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Oakland's only Trinidadian Restaurant, Cocobreeze and its roti wrap secrets

" Here in the Bay Area, if you’ve feasted on a spice-laced, expertly-stuffed yellow split-pea roti sometime in the past 30 years, chances are it was scratch-made by Annabelle Goodridge."Goodridge — she goes by Chef Ann — is our region’s Trinidadian cuisine authority. Born and raised in Trinidad and Tobago, she first served her curry goat pelau, split-pea fritters and legendary flatbread roti wraps at her original Berkeley restaurant, LaBelle’s, before spending the bulk of her career catering for the likes of AT&T, Kaiser and Genentech. "

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Fresh Bay Area takes on the Jamaican Patty

"While patties abound in Caribbean diasporic strongholds like London, New York City and Miami, they’ve been more of a rarity here until recent years. In the mid-2010s, native San Franciscan Shani Jones launched Peaches Patties, an homage to her Jamaican mother and one of the city’s few Caribbean food businesses. And a pop-up called Tasty Tings, by Alyssa Magdaluyo, as well as a new Trinidadian restaurant in Oakland, Coco Breeze, entered the fray last year with their own takes on the patty. Even if you’ve never had a Jamaican patty before, I think you’d still recognize them on first glimpse. It seems that many humans possess an innate craving for dough-wrapped parcels, whether we’re talking about fried sesame balls, empanadas...

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