Tropical Paradise, in due testament to its name, is a difficult place to absolutely dislike. It’s a Ghanaian restaurant in Berkeley dedicated to evoking nostalgia among those who might have visited West Africa once, liked the food and had it so long ago they have a fairly generic idea of what it’s supposed to taste like. Its menu is like its geographically ambiguous moniker: easy, running the very short gamut from jollof rice and chichinga with black-eyed peas and spinach, to fufu and goat light soup, to kenkey and red-red. The restaurant capitalizes on the small, tight space to lend it a shabby elegance and on the dedicated service to make you feel at home.

If you’re in a small party, you’ll feel very attended to. If you’re in a large party, you’ll fill up the restaurant. Either way, because of its 30-customer capacity, it’s hard to be ignored. The meals have the kind of “just-so spiciness” you would like if you were American, grudgingly accept if you had heritage from the continent or the Caribbean and bemoan if you were from Idaho. The salmon and fried plantains have hints of ginger, the black-eyed peas and spinach — like all easy Ghanaian food — a little bit of pepper and a little bit of oil. Tropical Paradise, for all its global charm and Caribbean suggestiveness is priced fairly like a typical African restaurant — on the high end of cheap — charging between $10-15 for a non-vegetarian entrée and about $6-7 for a side order of plantains or spinach.

To its credit, though, the portions are large, and if you smile at the owner just right you might get some tropical punch at the house’s expense. It packs a punch, although not quite the kind you’d like . . . it’s flavored with citrus and cinnamon rather than with vodka and pineapple syrup. But like the restaurant itself, it’s nice, benign, has a hint of kick to it. If you’ve either just really missed Ghana and will settle for a cheap trip back or have what you think are high expectations for international food (so long as it doesn’t make you end up fanning your mouth and feeling slightly mocked by your ignorance), Tropical Paradise should make for a satisfying night out.

Tropical Paradise Restaurant

2021 University Ave

Berkeley, CA 94704

(510) 665-4380