I'm so excited to have started this new blog! So before I tell you all about

Food Lab

and how amazing it is, here's a bit about me.

five facts:

1. My name is Caitlin Miyako Taylor. (Miyako - I'm half Japanese)

2. I just graduated from high school. (finally!)

3. I am obsessed with healthy cafes (I have a substantial list in my phone of places I want to eat at)

4. I can touch my nose with my tongue (gross, or cool/unique talent?)

5. I 

like

 love black clothing. 75% of my wardrobe is probably black. You really can't go wrong with black. Yes. Ok.

So there we have it. As you may have gathered from my 5 facts, I love cafes. While some of my friends don't understand my cafe obsession at all, gawking at my list of places to eat, I do have Marina on my side. She's on the same page as me, meaning we both have our organized lists of food spots around the US (but mostly in California), organized by location. 

Since I graduated less than a week ago and want to keep busy during the summer, I made plans to cross off some of the eateries on my foodie bucket list. I enlisted Marina's help, and together, we set off for Silver Lake, an artsy nook in LA, for

 a bite at Food Lab.

The Food Lab menu is fairly simple, serving mostly sandwiches and salads for lunch and dinner. After poring over the generous selection of items, I narrowed it down to the Grilled Chicken and Avocado sandwich, which was served on ciabatta bread with queso blanco and sundried tomatoes.

After taking pictures of our food for a solid 5 minutes, we dug in. 

I mean, look at that concentration. We take our foodie adventures

very

 seriously.

(That's Marina)

My sandwich was AMAZING. Definitely very California-inspired. 

The creamy avocado worked perfectly with the tangy cheese and salty tomatoes, and everything was wonderfully encapsulated in a crusty ciabatta shell. Was that a weird description? I'm just trying to say that it was great, and I will definitely be coming back here.

And this is me.

[My mouth is actually watering right now. And it's 2:40am. Why do I do this to myself?]

I think I (in an animalistic state of hunger) polished off my entire meal in about 10 minutes, whereas Marina ate like a proper human being and took a more reasonable 20 minutes. I should probably learn to pace myself better, because after finishing my sandwich, all I could do was sadly look at Marina's sandwich while we talked, wishing I still had mine. It's truly a thrilling life I lead.

Yup. Demolished.

You should go check out Food Lab, too!