Doha's restaurant scene skews heavily toward hotel dining and upmarket mall restaurants, but the city has real depth if you know where to look. Indian and South Asian food is outstanding — Doha has a large South Asian worker population and the restaurants that serve them are often far better and cheaper than the hotel alternatives. The Souq Waqif area has Lebanese and Syrian restaurants that are excellent. The Pearl marina and Katara have waterfront dining with reasonable quality.
For the cheapest and most vivid meals, the Najma neighbourhood south of central Doha has a dense cluster of South Asian, Filipino, and Egyptian restaurants that open late and charge a fraction of hotel prices.