Colorful dishes are painstakingly prepared at Drew’s Caribbean Cafe, where Trinidad comes to Laguna. : Worth the Wait

Caribbean food would seem a natural favorite in beachy South County. Yet so far, this exotic hybrid of African, Indian, European and indigenous cuisines has never caught on. Maybe Drew’s Caribbean Cafe will change that.

This casual, colorful dining room might be what you’d get if you crossed a beach shack with an ethnic arts store. The place is crowded with African carvings, exotic masks, dolls in Caribbean dress and tropical-themed pop art. Either Bob Marley or jazzy blues is playing constantly in the background. On the nights I’ve visited, the staff has consisted of precisely one waitress and one chef.

That chef is owner Andrew Lewis, a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America in Napa. Lewis’ menu is based on traditional Jamaican dishes such as jerk chicken and oxtail stew, but you wouldn’t call this a Jamaican restaurant. Flavors of Trinidad and the chef’s native Guyana permeate many of the dishes. Much of this highly original cooking is spiced in a way at once familiar and foreign.

The meal does get off to an inauspicious start. The waitress brings to the table an attractive wicker hamper filled with Il Fornaio breads, but the choices--golden raisin and Italian style country white--don’t seem particularly suited to the heady flavors of Lewis’ food.

The kitchen can also be annoyingly slow. Watching the chef toiling away in the display kitchen, you can see that everything is made painstakingly to order. Lewis is a one-man band in a polka-dotted bandanna. Most of the dishes are worth the wait. Still, Drew’s is not the place if you’re in a hurry.

Ah, but the rewards that patience brings. The crab and sweet corn cakes have an almost unbearable lightness. They’re flaky crab meat, crunchy corn and sweet spices barely held together with egg, waiting to be dipped in St. Lucian sauce, a pale yellow passion fruit sauce with a tart finish. Sometimes there are conch fritters: puffy, golden orbs laced with pieces of this chewy, allegedly aphrodisiac shellfish. One night there was even callaloo, a mild Jamaican soup made with okra, tomatoes and spinach.

Lewis’ crispy duck won tons--delicious deep-fried won tons stuffed with minced duck and shiitake mushrooms--are obviously Asian. To transport you back to West Indies (where East Indians have brought a lot of their own traditions), the won tons are presented with a side of spicy mango chutney. Lewis’ roasted eggplant dip is clearly Middle Eastern. It’s a heavily pureed version with an aggressively smoky flavor and more (much more) than a hint of chopped garlic.

There are nice salads, such as the Island Caesar: romaine and croutons tossed with pineapple chunks and passion fruit dressing instead of the usual coddled egg dressing and anchovies. Another good one is jerk chicken salad--mixed greens, bell peppers and red onions tossed with jerk chicken, which tastes sweet, rather than spicy, in the salad context.

You’ll get a dramatically different impression of the jerk chicken if you order it as an entree. In this wonderful version (the best I’ve tasted), chicken is coated with allspice, cinnamon, ginger and garlic and then pan-roasted to a smoky blackness. The meat is amazingly tender and doesn’t taste a bit dry.

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Many of the chef’s other entrees are as good. One (an off-menu special) is sambal shrimp, an Indonesian-inspired saute of tamarind-marinated shrimp with lime juice, spices and a touch of red pepper. The pan-roasted Chilean sea bass is seared in a skillet, then roasted in the oven and topped with an interesting pineapple, mango and papaya salsa.

Curry prawns are more like a British-style curry than an Indian one. The prawns are sauteed with a bit of hot curry powder, but it is the vegetables (garlic, onions and tomatoes) that dominate. Another way to order shrimp is in the Jamaican style known as escovetch: The shrimp are sauteed with garlic, vinegar, onions, red peppers, tomatoes and spices. Lewis will make the dish fiery enough to bring tears, if that’s the way you like it.

Those with a hankering for red meat can try jerk steak--flank steak marinated in jerk spices and perfectly broiled medium rare.

The meat in the oxtail stew is better described as gelatinous than tender, but this dish is nicely spiced, and the carrots, lima beans and chunks of potato are impeccably done. The only entree I didn’t much fancy was island-style chow mein. It’s typical--stir-fried egg noodles mixed with chicken, Chinese sausage and string beans--but quite bland.

Desserts are limited to Haagen-Dazs sorbets (mango or peach) and two dishes the chef prepares. One is a good idea: sliced bananas flambeed in passion fruit liqueur, rum, butter and brown sugar, poured into a goblet of vanilla bean ice cream. The other is even better--a rich chocolate bread pudding enlivened with a spiced rum sauce.

You’ll have to wash everything down with spicy Jamaican ginger beer, because Drew’s is waiting for a beer and wine license.

South Laguna has long been lacking lively, exotic restaurants like this one, and the wait for that, at least, appears over. It’s about time.

Drew’s Caribbean Cafe is moderate to expensive. Appetizers are $4 to $8.50. Entrees are $9 to $14. Desserts are $3.50 to $5.50.

BE THERE

Drew’s Caribbean Cafe, 31732 S. Coast Highway, South Laguna. (714) 499-6311. 5-9 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday and Sunday, 5-10 p.m. Friday-Saturday. American Express, MasterCard and Visa.