Cost: $2.17. They charge tax.

Initial Reaction, cosmetic:

The bread has nice browning. The bit of carrot that is sticking out has a nice amount of bulk.. It is grated larger than that of Givrals. Very nice.
The bread has a nice texture. Quite dry to the touch and very crusty. I like.

Upon further inspection…:

There is a PEPPER in my sandwich. I ordered it without. This pepper is so hot that it smells like the sandwich was bathed in pure capsicum. I pulled a piece of carrot and cilantro out of the sandwich while in the car at a stoplight. They were touching the pepper and I started crying. No good!

The cucumber is nice and big. It covers the entire length of the sandwich.
There is no onion. I do not like this– I love the onion.
The cilantro is lacking. When Givrals accidentally puts pepper on my sammich, the cilantro doesn’t entirely absorb the flavor of the pepper. The cilantro can stand on its own, and if touched by pepper still tastes like cilantro.

The tofu pieces are nice and big, but are soggier in comparison to that of Givrals. Not good. As neither establishment’s tofu has any flavor (it’s tofu!!) I cannot comment on the flavor. They taste the same, Cali is just soggy.
In this picture, you can see the wiltedness of the cilantro. No good.
Although the bread was incredibly crusty on the outside, it was too soft on the inside.

Last bite, last thoughts:

While this sandwich was good, it wasn’t as good as my beloved Givrals. A clean restaurant, paying taxes, no mung bean ball, no case full of everything from Coke to Pennyworth Drink to Mr. Coffee, no Mr. Givral– it was disconcerting. I much rather prefer Givrals in the Hoa Binh Market.

I give Cali Sandwich 6 cubes of tofu out of 10. If Givrals is closed and I need a Vietnamese sandwich I’ll come here.

Note: The owner of Givrals isn’t named Mr. Givral. I just recently learned that “Givral” is a genre of sandwich.

This last week has been absurdly fantastic. Three or four different kinds of it, in fact.
Even though I missed the Apple Store opening due to hireacops that are too big for their britches, I went later and one of the clerks had saved me a shirt. It was so incredibly nice of her.
I’ve also gotten several emails that slapped a perma-smile on my face ever since I read them. That’s really the only reason this week’s been any good.
I realize this is being written on a monday, and I’m probably jinxing myself. Oh well.

The iPod completely relates to all of this– She was the beginning of my Apple obsession.

I’m in upper-upper-upper balcony D. One level lower than the absolute cheapest seats. If I lean forward, I can actually see the piano pretty well. People come and sit in front of me. I can still see between their heads. The guy on the far left chews his stick of gum like it’s the size of a golf ball. The girl on the right keeps whispering to the guy in the center of the triad. Then a bunch of their friends walk in late. Pleasantries were exchanged in the middle of a song. Nice. Perhaps I’m too used to the symphony performances, where you sneak in between movements or pieces and hope no one notices.

The concert itself was awesome! Although the orchestration was lacking in a few spots, it was good! I am a bit biased, it should be noted. I played the violin for 12 years. Some of the parts that either Ben played or went to the winds would have sounded infinitely better done by the string section.

Before “Not The Same”, he divided the crowd into three to sing the slide. Michael Krajewski (pops conductor for HSO) handed him the baton. Ben looked at it with a puzzled look and started conducting badly. It looked more like he was fencing with the baton.
Then, during the song, he got up and conducted the crowd with his hands. It was fantastic.

During another song, he played a 2-minute “cadenza”. Just wailing on the piano. He explained that classical musicians spend time making hard music sound easy, while rock musicians spend time making easy music sound hard. It was great, and hundreds of times better than anything I can turn out on the piano.

His encore was “The Luckiest”, my absolute favorite Ben Folds song. It was a great way to end the concert.

Leaving the parking garage wasn’t too bad. As I was walking to my car, someone was playing Bitches Ain’t Shit (iTunes link) loudly from their car. That’s a song that would be fantastic with a symphony. Maybe he didn’t want the reputation of playing the most offensive song in Jones Hall’s history. (That honor should rather go to Mahler… oh snap!)

In the following days, Charles Ward from the Houston Chronicle wrote a review of the concert. It seemed to be mostly positive, but then the last sentence left me confused. It was something along the lines of “If Folds wishes to improve his technique, he needs to go to pianist boot camp.”
Uhm… that’s true of all pianists, and he even admitted to being a bad pianist. Yeah, what?

This door to a disgusting looking Asian Grocery Strip Mall brings us gems like


and is fantastically cheap.
That beautiful sandwich costs $2 flat. The mung bean ball is 50 cents. A whole, filling, delicious lunch/dinner for $2.50? Heck yeah! Even when I’m pulling in the cash, I’m going to still frequent seedy, cheap, and delicious places like this.
They have a health certificate. It’s OK.

And remember kids, Givral is a genre of sandwich, not the man’s name. I called him Mr. Givral for about 2 years before I found this out.

Actually, I’m just using that as an excuse to dye it, I just want to go red again.

I’m excited.
Redheaded KT is more fun.

He sits in my chair if I get up for more than 30 seconds

and he lays down right in the path you’re walking

but I’ve determined that I’ll probably be crazy cat lady when I’m older.

Danger and I have that cat-owner Vulcan mindmeld thing going on.
He’s more obedient than the dog we had. The cat comes when I call him from rooms away, even if he was sleeping. A whistle and an air-kiss sends him running.

He’s so fat his tummy wobbles from side-to-side when he runs.
It makes me smile.

The forums have been down for about 2 hours now.
The IRC channel is too quick for me.

WAY too quick for me.

Friday nights are more fun with the boards up.

I should get out more.

I’m not a party person.

Tomatoes, Okra, and Corn.
It’s a party in a can!
A party of VEGETATION.
When I saw the can on the shelf in the store a few months ago, I only saw the tomatoes and okra. I put that in my basket, and saw a can of tomatoes, okra, and corn hiding behind the okra and tomatoes. I squealed as happily as a truffle-finding pig that sneaked a truffle into his belly without the pig-master noticing. (Quite happily!)

I didn’ t know that this was a genuine side dish. I thought it was an ingredient. Like eating straight chickpeas (which I have done). I googled it last night. Apparently, it’s a huge Southern side dish. One of the few that doesn’t call for 3 cups of butter and 1 pound of fatback, like what miss Paula Deen would have you believe. It’s quite healthy! No added fat or salt with the canned tomatoes, okra and corn I get. (Glory Foods, Sensibly Seasoned)

I just wish there were more tomato and less sauce and that the okra were more slimy.

Most supplements for hair or nails are filled with gelatin. I’ve asked beauticians about making my nails grow faster, stronger, etc. and they tell me to take gelatin supplements. No thanks, I’m a vegetarian… my hands and nails still look awesome without supplements of that nature.

I’ve been a veggie since July 2004. I didn’t consciously give up meat all at once, but I accidentally ate tofu every night for a week and realized how easy it is to be veg!

That’s vegetarian.. I’m fairly sure it’s seitan shaped into little cubes and made delicious.

That again, is seitan. Wheat gluten! Completely vegetarian.
It’s not all rabbit food and bran.

When I do eat rabbit food, I make sure it’s delicious.

This sandwich, by my calculations, is 70% rabbit food, 5% tofu, 25% bread. I’m very scientific when I measured my sandwich. I guesstimated. Yea!

Even big companies are awesome about vegetarianism.
These two meals are from my flight to Europe.

check the photos for labels. It was the best airplane food I’ve ever fracking had! Potato pancakes and tofu? HECK YEA!

Because I don’t eat meat anymore, I’ve had to be more creative with my food choices.
Before, I barely knew what an artichoke was. I love them with a passion now.
The artichoke fritters from Collina’s are to die for:

So, I don’t really know what the point of this post was. Maybe to post pictures of food a lot.
If the hand modeling doesn’t work out, I’d like to be a food photographer. I don’t know how to go about this, but I will!

I’m just a little bit excited.
Just a bit.

I just got a ticket to see Ben Folds.
FREAKING BEN FOLDS.

I read in the preview section that there were tickets that weren’t $70. Got one for $35 in the balcony, row B or G, I forget.
Either way, I’m EXCITED!!!

Hopefully I can sneak down during the concert like I do at the symphony.