There have been a number of food adventures already in April (Coconuts Carribbean food may have been end of March...) that I thought I'd share!
1) Coconuts Carribbean Restaurant in Palo Alto- We went to celebrate our friend Robbie's new job, which has been his dream as long as he can remember! Several of our friends had been there before and had rave reviews and for cheaper than Mantra Restaurant, at which we were there for Happy Hour drinks prior to dinner. We ordered the plantain/chickpea cakes with guacamole appetizer that our friend was raving about. They were in essence mashed and fried plantains and chickpeas that were battered and fried served with guacamole. I didn't think it was all that great enough to order again, but to each their own!
The main dish that I ordered on the other hand was delicious. I went for the traditional dish of jerk chicken, since that's what they're known for! It was deliciously cooked- moist and very flavorful but not overpoweringly spicy. It was served with delicious fried plantains that were sweet as could be, rice cooked with red beans that were fantastically flavorful, and assorted vegetables that were good but slightly oily for me. I was very glad to see vegetables though :)
Jeremy got the jerk salmon so of course I tried some of that as well. Again, very flavorful but it didn't completely take over the salmon, and it was cooked to perfection. I could have done without the tartar sauce type sauce on top since I'm not a mayo fan, but others seemed to like it. Their mashed potatoes were mighty delicious, but you can tell they had a lot of butter to make it that good. Finally the green beans that came with the salmon was good too- thankfully not too mushy! Overall, I would definitely come again for the main meal!
2) Kung Fu Taco Truck- Some people at work arranged for the Kung Fu Taco Truck to come down from San Francisco so I decided to give it a try. It is a fusion of mexican and chinese food, which a lot of people were skeptical about, but since the Korean/Mexican fusion taco truck is so popular in LA, this seemed pretty normal to me. There were 5 choices: chicken with asian marinade, steak with asian marinade, mushu veggies, roast duck, and char shiu. After much debate, I decided to go for the steak, duck, and veggie tacos. My favorite was the roast duck because the flavors were pretty much like peking duck, just with a tortilla not a bun or thin wrap. The mango salsa went fantastically with the duck that was a little fattier but oh so flavorful. They were all different so it's hard to pick a second place since the other two were both good as well. The steak wasn't too different from a normal taco, just a little sweeter because of the marinade. It also had a carrot salsa type dollop on top which was a bit different. The only bad thing about it was that I had a very chewy and fatty piece of meat that I had to spit out. The mushu veggies taco was very flavorful and tasted just like mushu which I love. The only bad thing about this one was that it was quite juicy from the vegetables and sauce that it was really messy to eat. I would definitely eat at this taco truck again and I want to try all of the other kinds too!
3) I decided to make homemade honey nut granola since I had thought about it for a while and have started cutting out processed foods. Plus, it's a lot cheaper when you make it at home and you can control what and how much sweetness goes into the product. I don't think I had enough liquid because it didn't come out as cluster-y as I wanted, but the flavor was good. I may have added a little too much healthy stuff like flax seed which takes away a bit of the sweetness. With that said, I feel like it's healthier, because I put in thick rolled oats, sliced almonds, flax seed, and sesame seed mixed together with just vegetable oil, honey, and vanilla. It was very easy and I would definitely make it again, although it's dangerous since I keep munching on it at work! Maybe next time I'll make granola bars- thanks All Recipes!
4) Bibimbap- We went to Cupertino Village for korean food since several of us were in the mood for some dolsot bibimbap. I had been to the restaurant in Cupertino Village before, but I had only had the tofu soup before so I ventured out for the bibimbap. As usual, I thought the side dishes were great, even though there were a few items that were a little strange to our non-Asian friends. Now for the main course... when it first came out, I was a bit surprised because it is definitely smaller in size than other restaurants in the area, but it was good. It was awesomely crispy on the bottom already so you could start mixing pretty quickly. It wasn't too greasy either which I appreciated, but I thought the vegetables could have used a little more flavor and I could have used a little more meat since the pieces were very small and just floating on top in a thin layer. With that said, I still took part of it home, since I didn't need to eat the whole bowl plus the side dishes just for lunch!
The perfect opportunity arose to have a Cupcake Showdown between Sprinkles cupcakes and Kara's Cupcakes! They were the double chocolate with sprinkle cupcakes from each place, so we had a side by side taste test after dinner. The picture may not do it justice, but the Kara's cupcake on the left was quite a bt smaller than the Sprinkles one- not sure what the price difference was.
My opinion to be honest is that they were pretty similar as far as cake portion, but as an overall experience, I preferred Sprinkles. The cake portion as I said was fairly similar, but I think I preferred the Kara's one a TINY bit more- there was a lasting flavor that I enjoyed after I had swallowed my bite. The frosting however, I liked the Sprinkles one better. It was a little denser and creamier compared to the light fluffy one on Kara's. I think Kara's cupcake has a very large layer of frosting because it's so light (as you can see from the cut cupcake picture). I'm not a huge frosting person to begin with, so I liked that the Sprinkles cupcake had a much higher cake to frosting ratio in one bite. Both cupcakes were moist, quite tasty, and not too sweet- bottom line I'd eat both :) 
