Mango Reef: New Wave of Cuisine

It seems that the Sugar Shack has gone though an identity crisis recently. Last month it slipped out of circulation for a few days to get a quickie face lift. Then it changed its name. At the tender age of three, it’s already outlasted the Caribbean food craze.

Sugar, uh, make that Mango--Mango Reef--has also done a substantial rehaul on its menu. But in a lot of ways it still seems like the same old restaurant.

There are still tall tropical drinks adorned with colorful plastic figures (the mermaid is popular). Some of the drink choices: island rum punch, a blue “Cancun” margarita and one scary-sounding, off-the-menu variation of a Long Island iced tea that the waitress felt compelled to describe: “It’s got grape juice instead of Coca-Cola.”

You still sit in a tropical hut of a dining room done up in bright pinks and blues and yellows, but now there’s a patio too. The back wall that anchored Sugar Shack’s “grotto” was knocked out--now the grotto is a pond.

What Mango Reef has forsaken from its Sugar Shack days is its total devotion to Caribbean cuisine. There is the occasional coconut fried shrimp and plenty of mangoes, but these days Mango Reef is into the trendier international-eclectic thing. That means pasta with things like goat cheese and fennel and red pepper; also, exotic quesadillas and tostadas, and a Caesar salad.

For those who miss the good old days, there are remnants of silly island cutespeak on the menu--”Appetizers From Far-away Islands,” for instance, translates as fried calamari from Sicily and shrimp cocktail from that faraway island called Manhattan.

Mango Reef, 8751 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles. (213) 271-7887.