There is sparkle -- citrus mayonnaise made not just with lemon but with fresh lime, grapefruit, orange and lemon with crabcakes ($7.75) and green papaya slaw.

There is innovation -- pork chop cooked to order, even pink if you are so bold a revolutionary to try the "other white meat" medium rare.

There is beauty -- baby greens ($4.50) with "spiders" of hand-grated plantain and mashed garlic that get legs when spattered in sizzling hot oil.

There is charm -- down-home creamy collards and fried sweets paired with free-range chicken breast stuffed with Puerto
Rican longaniza sausage and rice ($14.50).

There is arresting, wonderfully bright food at 7-week-old Tamarind. It has been a long time since a new restaurant struck with such stimulating yet thought-out dining. Credit belongs to star chef Carmen Gonzalez, who is about to do for her native Puerto Rico what Doug Rodriguez did for Cuban food at Yuca.

Seeking the extra kick

Gonzalez is a dynamo in perpetual motion. But with the action, she adds intellect to her work. She seeks the extra kick, yet everything connects.

There are, alas, a few problems. Service is halting. Coordination between the labor-intensive cooking and delivery needs work. The quality of staff is way behind the food. Many ingredients like gandules (pigeon peas) and yautia, a cousin of malanga, need to be explained.

Tamarind is inside Woody Weiser's Sheraton Gateway Hotel, heretofore best known as "airport-adjacent." The 110-seat dining room is full of weary travelers who require triage or, better, room service while a few freshly showered locals demand more calabaza fritters.

Dining entrances are confusing, tables are bare because made-to-order burgundy linens had to be done over -- and the AC is freezing.

The place is not dressy but airy and light, with polished red tile, skylights, blond woods and dropped spotlights. The big
window view is of a tropical patio overlooking a canal and the ground-under-repair Melreese Golf Course.

And just now, poor Gonzalez has no sous chef. But kinks are being worked on, and operations should smooth out. Food overcomes much.

Interesting appetizers

The chef keeps creating starters, inviting you to graze. Try egg roll filled with duck and pickled jicama, served with a fantastic mango-scotch bonnet pepper sauce ($6.25). Large pieces of duck and vinegar-buzzed threads of jicama -- so much better than woozy sprouts -- make a great combination, particularly against the fruit and fire of the sauce, which captures the mango's perfumed sweet lusciousness.

A detractor was the won ton skin, floury and dull compared to its contents. This took, amazingly, nearly 35 minutes to deliver, too.

Potato and black bean pancakes ($5.50) is a clever idea, enlivened by a sauce made with warm goat cheese, cream and cilantro. Cakes were spongy, however, possibly due to being delayed by the egg roll. And the sauce needed more cilantro. A better choice is lobster and roasted corn pancakes with grilled pineapple relish and a more zippy jalapeno sour cream ($6.25).

Memorable monkfish

Don't miss two great entrees. Best is monkfish with baby asparagus and a balsamic reduction plus calabaza fritters ($15.50). This is memorable. Fish is roasted and sliced like tenderloin, the meaty flesh heavenly with just a ghost of aged balsamic meeting tender sprigs of asparagus in a green hue of oil.

Highlight is the pumpkinlike calabaza fritters, orange and rich, just-done, hot puffs of air that seem as fresh and American as the Ohio State Fair.

"Huge" pork chop with tamarind sauce on mashed sweet plantains and marinated Vidalia onion escabeche ($14) is as huge as promised. The chop, done medium rare at our request, is bone- in meat flavorfully grilled, firm but not tough or at all dry, so much better than low-register, high-priced veal. Slow- reduced, dense with brown sugar but aglow with sharp tamarind, the sauce is barbecuelike, perfect with pork.

Mashed plantain is nicely lumpy, greatly helped by sweet- sharp, cured onion.

Desserts are more breakthroughs. Picks are Carmen's Tamarind Cheesecake ($4.25), petals of frangipane apples wrapped in crispy crust with dark rum sauce ($4.50) and knock-'em-out warm chocolate ancho chile tart with coffee ice cream ($5). Miami's got another star.