Charleston has gotten alot of press recently as being a "foodie" destination. It was featured by Tony Bourdain on No Reservations, featured by Tyler Florence and Bobby Flay on Throwdown. The Throwdown episode that featured Charleston was the Throwdown of Robert Carter's coconut cake at Peninsula Grill. Bobby Flay won, and Bobby is hardly a pastry chef, so I was determined to see what the hype was about and whether the cake was worth the hype and Bobby's winning was a fluke or if the cake wasn't as good as the attention it was getting.
My father is the biggest coconut cake fan in the world, my mother makes a coconut cake for him every birthday and he's super critical. So I enlisted him in the challenge of critiquing the cake. We went to dinner (very well executed and formal southern food) and ordered the cake. It was huge, 12 layers and the presentation was lovely. Lovely presentation doesn't necessarily equal the best taste so I was skeptical at best. My father took the first bite and then I heard "quite good"...bite two "very good"...I then snatched the cake from him to get a bite before it disappeared before my eyes. It was very rich, and very moist but also oddly light. It was heavenly, creamy and crunchy at the same time; I ended up having three bites and I hate coconut cake! My grandfather who doesn't like sweets helped devour it, and my mom gave the nod of approval. It's worth the hype, the cake really is that good. But my father says it still isn't as good as my mothers.
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