You Say Sandwich, We Say Yeah!

When Buna's opened up I thought my lunch woes were over. After a few visits, however, I have gone back to bringing my lunch more often than not. While delicious, each lunch has costed around $20, and I'm just mildly satiated.  Above is a "comfy" duck hot sandwich, which as a combination is great mixing slices of fatty duck with a fried egg and arugula. It's real picturesque, but the flavours don't actually work that well together in my mouth. The bun was also not working for me, which is too bad, because they are really trying to do something different. The tomato soup was too salty, but I think almost all soups are too salty. However, if the soup is saltier than the sandwich, that is an imbalance on the palette especially when with duck and egg, the flavour desired is pepper, or some heat, which you think the arugula would provide, but these rocket greens were immediately weighed down by the duck fat and ceased to be peppery. Big points for presentat...

Nothing signals gentrification quite like a new cheese shop. Just off of Oakland's popular Telegraph Street on Shattuck Avenue is what appears to be the neighbourhood's first: the Sacred Wheel, established in 2011. Boasting many extremely pricey, locally sourced, and esoteric cheesy treats, the shop also carries all the things you'd want to see on a serious cheese tasting board, little pickles, chutneys, those little wheels of fig pate, olives, and such. I took note of the soft-ripened Bellwether Farms Crescenza, an almond, apricot and fig fruity thing, and a free sample. Just in case a 12-15 dollar hunk of fancy dairy goodness seems steep, thankfully they also have lunch, which is not too pricey at all. For 6 bucks I tried the 1/2 Grilled Cheese Trinity with Tomato and Pabst Blue Ribbon soup. The thinly sliced sourdough and three-cheese sandwich was pretty straight up, but the soup was a heavenly creation indeed. Tangy, lip stinging tomato goodness that balances the grea...