Champa Cafe, 7 July 2026

    That's the Prosciutto Caprese sandwich from Champa, listed on the menu as...
Prosciutto, Mozzarella Cheese, Cherry Tomato, Arugula, Balsamic Glaze, House Garlic Aioli
    ... and going for US$10.50 and, honestly, worth it. The mozzarella was stretchy and the prosciutto was chewy, the tomatoes were juicy and sweet, the arugula was crisp, the garlic aioli was more savory than tangy and thank god they knew how to throttle down on the balsamic glaze.
    I made a similar remark about balsamic vinegar ten days ago and that's because I've met some people and even left behind some people in the past who leaned on balsamic vinegar like a crutch. You know the people I'm talking about, they've been cooking for decades but they never moved on from the first "cool tricks" they learned - "No, no, listen: You have to marinate the chicken in Italian dressing and beer because the Italian dressing flavors the flesh but the beer has crucial enzymes to break down the flesh so that the flavor of the dressing can get further into the meat!" The kind of people that still watch Babish even though all his videos are "I Tried Every Brand of Pretzel" type bullshit these days. The kind of people who don't know why you can't stream season twenty of Worst Cooks In America anymore. You go over to their house for dinner and they're wearing a turtleneck even though they have the goddamned thermostat set to 78°F (25½°C). (I mean that one is more for me because I just don't understand turtlenecks.) People who think Prince is better than Rick James.
    You know.
    People who are wrong.
    Those are the kind of people who overdo it on the balsamic.
    Hell, I even briefly dated somebody who put balsamic vinegar in her marinara, like a dilettante.
    I mean I didn't try to talk shit to her about it. She had cancer. You kind of don't talk shit to somebody with cancer. At least not about their cooking. I mean maybe if they're a teacher at a school that makes some questionable field trip decisions, you kind of look past the cancer thing and ask them a bunch of questions. But the balsamic vinegar thing? You just quietly make a note to yourself that you will never eat her spaghetti for as long as she lives.
    Used appropriately, balsamic can be a wonderful thing and it's an integral ingredient in caprese as it plays well with the tomatoes and contrasts the creaminess and saltiness of the mozzarella. It also helped to tame the saltiness of the prosciutto in this instance.
    Depending on what you get, Champa is either the second cheapest or third cheapest place in the skyway for lunch. At ten and a half beans, this is their most expensive sandwich (I know, "pump the brakes, Elvis," right?) along with their turkey avocado. Their prices are still the same as they were in this post. Go give them your money, even if the sweet lady behind the counter asks about your Misty Quigley t-shirt and then gets weirded out when you give her the premise to Yellowjackets.

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