CARIBBEAN CRAVINGS

Move over, Cajun; Caribbean has arrived. Those who follow food fads have been tracking sightings of Caribbean cuisine on the East Coast for a year or so now. Early in the year, a Dallas restaurant called Wheelers opened, hedging its bets by purveying Caribbean and Cajun food, although they dropped the Cajun food from their menu a month later. But in late April, when S & A Corp. (the company behind Steak & Ale, Bennigan’s, and Bay Street) unveiled Key West, a Caribbean-theme restaurant prototype in Arlington, the evidence was in: the craze for Caribbean fare has definitely reached our neck of the woods.

What, you ask. does Caribbean cuisine consist of, besides Trader Vic’s-style blue drinks garnished with little umbrellas? Brilliantly hued drinks are a big thing at Dallas’s new Caribbean restaurants.

As for the food, don’t expect to find breadfruit, goat curry, or rice and pigeon peas-three trademark dishes of real Caribbean cuisine-in these parts. In Dallas, Caribbean menus seem to translate to muffins, lots of fish, a few funny fritters, and Key lime pie.

Muffins: “tropical banana” and “Goombay cake biscuits” (read: zucchini) at Key West, served with strawberry butter; and “nuclear” muffins with mixed dried fruit at Wheelers (the theory being they’re so good they blow you away). Fish: mainly mesquite-grilled at Key West, with good results, to judge from orders of yellowfin tuna, mahi-mahi, and red snapper; more gussied up at Wheelers, again with good results, on the evidence of orders of Caribbean lemon sole and stuffed shrimp. Funny fritters: conch fritters at Key West and crab fritters at Wheelers, both too much on the bready side for me, but still entirely edible. Key lime pie: excellent, non-neon-green versions at both Key West and Wheelers, but Wheelers wins for its pastry, as opposed to graham cracker, crust (a critical point to Key lime pie purists).