Little ethnic restaurants can be charming experiences when they are finally tracked down in some neighborhood beyond the Zagat’s guide. Encountering Tina’s II, an offshoot of the Broad Street restaurant in Providence, is like strolling into some obscure hole in the wall in Jamaica and finding a pile of taro leaves on a plate where you expected truffled asparagus. It’s located in Newport, you see, the home of botanical-garden décor and the $33 bowl of mussels.

The interior decoration, however, is Early Tree House, and Tina’s prices seem philanthropically close to the cost of ingredients. The three $10.50 dinner-portion offerings are perilously cheap for a restaurant you’d like to see remain in business.

They take reservations for two, but you won’t need them if you come during the week. Hungry tourists are easily put off by the nondescript look of the place: a couple of wrinkled Bob Marley posters; blue sea and sky, and a palm tree painted on one wall with childlike simplicity; mini-chandeliers at the ceiling looking like Harvey Fierstein’s earrings.

The low-rent decor is a good thing. Keeps the riffraff out, and it looks inviting for those interested in its specialties. There is the definitively Jamaican dish ackee (a tropical fruit) in a salt-fish sauté. You can sip Blue Mountain coffee, ginger beer, or an action-packed beverage called Bedroom Bully.

The down side is that service can’t be rushed — there’s one waitress, and only one cook making everything to order. More appetizers on the menu would be helpful. The only items listed as "accompaniments," which can be nibbled as starters, are plantains ($2). They are not as sweet as the bananas they resemble, but fry up deliciously. And there are Jamaican patties ($1.50). I had one of the latter in its chicken version — beef and vegetable are available — and enjoyed minced chicken, mildly hot, eventful with unfamiliar spices, in flaky pastry. A foolproof appetizer recommendation is an assorted platter of them alongside the consistently best-fried plantains we’ve encountered.

For an additional appetizer, Johnnie asked for a plate of the Ziggy Marley wings, which are $8 as a platter with sides. No problem. Out came nearly a dozen chicken wings, marinated in jerk spices, a little hotter then the patties, but nothing threatening. Asked at the table next to us about the jerk chicken, our waitress admitted, "It’s not as spicy as it should be, but it is spicy." That’s another thing to keep in mind here. As was explained to us, most non-regulars who come in here don’t like dishes too hot, so the kitchen defaults to mild unless requested otherwise. Be advised.

Since I’d forgotten that necessity, although the main dish I chose, Caribbean-style shrimp ($11), was described on the menu as "fiery home-style seasoned shrimp," it had no spice heat to it at all. This was rectified by a little jerk sauce on the side and a towering bottle of nearly glowing chili sauce. I added them instead to the under-salted rice studded with "peas" (red beans), since I’d grown fond of the shrimp preparation’s mild seasoning. The curry also worked well with the vegetable mix of butter beans, Romano beans, zucchini, and julienned carrots. The small shrimp were fresh, tail-on, and quite flavorful.

The vegetable medley on Johnnie’s "Mama Tina’s Special" ($12) added broccoli. All main dishes come with a pile of rice and peas, vegetable, and fried plantains. The center of attention on her plate was red snapper dredged in spices and steamed in coconut milk. It was bony, but delicious. This fish is also available baked, or as a pan-seared fillet. The main dishes range in price from $7 to $15 and in competing exoticness from sautéed kingfish to slow-cooked oxtail and curried goat.

We ended our meal with the one desert available that night. The rum cake ($3) was a dense, raisin-studded gingerbread that left us smiling.

The laid-back atmosphere and pace here will probably shift into double time by next summer. Raquel Freeman, the manager and sole waitress for the 10-table restaurant, told us she has plans for redecorating the place and otherwise catching up with the more upscale competition along Broadway. Presumably, the prices will go up along with the speed of service and other mainland amenities. So if you’d like to sample Jamaican home cooking in the island atmosphere of Montego Bay before it reaches the tourist tipping point, check out Tina’s II before real palm trees decorate the place.

Bill Rodriguez can be reached at bill@billrod.com.