Archive for 'Gjelina Take Away'

Worth It/Not Worth It: 5 Sandwiches I Paid Over $10 For

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If you’re a huge fan of Hatfield’s or find yourself lunching around La Brea often you were probably very excited to hear about the opening of Sycamore Kitchen. I’m neither, and yet I found myself kind of interested. Even though the small menu of undoubtedly gourmet sandwiches was relatively unexciting, and nothing is under $10, I still felt compelled to check out the latest “cheaper offshoot” of a famous L.A. restaurant- a trend that seemed to start with Huckleberry, and has continued with places like The Deli at Little Dom’s, Gjelina Take Away, and Ink.Sack.

In fact, it got me thinking. I’ve eaten a lot of over $10 sandwiches in the last year, something I never used to do when I worked in Midtown. I don’t know if it was the $9.75 sandwiches at Mendocino Farms that buttered me up, or the constant sunlight wreaking havoc on my brain, but regardless of the reason I am now a person that is sometimes willing to spend $12 on a sandwich. But for every great sandwich that has me justifying my newfound deep pockets, there is another sandwich that turns me into my Grandfather- grumbling about the days when you could get a sandwich at Langer’s for a nickel! (That probably was never the case, but it sounded like something my grandfather would say.)

So with that in mind, here are 5 kind of worth it sandwiches I have paid over $10 for in the last year…

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Gjelina Take Away’s Meatball Sando Will Bankrupt Me

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My cheap bastard-ness knows no boundaries… but I will admit something to you, provided you never mention it again.  Once, I had lunch at Gjelina.  *Cue shriek, followed by breaking glass.*  It was my cousin’s birthday, and you can’t get all cheap with birthdays, lord knows I’ve tried. (“Hey sweetheart… what do you say we go to In N Out for your birthday! There’s a free hat and stickers in it for you…”)  Plus, as much as I love Poke Poke and Lemonade, sometimes you want a nice sit down lunch in Venice.  So where else are you going to go?  Cha Cha Chicken?  Uh… thanks, but no thanks.

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Long story short, the lunch was great.  So when I heard they were opening Gjelina Take Away, a breakfast and lunchtime annex, I got pretty excited.  Surely the prices would come down a little.  After all there’s no seating, unless you count milk crates in the alley alongside the restaurant.  That’s got to be worth a small discount, right!?

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