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Crazy Thick Sandwiches at Brazil Fresh Squeeze Cafe in Berkeley

Posted by Erin Zimmer, June 25, 2008 at 3:30 PM

Brazil Fresh Squeeze Cafe's veggie sandwich features five vegetables in every bite—if you can get your whole mouth around it, that is.

Like novels, sandwiches get bragging rights when they are so thick, they make you stop and think, "wow, that might take you a while, but I bet it's good." At Berkeley's Brazil Fresh Squeeze Café, the veggie sandwich is four-inches thick, and that's only after squeezing it to clear the roof of your mouth.

Homemade nutty, fluffy grain bread (an inch per slice) smashes together fresh ricotta, diced carrots, folded-over romaine leaves, corn kernels, tomato slices, and green olives—the martini kind with pimento centers, but somehow it works here. With all the vegetarians in Berkeley, it's nice to see something that can hold them over in the way only a big hunk of meat could.

If meat hunks are your thing and you're craving the true Brazilian carnivorous experience, go for the tri-tip sandwich. Look pensively at the menu long enough and one of the owners will hand you a toothpick-pierced sample of the sandwich's super marinated and tender beef. The meat is smothered with Brazil Fresh Squeeze Cafe's house garlic and cilantro sauce, a green potion that's featured all over the menu in just about every dish. Eaters are notorious for ordering extra plastic cups of it, as if preparing for a Cali earthquake.

Brazil Fresh Squeeze Cafe

2161 University Avenue, Berkeley CA 94704 (map)
510-845-8011

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Tags: Berkeley, Brazil Fresh Squeeze Cafe, California, Erin Zimmer's Summer Road Trip, sandwiches, tri-tip