I stopped at Pacific Ocean Marketplace (POM) on my way from work to knitting, because there are the ONLY place with banh mi sandwiches between work and knitting, and because I have just discovered banh mi and need to try them at every opportunity. There were a few reviews of their banh mi on Yelp so I decided to try one.

In comparison to the Banh Mi at D’Deli in Golden: Bread – both had excellent bread. Size: the one from POM was bigger, even for a small. It was about 8 inches long. Fillings: slight edge to D’Deli just because the filling was juicier. I don’t know what was juicy on the D’Deli one, perhaps there was more aioli, theirs also had a teriyaki taste to it. Value: POM wins  hands down, D’Deli was between $7 and $8 and POM’s was $3.50.

What separates Banh mi from other sandwiches is the excellent bread and the pickled vegetables, and the cilantro (POM wins on the cilantro front) – they just don’t taste like a typical sandwich from anywhere else. I am a big fan.

Plus, POM has green cake available.

Pandan cake is, according to wikipedia: a light, fluffy cake of Malay origins (Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia) flavoured with the juice of Pandanus amaryllifolius leaves. The cakes are light green in tone due to the chlorophyll in the leaf juice. It also sometimes contains green food colouring to further enhance its colour. The cakes are sometimes not made with the leaf juice but instead simply flavoured with Pandanus extract, in which case colouring is added if a green colour is desired.

It is quite tasty but would be good with frosting. They also had these long fried sticks of dough labeled “fried stick $1” which I was extremely tempted by, but you have to leave something for next time.

I also bought a large jug of soy sauce (I don’t fool around with those little bottles you can buy at Kroger, I have a recipe that uses up an entire one of those….). And I went through the ramen aisle and chose random packets of ramen, some of THOSE should give me something interesting to write about.

I didn’t exactly have a successful, or maybe I should say productive, evening at knitting. I tried to cast on my wrist warmers (scroll down to Cutest Girl Leg Warmers or Adult/Girl Wrist Warmer) from Fancy Image Yarn, and well, let’s just say I had casting-on issues, and then I had gauge issues (I knit loosely, so I need to go down a couple of sizes in needles), so that project didn’t get off to a great start, but I had fun playing with the yarn. And I just realized I didn’t post yet about the yarn party my friend Judy had at her house featuring Fancy Image yarn, so I will do that tomorrow, if I have my hard drive along with me that has those pictures on it…..(pictures of yarn, not pictures from the party, although that would have been a good idea too…). I think some of my younger nieces may need me to make some of the things on this page for them.

I tried the wrist warmers on two different sizes of needles and didn’t like the look of the fabric I was getting with either set, so I admired everyone’s projects they were making with their yarn from Fancy Image and worked on my “Christi Shawl” which I will show you pictures of later!

All of my knitting friends are very bad influences when it comes to enabling me to get new ideas for projects. Thanks to C.O., C.S, and J.P. (using their initials because I didn’t ask how they felt about me bandying their names about on the internet), now I have many more bookmarks on Ravelry, the website where knitters and crocheters meet and plot to take over the world. I saw the Color Affection shawl on Yarn Harlot earlier, and was tempted to bookmark it, but I am not that big on shawls, and then Cheryl came in wearing hers, and it was lovely, and I will have to make one. The asymmetrical way the sections join is just fascinating. Then J.P. was working on the Wingspan shawl (although I keep referring to it as “Wing It” in my head, hmmm, that might be a good quilt title) and that was also very cool. And C.O. has been knitting on the Yvonne sweater, and I have been admiring it, so I might as well add it to my queue, even though at one point when you are knitting it, it looks like a giant pair of underpants for a sumo wrestler. I have shown restraint by NOT buying yarn for any of these projects yet. Yet. Tomorrow is another day…..

I have over 60 projects on my Ravelry queue, I need to get to knitting faster.