The Daily Sandwich: Classic Falafel (Yalla Truck)

September 2, 2010

Love the design.

My life is filling up with pita! YES. How much do I love it when falafel drives up to my door?

Before I continue with a description of the food, let me show you another angle of the Yalla Truck. Seriously, this truck. It’s a sight to behold.

Seriously!

You probably can’t read that, but it says, “SERVING FALAFEL AND LOVE. But mostly falafel.” I feel the love. I am in an open relationship on Facebook with the Yalla branding. (As in, marketing… I don’t want to be branded with the Yalla bread-brander.)

I’m pretty sure that Yalla (maybe spelled differently… like ya la?) means “hurry up” in Arabic. Just something I picked up in my travels… to my high school bestie Karen’s house (she’s Egyptian). (I also learned that sounds-like “ariyen” means naked, as in, “There’s no way you’re going out in that ariyen blouse.”)

Anyway.

I got the Classic Yalla Falafel, which is vegan– for all you vegans. (I was vegan once, for two months. Kind of a long story.) Here are the ingredients, according to their Facebook page: “Falafel balls, red cabbage salad, tomato/ cucumber salad, onion salad, lettuce, pickled turnips. Sandwich dressed with tahini sauce (sesame sauce with garlic and lemon).” I added hummus, for a dollar. (VERY good call, I think.) Total price: $5. A bargain.

Let’s take a look!

Lookin' good.

I included the business card with the publicity picture. You can see that the difference between the fantasy and the reality is the pita bread, which (sadly) is not branded with the logo. The pita bread on the card looks slightly more delicious, but the pita bread they gave me was probably healthier and tasted fine. So… I didn’t hold it against them.

You may remember that I wished for more veggies in yesterday’s wrap. Today my wishes came true. And they were all so deliciously dressed in whatever pickling, etc, those Yalla geniuses use… even the onion salad was eat-on-its-own delicious.

I thought the pink rectangles were beets, and I was really impressed because I usually don’t like beets. Then I figured out that they’re probably turnips? Either way, they were unique and had a little spicy kick.

Mystery veggies. A delicious mystery.

So yes, the combined veggie salads and hummus were great– but what about those amalgams of ground chickpeas and who-knows-what-else: the falafel balls themselves?

Now, whenever I order falafel, I worry that the balls (haha, get over it) are going to be really crusty and greasy, negating the potential healthfulness of the sandwich. Well, I was delighted to see that the Yalla balls were really fresh and dense/not dry– like, I’m not 100% sure whether they were fried. (If they were, it wasn’t done in the truck. The wrap was cold, in a fresh/crisp way.)

And they were green inside! Not sure how, because chickpeas are tan. But… I liked it! (And this isn’t the first time I’ve seen them like this… but I’m always surprised by it!)

I approve these balls.

I was also able to cut this in half! You know how much I love eat things one half at a time.

So… A+ for the Yalla Truck. Really filling, seemingly healthful… if you hear that they’re in your neighborhood, check ‘em out! Ya la!

And I feel like my mom would like the Yalla Truck. (Which is good, because Yalla Truck and I are in an open relationship on Facebook.) (My mom would probably like the Yalla Truck to make an honest woman of me, but I’m young yet!)

There’s no better endorsement than wishing you could share a snack with your loved ones, right? (Unless you are a character in Hamlet, and you want to poison your loved ones.)

Turnips and beets!

xoxo…

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The Daily Sandwich: ROSEMARY’S BABY (No Reservations Truck)

September 1, 2010

Some reservations...

If you’re a very astute and loyal reader (hi, Mom), you’ll note that this is the first picture on the Binge to require a dark font. So much white around the edges! Argh.

Anyway.

The No Reservations truck came to our parking lot today. I checked out pictures of the food on their Facebook page and I had Some Reservations about the whole thing, but almost everybody in the office ordered (peer pressure!), and the descriptions sounded really good… in theory.

I don’t even eat lamb, but I was so intrigued by the “Silence of the Lambs” wrap (it had pomegranate red wine sauce!) that I almost ordered it. (Also… I didn’t notice until I read it on another blog that the wraps are all named after movies… in a really awkward way. “The Green Mile”? “Rosemary’s Baby”? Maybe not the best connotations!)

(No, I’m not an idiot– I definitely noticed that they were movie names, but I was thinking more of the punny element than the movie names factor.) (And the salmon wrap is called “Off the Hook.” Is that a movie?) (Why not just “Hook”? Or… “Jaws”?)

Anyway, I ordered the “Rosemary’s Baby,” even though I don’t like freaky-deaky horror movies. (I’m sorry, I know it’s a classic.) Selling points included Israeli couscous and pesto. (I had them hold the gouda.)

Aren’t there any other movies that are chicken-wrap appropriate? “Chicken Run”? (I immediately veto that– too close to “runs,” as in… intestinal ouch.)

Usually I cut my daily sandwiches on a slight diagonal and snap a picture of the lateral view, but when I cut into this wrap it became apparent that it would not cooperate. Hence the creepy coroner-esque picture at the top. Can you see my trepidation as I peel back the skin?

Eventually I found the vein of pesto, and thought it felt photo-worthy. Sorta.

Eureka, I have found it.

There was a sort of overall oiliness to this wrap, and I was not a fan. The Israeli couscous was all right, most of the chicken was not looking so hot (or tasting too hot), and even the tortilla wrap itself was sort of a funny flavor. (I drank some orange juice/ate some strawberries to get the taste out of my mouth.) Maybe this would be up someone else’s ally, but this was kinda too warm/heavy for a lunch wrap. A vegetable/greenery element might have improved this. Or… a total makeover.

BUT whatever, food trucks are a gamble.

And I still ate about half, because… it was my lunch. (And I was giving it a chance.)

In totally unrelated news, today I tried ANOTHER new hair product, and I’m having a GOOD hair day. YES. (Since I’m liking it, I can tell you that it’s classic Frizz-Ease.) (I like products that don’t feel like there’s any product in my hair.)

(I fully acknowledge that my hair might look exactly the same as it did yesterday, but I FEEL good about it today. And it’s not gunky. So… good hair day.)

AND I actually did a full back bend IN yoga class this morning (which made up for having the weirdest night’s sleep/being late to class). Unfortunately when I bend backwards to any degree in yoga at 6am, I feel rather barfulous. But I don’t ACTUALLY barf (yet), so it’s all good.

Much like a horror movie (or a wrap named after one), things have been a bit strange in my brain this week. Last night I had crazy-ass dreams and woke up every fifteen minutes thinking that HOURS had gone by and that I’d overslept, only to find out that… only minutes had gone by. When my alarm finally went off at 5:30am, I was so disoriented that I didn’t notice it… luckily I woke up 20 minutes later and rushed into action.

And then this morning post- definitely WEDNESDAY morning yoga, my brain decided that today was Thursday… and also August 31st. Even though Thursday will be September 2nd. My brain is having issues with TIME (and THINKING).

So it figures that I would order a horror movie wrap against my better judgment, on a day like today. You win some, you lose some. Yin and yang.

BUT on the bright side– my beloved DIM SUM TRUCK is (allegedly) returning next Thursday! THE SAME DAY that THE VAMPIRE DIARIES premieres! (So I’ll be back to my 8pm yoga, 9pm vampires-on-DVR routine.) Does it get much better than that? No. No, it doesn’t.

Back bends for everyone!

xoxo…

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The Daily Sandwich: CHICKEN KABOB PITA WRAP (Gourmet Genie)

August 27, 2010

SANDWICH GUTS!

Another day, another sandwich from a truck gracing our parking lot with its presence. Today’s sandwich comes from Gourmet Genie. I consider this a warm-up for tomorrow’s SPITZ feast with Lauren & Cole! (Looong overdue.)

(Lauren has planned some sort of secret birthday excursion for me, and it’s going down tomorrow. The only part I’m privy to is that we’re having dinner at Spitz.) (I’m guessing it’s some sort of crafty/museum-y thing, but I think it could also be food-related… haha, then we could both blog it!) (Just committing these to paper so that if I’m right, I can say, “I guessed it!” with some sort of verification that I DID guess it.) (Though these guesses are super vague.)

Anyway, THIS pita wrap… The chicken was juicy, the whole grilled cherry tomatoes were right up my alley. I’m not so much for the Zankou-style garlic sauce. The white waxiness makes me think that it must be lethal, calorically. And the pita was a bit unsubstantial for my pita tastes.

Aw, but I hate being critical of food that was overall inoffensive. I mean, on one hand I have opinions. But on the other hand– this food is somebody’s baby! (And on the OTHER hand… I’m Tevye from FIDDLER ON THE ROOF?)

I ate your baby, Genie. Whatcha gonna do about it?

xoxo…

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The Daily Sandwich: BABY FATBURGER (Fatburger Truck)

August 20, 2010

Note the sign: They're looking for "Big Fat Friends."

Today the Fatburger truck was at our building for lunch. I was feeling a little weird (like, the chills?), but I decided to venture out and get a burger because my co-worker said they were smaller than normal, like sliders. I’m also going to a bar tonight for my birthday, so I wanted to have a solid foundation of food in me. I’m a responsible drinker.

So I went to the truck, and it turned out that– like most fast food chains that also have trucks (cough– In ‘n Out– cough)– they don’t have their signature fries. Bummer. But hey, I don’t need fries.

I ordered with the man standing next to the truck, and I saw him circle what I ordered. A Baby Fatburger, no cheese. But I had this weird feeling that I wasn’t going to get what I ordered. I don’t know, sixth sense.

But whatever. I stood in the sun and got some Vitamin D and cradled a big handful of Vitamin K.

Vitamin K is ketchup, get it? It's my drug of choice.

They called my name, and I accepted my burger, and I saw right away that it had cheese on it. But I was like, eh, I don’t feel like waiting in the sun any longer. I got my fill of being outdoors.

When I got my burger inside, I realized that it was actually a DOUBLE Baby Fatburger, with cheese. So it had two patties. And cheese. So I took off the bottom bun/patty, scraped off as much cheese as I could, and ate it. And I was so dazed/confused that I forgot the ketchup. But it was still good.

My fat little burger.

But accepting the “baby” burger I didn’t ask for made me start trying to justify why I didn’t just give it back, and then I started thinking about all sorts of baby metaphors. Like, I didn’t ASK for this baby, but this is the baby I GOT, so I guess I’d better learn to love it. Haha.

And it made me think of this article about the woman who selectively aborted one of her fetuses because she didn’t want to have twins. I didn’t want to ask the nice Fatburger man to abort one of my meat-uses.

Okay, this is getting weird. Obviously this whole situation is pushing my brain in a strange direction.

And one more thing– can you read the sign in the first picture that says they’re looking for BFFs: “Big Fat Friends?” I guess if you’re a Fatburger devotee you can keep it real, but it makes me feel a little squeam. Like, are you a BFF because you eat too much Fatburger? And if so, maybe stop being a BFF? Haha.

But I’m definitely not one to preach. I’ve got cake on speed dial. I talked to Lauren on the phone a little while ago, and she couldn’t believe how much cake is in my life. “How is this happening to you?” she asked. “It’s seriously as though the universe is hurling cake at you.” (Paraphrasing.)

“It’s not exactly a coincidence,” I said, wiping frosting from my lips. “I kinda put myself in cake’s path.”

xoxo…

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The Daily Sandwich: PB, PRETZELS & DARK CHOCOLATE YOGURT COVERED RAISINS on WHOLE WHEAT SANDWICH THINS

August 18, 2010

What's not to like? Stick it all in a sandwich!

I’m actually a busy little bee in the room today so there’s no time (NO TIME) to blog, but I thought I’d capture this sandwich because it’s so bizarre and catch-as-catch-can… and so ME. (Also: Longest. Sandwich Name. EVER!)

You can see that I threw a bunch of other snacks on a plate, because I was jumping right back into the fray. (And I eat way more than just one snack every afternoon. Let’s be REAL.)

Here’s a view of this crazy newfangled bread.

Someday we won't even remember what normal bread looked like.

Every piece is the end piece. Isn’t the end piece everybody’s least favorite piece? And no crusts… I actually like crusts.

I thought these were called sandwich FLATS, but when I went back to double check, they’re called sandwich THINS. Isn’t that such a big bunch of marketing wizardry? Associating this low-cal bread with the word thin? I think FLAT is much more accurate, but it’s one letter away from “fat,” so… sorry, flat. One day you’re in, the next day you’re out.

Somewhere some “Mad Men”-style panel of women were questioned about their bread preferences until they all sobbed about their desire to get married. Or to be thin, I guess. Or to at least eat things with the promise of the word “thin” on the package.

We want thins, not flats. Actually, no carbs at all.

But whatever, I ate the thins. They’re doing something right.

Tomorrow Phamish is coming back. I just might have to make up for this strange-ness with a REAL sandwich. (Or try their bun?) (Bun as in Vietnamese dish, not as in bread.)

xoxo…

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The Daily Sandwich: NOAH’S POPPY SEED BAGEL w/ CREAM CHEESE & LOX

August 13, 2010

Is it making a face?

As soon as I said that The Daily Sandwich was a boring, dying feature, I started doing a lot more Daily Sandwich posts. That’s life, I guess. But I also started stretching the definition of sandwich. Thinking outside the lunchbox.

Bagel Fridays are such a delight. The picture at the top of this post is my moment of zen for the day. And it’s extra special because poppy seed bagels are my proclaimed favorite. (Co-worker Bryan, the bringer of bagels, got this one especially for me. Hearts and stars to him.)

(I say “proclaimed favorite” because there are a few other flavors I like almost as much, and some dried fruit/raisins flavors are equally delicious but kind of a different category in my mind.)

Remember that episode of “Seinfeld” where Elaine tested positive on a drug test because she was eating poppy seed… muffins, I think? People say I look like Elaine, so… it makes sense that I like poppy seeds. (Poppies! Poppies!) (There’s your Wizard of Oz moment.)

What? Am I on drugs?

Yes, I’m on poppy seeds.

(Elaine is my 1990s doppelganger. Liz Lemon is my 2000s doppelganger.)

Oh, also I almost never eat bagels/sandwiches closed (as pictured). I like eating open-faced because it feels like I’m eating twice as much. (Though it can often look kinda messy, in mixed company.) (I also cut everything in half.)

I took an open-faced picture but it didn’t look amazing, and now that I’m putting the site’s name on everything I’m a little pickier/lazier.

Um… that is all? Enjoy the picture. I think it’s one of my better ones. And I’m also trying to make the pictures clickable again, so you can take a closer look. (Mission accomplished.)

xoxo…

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The Daily Sandwich: BBQ CHICKEN SALAD WRAP (Greenz on Wheelz)

August 12, 2010

I like the palm trees in the top corner. Evidence of California/summer.

I said I was going to try to do ONE truck a week, but this is a salad truck (Greenz on Wheelz). Free pass!

But I got my BBQ Chicken Salad as a wrap, in a giant wheat tortilla. (At least the chicken salad was chicken in a salad, and not chicken salad as in Mayoville.) Way to pack on the calories, Appleface. (Wait ’til you see what I had for dinner last night…)

Whatever. It smelled good. It tasted good. It contained black beans AND jicama. No regrets.

Healthy times.

You’ve heard of DOA (dead on arrival) and DOB (date of birth). Well, now there’s DOS: Dressing on Side. My M.O. is always DOS.

The wrap, wrapped.

That’s a BBQ, DOS, DOA (delicious on arrival).

And the guy taking orders was super nice! (Come to think of it, they’ve all been sweethearts. Food truck people are good folk!)

xoxo…

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The Daily Sandwich: LEMONGRASS CHICKEN BANH MI (Phamish)

August 6, 2010

Fun fact: The white veggie is daikon.

Every day this month, two food trucks are coming to our parking lot at lunchtime. I don’t want to go too crazy, so I’m trying to limit myself to one or two trucks per week. This week the Phamish truck won my golden ticket. I had heard through their site that their banh mi was one of Los Angeles Magazine’s top 10 food truck finds. And I had a memorable banh mi from Nom Nom in my past life (aka at my old job). So I was on board. (But not literally. I did not board the truck.)

I want to know if Phamish is a play on the word “pho,” or if I’m just overthinking it.

What the truck?

The sandwich is a 12″ baguette containing lemongrass chicken, “garlic mayo, pickled carrots & daikon, cilantro, jalapenos & a dash of soy sauce.” I wasn’t sure what daikon was (I knew I’d heard about it on “Top Chef”), so I looked it up. So now you know. It’s kinda like jicama. Or–more accurately–a radish. (Apparently.)

Wanna see a window full of baguettes? Do I even have to ask? (And do you even have a choice?)

You are getting sleepy...

I was kind of apprehensive about getting a 12″ long sandwich, because that seemed like a major stomachache and/or bad decision waiting to happen, but the sandwiches were actually pretty thin. Much smaller than a 12″ from Subway would look. (Oh God, “that’s what she said” times a bajillion.)

Co-worker B warned me to watch out for big jalapeno pieces, but my sandwich didn’t seem to have any jalapeno in it. I joked that I was an obvious wimp, so they were just like, “Nope, no jalapenos for her.” (If I had known that there were jalapenos, I probably would have asked to leave them out… they’re mind readers.)

I also asked for light mayo, because I’m not a mayo fan. But I didn’t want NO mayo, because that would change whatever it was about the sandwich (flavor profile?) that made it top 10. You know?

I ate the first half and intended to save the other half for later, but the sandwich was so good and non-heavy that it was basically asking me to eat the other half, so that it could be reunited with its brother in stomach-heaven.

I mean, seriously, who can resist a face like this?

The end of the baguette is my favorite part.

You can tell the sandwich is small because it looks small in my hand. I have what people refer to as “baby hands.” (That’s not at all creepy.) My palm is maybe 3 or 4 inches across.

I’m basically trying to justify eating a 12″ sandwich, followed by– among other things– a bagel and these really pretty Terra Chips that remind me of autumn leaves.

All the leaves are brown... and the sky is gray...

That saves me a Snack of the Afternoon post.

I would be raiding your kitchen right now if I could finally figure out how to teleport (or how to teleport food, at least).

xoxo…

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The Daily Sandwich: PB & BANANA (& HONEY)

August 3, 2010

I like that the plate color-coordinates with the banana.

It’s been forever since I posted a daily sandwich. I kind of forgot about this feature for a while. It’s probably the most boring one, especially since I lost access to a set/craft services.

Generally if I make a sandwich at work, it’s this sandwich. So I’m going to post it now, and maybe never again. Posting the same sandwich every week would be… something out of a crazy person’s blog. Like, all PB & banana sandwiches and no play makes The Binge a dull blog.

You can see that I left a strip banana-free. That’s where I put the honey. I like PB & banana sandwiches, and I like PB & honey sandwiches, but I don’t really feel the need to combine the honey and banana elements.

And of course, triangles are necessary to the deliciousness.

PBsandw

Diagonals for the win.

Also, on the PB & honey portions only, I like to squish the sandwich flat. Like, using my fingers as a panini press. Try it sometime. Or not.

Oh, remember how I was kinda freaked that one time because I thought I ate a pulled pork sandwich? When I ate at Porto’s last month-ish, I re-scoured the menu and saw that they actually do have a shredded beef sandwich. So… possibly the whole thing was a false alarm. But it was a good story? (And the meat was not really the color of beef, so I’m still suspicious… I will have to go back and order the shredded beef sandwich… for research.)

Anyway… yep. That was my daily sandwich.

And I’m still hungry. Maybe I’ll get really crazy and post a snack of the afternoon, too. And/or a post with pictures of the cakes/snacks of the weekend.

So you can look forward to that. And if that’s the most exciting thing on your roster today… I’m really sorry.

xoxo…

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The Daily Sandwich: TURKEY PANINI

April 14, 2010

A Serious Lunch

There was a time (approximately February 2009) when I would use the office panini press to make myself a sandwich. Every. Single. Day.

These days it’s more of a novelty. Today I decided to get retro (a whole year ago retro) and threw some turkey, avocado, Monterey Jack and spicy deli mustard between two slices of wheat bread. Observe the golden brown crisp of the bread. And any sandwich worth its salt must be cut into triangles.

I also made a salad, because… do I need a reason? Salad is amazing.

“Glee” is back. You probably heard. Here is a picture of a billboard to prove it.

Sound and fury.

I had a discussion once with a friend from the Dallas-Fort Worth area, about how Los Angeles has sooo many more billboards for TV and films than anywhere else. And it’s funny, because Los Angeles KNOWS about this stuff more than other places. But still, we get all the billboards. Odd. I guess we’re just self-congratulatory like that. Hey! Look what we’re responsible for!

I still remember the first “True Blood” ads. They were not for the show, but for the fictional drink. And they were all over bus benches. Mysterious. Intriguing. Well played!

My DVR didn’t record “Glee” last night, so I’m catching up on Hulu. Remember when we (twenty-somethings) were kids, and if you missed an episode (and it didn’t record on your VCR?), you had to wait until SUMMER RE-RUNS to try to see it again? And you’d get all confused and out-of-order? And there wasn’t any internet?

Wow, someday we are going to look back on NOW as the Dark Ages, too. But what will we have in twenty years that will be that much more advanced than what we have now? It boggles the mind!

Sorry to get deep in your lunch. Sorry to get retro in my retro lunch.

Coming up later: CAKE BALLS! Yeah, you heard me right…

xoxo…

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