Carribean food with a Vaguely Annoying Name

So my tour of the best island cuisine Santa Monica has to offer continued today, this time with Cha Cha Chicken providing the food and Final Cut providing the hospitality. The Spicy Black Pepper Shrimp proved to be quite delicious, and luckily most of the meals are served with rice and beans, plantains, and some radishy thing because the good folks at Cha Cha neglected to include enough Shrimp to satisfy your average 3 year old's hunger, let alone a grown man.

Four shrimp? Four shrimp are an appropriate portion on an appetizer sampler tray with three other seafood options included. Four shrimp are a very good day for Forest Gump (pre-Hurricane, of course). Four shrimp are a nice snack for a new born baby shark. Four shrimp are not, however, an entire meal for a human being. The day was saved, however, by the myriad snack options provided by our gracious hosts, included the most amazing creation since the good Lord made women out of a rib...

Peanut Butter filled Pretzels.

How do they do it? Little pretzel shells filled with creamy, delicious peanut butter. Is it science? Is it magic? Are there elves slaving away in the basement of Final Cut, stuffing otherwise boring pretzels with magical, delightful peanut butter? I don't know how they do it, but I'm going to treat it like the new found perkiness of a lady wearing a push up bra. I don't know what happened or where these delightful little things came from, but I'm happy they're here and I'll leave it at that.

Carribean food with a Vaguely Indian Name

So, I just lunched at Cosmo Street Editorial with the lovely women of Shortlist Reps. We had Babaloo, which is not a character from the jungle book but rather a Caribbean food place somewhere in the Santa Monica area. Everything was delicious, I would especially recommend the Ahi Tuna Sandwich, which has that weird Ahi Tuna taste that you don't quite understand but you know it's good because your uppity friends told you that that is the mark of good Ahi Tuna. Don't shake your head, you know exactly what I mean.

The real winners here though are aficionados of canned beverages. There are two refrigerators dedicated to soft drinks and they have anything you could ever want. I had a Hawaiian Punch for the first time since I was seven (my mom stopped letting me have them after I drank a whole jug and then ran through a wall, only to return 3 days later in tattered clothes mumbling about running with the wolves and demanding more Red Goodness). The selection is mind blowing; any soft drink you've ever wanted, including three sodas that are banned in the states.

All in all, I give the dining experience at Cosmo Street / Shortlist a big thumbs up. The food was wonderful, but it really doesn't matter: I would eat a piece of wood if I could chase it down with Hawaiian Punch. Now if you'll excuse me, I think I just saw one of the editor's kids take the last HP; I'm going to steal it right out of his little hand, grab his Big Wheel Tricycle, and make my break for it.