Weekly Eats: Dine-in / Dine-out

Not a lot of cooking happened this week. Between Aaron having Parent Teacher Conferences and us going to the World Series, we were only able to squeeze in two home-cooked dinners this week. I love to cook, but it is nice to get a little break every now and again.

Can you tell which meals I tried to quickly photograph before a hungry little boy ran out of patience? Yikes. Food blogger I'm not.
1. Grilled Chicken with Lemon Basil Pasta from The Pioneer Woman. This was another one that I made years ago and loved, but this time around it wasn't quite as successful. I'm almost positive that the amount of lemon juice I used is to blame. I must have gone a bit squeeze-happy, because holy lemon juice! it was strong. My second mistake: leaving out the fresh basil. There's just no substitute for that.
2. Chili Garlic Beef Stir Fry from How Sweet it is. Oh hey, another stir fry! I never make those, right? This smoked up our house like crazy (I think it was the brown sugar) but boy was it good. The beef had so much flavor, and I didn't even marinate it for long.
3. Over the weekend Aaron and I had a date night. We went to Coco Bolos, a restaurant that recently opened in the Kansas City area. We have been wanting to try it because the original Coco Bolos is a restaurant we went to when we lived in Manhattan, KS, where we went to college. The menu is similar to that one, but not the same.
We both thought the food was good, but I think the original (at least what I remember) is better. I ordered 3 tacos: battered tilapia, braised pork and grilled steak. The pork and steak were okay, but the flavors were almost overwhelming. However, the tilapia taco was delicious--a perfect balance of crispy battered fish, crunchy slaw and spicy sauce. I'd order 3 of those next time. Honorable mention: their drunken pinto beans. They're cooked in a little tequila, which made them different than my usual Mexican restaurant order of whole beans. The tequila flavor was subtle, but it was enough to make them interesting.
If you're in the area and interested in checking it out, the fish tacos and drunken beans are worth a try! I'd skip the queso (nothing special) and the sangria (way too sweet) though.
Have you tried any fun new restaurants or recipes this week?