Cafe Rolle

For those of you old-school suburbanites who reside in the narrowly defined neighborhood known as East-Sac (which encompasses an area roughly one block square staring and ending on H St and a fixed point on a graph defined by a the equation X+Y=Elvas) you already know about Café Rolle. But, for those of you that don’t know of its allure, you have truly been missing out on some hot “joie-de-vive” action.

Café Rolle, in its simplest incarnation, is French food with panache. (For those of you who are not Francophones, “rolle” is French for “what a ball does when you throw it down a hill,” and “panache” is French for “panache.”) I had always heard of Rolle referenced as a lunch place, which seemed odd to me since French cooking and lunchtime eating usually don’t go together in my mind. Mais oui! (But yes) This place is a luncheon fantasy of good smells, great visuals and above all, indulgently delicious food that is luncheriffique (made-up word).

My beautiful companion and I wandered over to Rolle for lunch on a recent rainy afternoon, pulled into one of its two, yes count ‘em two, parking spots and wandered inside. We were immediately “bonjour’d” by our appropriately mustachioed waiter and offered a menu that looked as inviting as anything I’ve seen in a long time. Meats, cheeses, pates, things melting into other things made with milk and cheese and butter and bread and yummy goodness stared at me like eager puppies in pet store windows. We opted for sandwiches, my lovely partner choosing hot roast beef and cheddar with caramelized onions on a baguette and I choosing the chicken pate sandwich on focaccia. Ridiculously good.

Let’s just put it this way, if you choose Rolle for lunch, make sure you have a light afternoon planned because you are not going to be in an active mood for about 24 hours. This is not light eating. This is not low-cal fare. This is not your father’s Citreon. That being said, we were still tempted by the dessert options laid out by our waiter. These things sounded like the exact items a Pentecostal preacher would warn you about in a hellfire sermon on Sunday morning, tempting and unforgivable, plates that came directly from the devil’s kitchen, chocolate melted in special satanic bouble-boilers and fresh cream whipped in the kitchen-aide of the Anti-Christ. We managed to escape with our culinary souls intact, promising each other that we’d be back as soon as possible to get dessert, maybe even tailgating in the wee parking lot with cheese and bread and pate and a bottle of Burgundy before slipping inside for some chocolate crème brulee with mocha whipped crème freche and a side of mint infused buttery gooiness that is baked inside of a block of cream cheese. Sacre bleu (wow, I need new pants).

Café Rolle
5357 H St
Sacramento, CA 95816

Lunch for 2- $25
Food **** Ambience ** Service ***