Until recently, the closest I’ve come to eating locally cooked Caribbean food was either at Andres on Morena Boulevard or Miami Grille in University Towne Center. The former demerits Cuban fare with low-quality ingredients, I always felt, and the latter presents a passionless roster of “Floribbean” dishes tailored for mall rats.

Filling the niche is Mangu, a stylish Gaslamp dining room accented in colored recessed lighting that affords visitors wiggle space and flavorful chow that sends you on a deluxe Carribbean vacation far removed from the pervasive steak-seafood-Italian offerings of the neighborhood. Hallelujah!

Mangu is owned by Dominican Republic native Cesar Espinal, who ran a cigar and wine bar at the same address for the past 10 years. The front bar still remains under the name Cesar’s, although to the dismay of some, the scent of burning stogies has vanished since Espinal forfeited his smoke-friendly operating license to add the restaurant in the back. Tobacco users are now relegated to café tables on a welcoming sidewalk patio that runs along the side of the building.

The restaurant initially took a slapping by a San Diego Union-Tribune reviewer, who unfortunately visited too early in the game when the kitchen’s inventory wasn’t fully stocked, and during a week when Mangu’s original chef had unexpectedly bailed. The reviewer’s experience was marred by a few other dress-rehearsal snafus, the bulk of which appeared rectified as the restaurant hit its two-month birthday when visiting last week with a friend.

New printouts of the menu are still in the works, for instance, which means that soups and salads listed inadvertently on the back page will soon get front billing. And service, though warm and friendly, aims clumsily toward formal, proving more efficient and natural when relapsing to casual. This is, after all, supposed to be a breezy Caribbean experience, however chic the surroundings and darling the food.

The conquistador platter from the menu’s tapas section sent us into a sweet tropical fever. It included a couple of handmade empanadas readily available outside the Dominican Republic’s sprawling beach resorts. The fresh pastry dough is filled with lightly seasoned, finely ground beef and then baked to a greaseless crisp. Though sizable, I could’ve eaten a dozen of them. The platter also came with fried, sweet plantains, two chicken skewers with peppers and pineapple – the poultry dusted in a fine-tasting saffron spice blend – plus excellent chicken croquets nearing the size of billiard balls. The prize of the platter was a heaping of crispy Caribbean wings brushed in a hot-fruity sauce containing whispers of cinnamon. All said and eaten, it’s a $20 starter that doesn’t disappoint.

We miscommunicated to the waiter when ordering our salad, intending on the “Dominican-style Russian salad” with potatoes, eggs and carrots, but getting instead the more basic “Dominican salad” dressed in light, citrusy vinaigrette. Given the similar wording of the two, I suspect we weren’t the first to encounter the mix up.

In proceeding to the entrée list, and gliding over several ceviches marinated in tropical fruits, we made an imperative pit stop at the sandwich category. When dining in Jewish eateries, I never pass up a Rueben or pastrami on rye, just as I wouldn’t forgo a classic “Cuban” in restaurants that even remotely insinuate a Caribbean theme. Mangu easily passed the litmus test with ham and roasted pork of premium grade topped traditionally with melted Swiss cheese and thinly sliced dill pickles. The ingredients are captured on bakery-fresh rolls from Solunto’s in Little Italy. Very garlicky aioli (a little dab will do ya) and tostones (fried, under-ripe plantains) are served alongside.

Entrees incorporate beef, seafood, pork or poultry, many of them punctuated by Caribbean spice blends concocted in-house. My companion opted for jerk chicken fajitas, which might seem ordinary on paper, but turned out to be a delightful, unexpected thrill. Rather than cutting the meat in to strips, the chef uses a big, honkin’ breast that’s partially scored along the top to detain the fierce and alluring spices. The chicken is draped with red and green peppers and accompanied with veggies and tortillas. As for the level of hotness, it daringly exceeded the safe zone by a couple of notches compared to other American versions of jerk I’ve eaten. And we weren’t complaining.

The spice factor ran a little short in my white shrimp entrée, flavored with garlic-lime sauce that seemed to evaporate in the cooking process. (I regretted afterwards not trying the whole fried fish with ginger sauce instead.) The dish was nonetheless appealing, given the sweet pith of the shrimp that complimented a mound of buttery yellow rice tossed with meaty pink beans.

For dessert, you have to like coconut. The menu’s lone confection is dulce de coco, an excellent and tickling-sweet admixture of shredded coconut, milky fudge, raisins, cinnamon and almonds. I’ve never had anything like it. Nor had I ever tried a Cuban mojito, distinguished by a touch of brandy and brown sugar.

“Yum” to Mangu’s overall delivery in giving the Gaslamp a much-needed change of cuisine that would otherwise require an expensive plane ticket to sample.