A DAY IN BERKELEY

As I type this, I'm watching the Sox on the verge of winning the World Series. (maybe) This entire series has made me miss Boston, but to make myself feel a little better, I'll remind you of why I live in the Bay Area.

As you know, now that I'm working again, I don't have "normal" days off. My days off are now on Wednesday and Thursdays, and with Tom having Saturday and Sundays off, we never get to spend a full day together. But we do spend our half days together. So one Thursday, we decided to meet my old college friend, Eileen, for lunch in Berkeley. However, since we weren't having lunch until 1, and we get up pretty early, we decided to get a snack at our local Vietnamese sandwich shop, Bah Le (just 3 block from home).

I love going here to get a quick lunch to take to work. I don't know what it is about Vietnamese sandwiches that makes them so great, maybe the pickled veggies, the crunchy cucumber, spicy jalapenos or soft, crunchy roll, I guess the combination of it all makes them extra yummy. Plus at $2.50, it's always an excellent deal. Tom and I are both fans of the bbq chicken sandwich, which is what you see below.

A couple of hours after our snack, we headed out to downtown Berkeley we went looking for Cafe Panini, a small sandwich shop tucked away in a courtyard. You wouldn't know from the outside that it's there, but since we had looked up the information on their website, it wasn't too hard to find. It was a beautiful sunny day and there was a bunch of outdoor seating, so we grabbed a table outside.

I decided to order a soup and half sandwich combo. To be honest, I'm really not sure what I ordered anymore (this was two weeks ago), but I do remember that the soup was pretty good, and the sandwich was kinda small. (though also good and made with very fresh ingredients). Also, when they say panini, what they really mean is a toasted sandwich, since when I think of panini, I'm thinking of something placed on a panini press and squished flat.

Meanwhile, here's Tom's sandwich. It was a pork loin sandwich and he thought it was ok. Again, it was surprisingly small, so he was still hungry afterwards. Luckily, Eileen is more familiar with Berkeley and suggested that we visit a gelato shop afterwards. (I guess it's common knowledge that I love gelato).

Here are some shots of the gelato case. They all looked very good and they were quite willing to give out samples. However, I ordered my usual- chocolate and strawberry.

I thought the flavors were quite good and I enjoyed the chocolate quite a lot. After lunch, Tom and I decided to head up to North Berkeley for their weekly farmer's market. Ever Thursday, the farmer's market in North Berkeley feature only organic farmers. And we already have our favorite stalls at the farmer's market.

We're big fans of pretzel man who makes these German style pretzels, but better.
We also like getting bites at Flacos, the vegan, vegetarian Mexican stall. Here's tom standing next to the sign. Yeah, it doesn't sound very good, but it really is. You can hardly notice that the taquitos are filled with tempeh rather than chicken. Ahhh, the miracles of frying. And here are some more pics from the market. Overall, it's great to spend an afternoon sitting the sun and enjoying some yummy snacks. I guess this California living isn't so bad afterall.