Keeping you informed of local food and drink news.
ILLUSTRATION BY GREG BRADY
Welcome to edible Sacramento’s Edible Updates column. Here, we share the latest news from our area’s restaurants and food purveyors, updates from regional agricultural producers, and more details about our burgeoning food-and-drink scene.
DINING NEWS
The great has made friends with the good at the Ten Ten Room, where owners Tyler and Melissa Williams have calibrated the kind of bar and grill that simultaneously feels cozy and elegant. Ten Ten is only a few months old and has a simple menu rather than an oceanic catalogue, but its cool-hued ceramic façade alongside The Citizen Hotel and its midcentury-inspired interior décor suggest a nostalgic vibe. The cocktails generally are top-shelf takes on classic recipes, and the food recalls bygone days — a steak sandwich that’s not much fussier than a New York strip on garlic bread — and other locales, as with the fried ravioli, an appetizer you might meet in St. Louis. More adventurous fare includes deviled Scotch eggs and a booze-infused Jell-O mold. How’s that for a blast from the past?
Vegan? Paleo? Gluten free? No diet suits everyone — that’s one of the founding principles behind Backbone Café on J Street near 8th. The menu is built on an armature of healthy, organic, and sustainably sourced foods such as free-range meats, vegetables substituting for pastas, bone broth, and butter coffee. It’s an ambitious downtown breakfast-and-lunch spot with solid appeal for those who want nutritious meals but might only have a half-hour break. Together with their sons, Matt and Yvette Woolston have thoroughly remodeled the former kebab shop, which bears a bold, three-story mural of the restaurant’s logo.
The Bank has secured another local asset by signing up Preservation & Co. as a tenant in its upscale food hall near the Golden 1 Center. Owner Jason Poole will soon have a venue to combine his restaurant experience with the niche he’s occupied as a purveyor of cultured foods, bringing those flavors to dishes such as ribs, meatballs, sandwiches, and appetizers. The company’s stall joins previously announced neighbor Mama Kim Eats in the D.O. Mills Building at 629 J St.
Broderick burger master Chris Jarosz has branched out with the opening of The Patriot in Carmichael’s Milagro Centre. Cordon Bleu-educated chef Jeremy Zimmerman has put together an extensive bill of fare encompassing grilled and roasted meats, a considerable range of seafood dishes, sandwiches, salads, sides, drinks, and dessert. A central fixture of the large dining hall is a pizza kitchen where guests can order specialty pies or build their own. And, of course, there is a burger.
The food of the Philippines rapidly is gaining cachet, and Bistro Filipino has brought a taste of the island nation to South Sacramento, across from Kaiser Permanente on Bruceville Road. Siblings Arsenio, Marilou, and Lito Abenojar draw from their family’s recipes for a variety of customary dishes. There’s much more to this cuisine than lumpia and adobo. Do you like pad thai? Try the pancit. Kare-kare’s name is derived from curry, but it’s a meat stew with a peanut-buttery richness like that of satay sauce. The flavors tend toward the savory, sour, and mildly spicy.
Nevada City’s food scene is a thing of wonder. The latest addition to that surprising gastronomic hot spot is Kaliko’s Hawaiian Kitchen, which owners Tyler Freeland and Megan Sasaki named after their son. Kalua pork, short ribs, poke, and more are beautifully presented, and many dishes can be made vegan or gluten free.
Sweet and savory get equal billing at Three Ladies Café in Davis. A roster of smoothies with seasonal variations shares the slate with coffee beverages, fresh almond milk, and other drinks. Baked goods such as biscuits, cornbread, and scones are available on their own or in a ploughman’s lunch that adds a selection of cheeses, salads, spreads, or eggs. An order of Humboldt Fog Sliders features Cypress Grove soft-ripened goat cheese inside three biscuits with baby bok choy slaw.
The Bay Area-based chain The Organic Coup calls its product “America’s first USDA-certified organic fast food.” Fried or grilled chicken is served up on its own or in sandwiches, wraps, bowls, and salads, with potato tots available on the side. The company’s founders, Erica Welton and Dennis Hoover, both are former executives with the warehouse giant Costco. After driving one of the biggest of big-box stores to become the nation’s leading organic retailer, Welton teamed up with her colleague to expand their success and make organic food readily available. The location at 440 Howe Ave. marks the company’s farthest expansion to date.
If you’re having trouble finding a place to grab a beer in our city, just walk another half block or so. The variety is pleasantly overwhelming, and one doesn’t have to venture far off the grid. Capitol Hop Shop has made a name for itself over the past few months as a veritable library of beer at 15th and I streets. A second iteration of Fair Oaks’ Capitol Beer and Tap Room, the Hop Shop offers more than 40 varieties of brew, with availability displayed up to the minute by large digital menu boards and a full kitchen to satisfy hunger as well as thirst. On 57th Street near the Elvas loop in East Sacramento, the space once held by a brewery called Twelve Rounds has become Porchlight Brewing Co., serving nearly a dozen beers of its own creation. There’s a lot to explore, with styles ranging from basic lagers to bitters, stouts, sours, barrel-aged brews, and barley wine. Proprietors Manuel and Heather Cardoza have kept the dog- and child-friendly space simple and welcoming, with live music, a foosball table, and treats for furry friends.
In closing, a big round of applause is due for edible contributor Ann M. Evans, who has won the 11th Annual National Indie Excellence Award for Best Regional Cookbook.
The Davis Farmers Market Cookbook opens with a foreword by none other than Chez Panisse founder Alice Waters and is colorfully illustrated by photographer Craig Lee. The book is a powerful expression of the farm-to-fork movement as it’s experienced daily, a seasonal and personal celebration of the best our region has to offer.