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This is utterly obvious, but fine, let’s be obvious today: It’s interesting to me that when you pay attention to life, you begin to recognize patterns … and once you start recognizing patterns, you begin to have expectations … and when you have expectations, you’re a little more discerning … and the more discerning you …

FalafelQuest© is back! Bit of a hiatus after the last post, as it turns out that Highway 395 and the Eastern Sierras aren’t really the best place to find falafel, so we had to take a break … which was maybe a good thing since our last post featured three very sad falafel experiences. Not so …

One of our first questions in starting FalafelQuest© this summer was: What makes good falafel? And: What makes bad falafel? And: how many questions can be a first question? Well, we have an answer to the second of those three first questions: Zaky Mediterranean Grill, Tanya’s Lebanese Kabab, and Falafel Flame–they all make bad falafel! …

… and now I falafel. Groan. I think that ‘joke’ was in a Garfield comic around 1984 … but it’s memorable, if stupid–and ANYWAY we’re back! It’s a new summer, which means a new summer food project. We’ve done local tacos (yay!) … local-ish pizza (nay!) … last summer was summer of sandwich (yum!) … …

This is how the sandwich blog ends—with far too many words. Clearly we lost our mo there in the dog days of Summer of Sandwich. The Mets … losing. The virus … spreading. The forests … burning. And yet we’re back at work, sweating ponds into our face masks, doing our best to pretend things …

August 15 Bay Cities Italian Deli and Bakery 1517 Lincoln Blvd, Santa Monica Attari Sandwich Shop 1388 Westwood Blvd, Los Angeles Jax, we’re coming over around two. With Summer of Sandwiches. Know what you want? We’ll look it up during the drive. Their website is confusing. Why does that freeway sign say both “Drive Sober” …

Upland German Deli 983 W Foothill Blvd, Upland So we watched a movie called Phenomena the other night. Has anyone else seen this movie? THOUGHTS ARE WELCOME WE’RE A LITTLE TRAUMATIZED. Here are some things that happen: Several times, houseflies save the heroine. A firefly helps her find a severed maggot-covered hand. A small child …

Let’s get this out of the way first: We did not go to Cole’s, Cole’s doesn’t open until 5pm, that’s not how sandwich shops work. Also: it simply ain’t the original. A few times in this Summer of Sandwich, we’ve referred to the notion of balance. It’s not exactly part of the Unified Sandwich Theory©—it’s …

a belated Summer of Sandwich guest post by Vieve: Poppy Cake Baking Co. 328 W Sierra Madre Blvd.,  Sierra Madre  https://poppycakebakingcompany.com/ My writing group in Pasadena has a regular bring-your-own lunch meeting, so in honor of Summer of Sandwiches I took July’s meeting as an opportunity to try out a new-to-me sandwich shop: Poppy Cake …

Not quite Dip Week!© Simply because we ended the Dip Week!© portion of Summer of Sandwich in Chinatown, this is a lead-in entry: while in Chinatown, we ended up getting three sandwiches from three distinct sandwich places, with only one being of the dipped variety. Q: Why did we get three (!) sandwiches in Chinatown?A: …

No we did not abandon the Summer of Sandwich! We were just slowed down: by travel to see family; by family who didn’t want to eat sandwiches quite as zealously as us; by travel to an area lacking in sandwiches; and by returning home with a family member who *really* didn’t want to eat sandwiches—rather, …

July 13: Claro’s Italian Market 1655 N Mountain Ave Ste D Upland I’m going to shortly cop to a bit of anchoring bias here. First, though, Claro’s. Claro’s is the second Italian market we’ve been to during this the Summer of Sandwich, a southern California mini-chain (six locations) with the closest to us in nearby …

Thursday July 8 The Heights Deli & Bottle Shop: 2927 N Broadway, Los Angeles (Lincoln Heights) Gamboge: 1822 N. Broadway Ave., Los Angeles (Lincoln Heights) It was friends’ week on Summer of Sandwich! First, on the recommendation of a friend and former colleague (thanks, Jolivette!), we decided to seek out Gamboge, a newish sandwich-ish place …

June 24: Roma Market 918 N Lake Ave, Pasadena Here during the Summer of Sandwich, it’s fair to wonder if maybe you’ve heard of the chicken sandwich wars. Chick-fil-A, the Christian purveyor that’s faithfully closed every Sunday, made its bones with a solid but overrated chicken sandwich: it’s not particularly good, it was just better …

Padua Pasta Makers: 300 E Arrow Hwy, Upland We’re loving the Summer of Sandwich. It’s not always perfect—sometimes those train tracks lead only to heartbreak, or shitty sandwiches, anyway. But more than simply delivering unto us good food, it’s had the ancillary effect of forcing us to do something we do far too rarely: the …

Plaza Produce June 15: 303 W Foothill Blvd # 7, Glendora Plaza Produce is a great little market near downtown Glendora, a market we’d never heard about until we started this sandwich quest. It was recommended by friends—a cute market, good meat and sandwiches, quality produce, excellent wines. And it really is that: a nice …

Sunday June 13: 1034 Arrow Hwy b, San Dimas Another return visit! Though this one held a little less excitement than going back to Bánh Mì My-Tho. Papa’s Best is a sandwich place we ate at … wait … wait … just checking Google … because who doesn’t want technology to know more about us …

Friday June 11: 9011 Garvey Ave C, Rosemead When we decided to spend the Summer of Sandwich stuffing our faces with sandwiches, one exciting impetus was that we’d get to go back to Bánh Mì My-Tho, a fairly simple but well-loved (hey, it’s Aziz Ansari! wait, where did Aziz Ansari go?) bánh mì, broken rice, …

(you can read our overview/prior entries here) The Old German Deli Thursday June 3: 40645 Village Dr, Big Bear Lake Look! Big Bear! Last weekend we headed up to Big Bear, where I was dropped off for a semi-annual (meaning totally random) leadership conference. On the conference agenda: boating, axe throwing, bobsledding, and much more. …