As far as international jet-setting goes, my experience is limited to two church mission trips to El Salvador during middle school. The itinerary was heavy on ditch-digging and light on international-cuisine-sampling.

So for people like me — with big appetites and limited chances to globetrot — Sloppy’s Downtown is a godsend.

Sloppy’s Downtown is the latest project of Brett Stutes and his wife, Amanda, and brother, Derek, the founders and operators of the Sloppy Taco truck.

The new, casual eatery expands on the truck’s taco offerings with street food from across the globe. The fusion dishes incorporate flavors from a variety of cuisines, including Venezuelan, Sicilian, Japanese and Spanish.

And they’re all small, too, so sampling several is a must.

This international food fair is housed in the old Rikenjaks building, at 329 Broad St. The airy interior features several rooms, including a dedicated bar area, where experienced mixologist Lycretia Guillette serves up cocktails.

In line with the building’s Rikenjaks-era brewing history, Sloppy’s crew will operate an in-house brewery under the direction of longtime friend Ryan Broussard. Customers can order craft beers in about six weeks, when the final paperwork has been approved.

In the meantime, Sloppy’s Downtown has been serving customers for lunch and dinner. The Stuteses plan to be open each day from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., but they’ve been closing each day from 2 to 5 p.m. as they work out the kinks in their new restaurant.

When I visited with my mom, we settled in a booth in a cozy corner of the refurbished dining room, surrounded by stained concrete floors, exposed brick walls and a white tin ceiling.

As an appetizer — what Sloppy’s calls a “super small plate” — we chose the arancini, Sicilian rice balls. The crunchy breadcrumb exterior, paired with the creamy, rice-filled center, created a perfect textural balance. A spicy Sriracha mayonnaise gave the mild dish a kick.

As an entree, we split three “small plates”: the arepa, the ramen and the loco moco.

We started with the arepa, a traditional Venezuelan corn pocket filled with braised pork, queso fresco, cilantro, white onion and tomato. The dish was the closest relative to Sloppy’s taco truck offerings, except that the ingredients were stuffed inside a thick, pan-fried white corn dough. Again, the kick was in the sauce: the pocket was drizzled with a creamy lime, cilantro and aji pepper sauce.

Next, we tried the ramen, a fusion of Japanese and Spanish flavors containing chicken, tortilla strips, chunks of bacon, grape tomatoes, avocado and cilantro. My first bite — with just the noodles and broth — had an almost overwhelming smoky flavor, but adding the other ingredients to each spoonful made for a much more balanced dish.

We finished with the loco moco, a Hawaiian dish added to the menu at the suggestion of a newly hired server whose family hails from islands. Its base was a heaping pile of rice laden with an almost candy-like gravy. The sweetness paired well with the toppings: two rib-eye slider patties and a fried egg.

While the $5-10 prices initially seemed steep for the small portions, the high-quality ingredients and inventive combinations made it worthwhile.

Brett and his team intend to regularly swap out dishes-— “because we can,” the website, www.sloppysdowntown.com, boasts. They plan to use the building’s old pizza oven for pizzas and flatbreads and serve various coffee drinks during mornings.

The restaurant’s walls are already covered in local art, but the Stuteses want to host dedicated gallery nights with drink specials, too.

Saturdays will include “zydeco lunches,” and the full bar and stage offer opportunities for future entertainment.

Right now, though, they’re dealing with the many complications of scaling up from a food truck to a restaurant, with greater quantities of food and triple the number of employees.

“We’re still in the learning phase, but we’ve gotten lots of good feedback,” Amanda said. “We offer things you don’t get everywhere in Lake Charles.”

For those of us with a global appetite, it’s a perfect fit.

Graphic by Devin Dronett