A Fruitful Endeavor

The pronouncement seemed to have mystical overtones -- did cinnamon have another meaning, Carol Ann wondered, like an omen of a spicy romance? -- but David was rather quiet until our server brought out the appetizers and David bit into a crunchy fried jambalaya rice ball made with risotto, peppers and spicy sausage.

I did, too, and I was crazy for those big, fat balls. All of us were impressed by chef Hockenberg's spin on crab cakes, which were enormous and crunchy with chopped cashews. Sadly, though, our skewers of tamarind-brined grilled pork were shockingly tough.

When it came time for entrées, chicken-loving Bob noted the modest pieces of bird on his plate. They might have been small, but they were plump and juicy under a crackly cornmeal breading. Carol Ann loved the firm, oven-roasted hunk of pan-seared halibut crusted with sliced plantain. David, perhaps channeling my dinner from a previous visit, insisted on having the pork chop. He dug the chop but dissed the volume on the reggae-ish music. "It's jarringly loud," he said.

I barely heard it, I was so entranced by that night's dinner special, a plate of satiny scallops in a brown butter sauce.

At one point, David had a flashback to an earlier meal -- decades earlier -- in this same location. "This is where Kresge's used to be," he said. "I sat at a counter practically on this spot and had a fabulous hot dog and a root beer."

There's no root beer at the Mango Room, but dark beer has been baked into the thick slab of gingerbread cake, served warm and slathered with an orange-marmalade glaze. It wasn't as spectacular as the mango cobbler -- or the mysterious Key-lime tartlet (the pastry is hot; the custard is cold) served with a tiny "strawberry milkshake" in an espresso cup that can be poured over the tart or knocked back like a drink. And one could have hallucinations after a few bites of the fudgy slab of chocolate cake.

At one point, I thought I was seeing a yellowish aura around Carol Ann's head. Until then, I had never believed in that phenomenon, but maybe ...

"There are yellow light bulbs in all the fixtures," Carol Ann explained. "They give all of us a mango glow."

Not unlike the one we had after leaving the place.