Category: Food

Sacramento Brewing Company: Two Saturdays, Same Result

It’s that time of year again. No, not spring. No, not your mother’s birthday. No, will you just let me finish for chrissakes? It’s that time of year when Mrs. Eats and I whip out the Entertainment book and start feeling a little guilty that we haven’t used it much in the six months that we’ve had it. It’s the time when you remember how sad you were the previous November when you looked through the dining coupon section of last year’s book and said, “I didn’t know they were in the Entertainment book!”

So, wanting to raise our EQ (Entertainment quality) we opted for two meals with savings written all over them, one dinner last weekend at the Sacramento Brewing Company and one at SBC’s Oasis the week after.

Continue reading “Sacramento Brewing Company: Two Saturdays, Same Result”

Customer service sighting in Sacramento

I had a rough experience the other day at my local gymnasium. I needed to drop an add-on feature from my account. I wasn’t using this feature and therefore felt my money was being thrown away each month. A simple request, right? You would think. I was told by the front desk employee that this wasn’t a simple request and I would have to meet with a sales representative at their convenience (they work from, uh, 9 to 6, fancy that, so do I!). I am sure you see where this is going so suffice it to say that when I finally sat down with the sales rep I was none to pleased to find out I was going to be charged $10 to make a simple notation on my account via a keyboard stroke.

I wanted to go home and rant about this on the Sac Rag, but alas the customer service Gods saw my dismay from up above and threw me a celestial bone. A few days later I visited the Jack’s Urban Eats restaurant at Loehmann’s Plaza as I do enjoy me a Jack’s salad. It was a crowded evening (I know, shocker) and we were dining with another couple so finding a table was imperative. As such, I sent Mrs. TopofIt to scout out the scene. She left me with specific instructions as to the type of salad she prefers. The list of ingredients is a simple one, but it all hinges on the salad dressing. Short story long, I finished up my order, paid, and sat down with my party salad in hand. My wife took one bite and quickly realized that I had chosen the wrong dressing.

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Masque Ristorante: Would You Like a BJ with your Osso Buco?

This piece falls in the “total rumor” category as it was told to me by a few friends who live in Serrano.  Apparently there was a bit of a sting operation up the road at Masque Ristorante in El Dorado Hills last week.  It seems that the posh eatery did not only cater to the residents of nearby Serrano and their guests, but also catered to a number of prostitutes who used Masque as home base to troll for wealthy divorcees.  I’m sure that the management of Masque in no way knowingly supported a criminal enterprise and, knowing that they serve an exquisite duck sausage, do not wish to sully their name.

One thing does come to mind, though.  How would you be able to sort out the prostitues from the cougars in any El Dorado Hills bar?

Masque Ristorante-3909 Park Dr, El Dorado Hills

Food*** Atmosphere*** Service**** (pricey, but very hands-on)

Rey Azteca: A Rey of Mexican Sunshine

One of the great things about living in California is the never-ending string of Mexican restaurants dotting the landscape, like a rope of glittering pearls winding through the hills and valleys from San Diego to Crescent City.  OK, maybe I’m glorifying it a little bit here.  Let’s just say that it’s a great thing to be able to look in your Entertainment book, grab a coupon and head out to a Mexican place you’ve never been to and have a fantastic meal.  Monday night’s discovery was Rey Azteca on Fair Oaks Blvd in Carmichael.  Wedged between a gas station and a scrapbooking store, Rey Azteca (literally translated “Esquire Grill”) doesn’t exactly inspire confidence upon first inspection.  Murals cover the front walls, including a Latino State of Liberty and a scene of ancient Aztec glory.

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The Union Pacific Food Hall

I just got back from Los Angeles yesterday and returned to our fair city with an appreciation for good urban planning.  I’ve been to several California cities in the last few months in fact, and I can say that Sacramento is much farther along in its trendy “dowtown revitilization” project than most of the others.  Nowhere is this more evident than in downtown LA.  For those of you that haven’t ventured to downtown LA recently, you’re missing a goldmine of an opportunity to see some of this country’s seediest homeless people along with one of the surest and slowest transformations of an American city.  The plodding gentrification of the downtown area is slow, true, but also relentless, transforming historical buildings and retaining some sense of SoCal history.  Instead of the “out with the old, in with the new” mentality so prevalent in LA,  planners are seizing this opportunity to do it right, mixing old and new in a symbiotic fusion.  The best example I can see of this attitude is at the Grand Central Market, an alomst open-air food haven that mixes spice sellers and fish mongers with kitchens and food stands, dishing out counter and street food from all over the globe.

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Sandwiches? In Sacramento?

The newest sandwich sensation in Sacramento has arrived: The Sandwich Spot.  While, I’ll admit, not the catchiest name for a sandwich spot, “The Sandwich Spot” does connote an air of casual grace and casual food that works well with the neighborhood surrounding The Sandwich Spot.  You will spot The Sandwich Spot on the corner of 18th and Q streets in Sacramento.  The Sandwich Spot is, as the name suggests, a spot for sandwiches, but don’t be misled, The Sandwich Spot also serves drinks and chips and salads.  “What kind of sandwich spot serves drinks?” you may ask.  “The Sandwich Spot,” I would reply.  “What kind of sandwiches does The Sandwich Spot serve?” you would then ask.  Good question.  The sandwiches at The Sandwich Spot fall somewhere between Beach Hut Deli (Hooters Deli to you and me) and Togo’s, simple recipes loaded with odd additions like bbq sauce, cream cheese, teriyaki and something called “bomb sauce.”  “What the hell is ‘bomb sauce’?” you might ask.  As far as I can tell, “bomb sauce” is Italian dressing with chili peppers in it.  I suggest that you skip the “bomb sauce” unless you want to be tasting The Sandwich Spot for the rest of the day and well into the night. 

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Uncle Vito’s Grand Opening – Tonight!

Sorry about the late notice, but Midtown’s newest pizza place is selling $1 slices and $2 beers. Uncle Vito’s is attached both physically and financially to Pronto, at 16th between O and P. The decor is typical wannabe New York, with black and white photos of Lennon, Times Square, Coney Island, etc etc. My slice was good, but only a rough approximation of a “New York” style slice. Not that it was bad, just not what I would consider authentic, like Georgio’s, which is Sacramento’s closest cousin to a true NY slice. Bonus points for a full bar and Eye of the Hawk on tap. BTW, is there a law that says that pizza in Midtown has to be sold by chicks with full sleeves of tattoos?
Cash only tonight.

La Terraza: Old Sac’s Answer to Chevy’s

There are so many Mexican restaurants in this town that, when I write about them, I go for mass quantity and group them up in a few quick reviews like here, and here. But every now and then, one Mexican eatery stands out as a solitary beacon of either greatness or super-not greatness (God, I’m a scintillating writer). La Terraza, to my great chagrin, finds itself in the latter group. From service to atmosphere to food, this place fails spectacularly.

La Terraza (literally translated as “the terrorist” which seems like a pretty poor name for a restaurant) sits high above the tourist choked streets of Old Sacramento on the corner of 2nd and K streets. While this is not a bad place for a restaurant, I wouldn’t consider it a great place for a restaurant either. To me, Old Sac is best known for its parking difficulty (recently made more difficult by new meters and longer enforcement periods(good job Old Sac, way to drum up business)) and the suprisingly large amount of mass arrests that take place there during weekend evenings. So, from a local’s point of view, you have to be offering something pretty special to get me to head across 3rd street (Did someone say banjo jam?). Whatever a restaurant could offer to get me to broach the Old Sac/New Sac border, La Terraza doesn’t. Continue reading “La Terraza: Old Sac’s Answer to Chevy’s”

The skinny on the fat

News10.net reports that California is moving to ban the use of trans fats in restaurant menu items.

The bill is being challenged by restaurant owners across California who worry the trans fat ban will force them to use more expensive alternative oils that could change the flavor of their food for the worse.

Why is it that I can hear sac-eats’ stomach grumbling now as it ponders a world without artery clogging, heart attack creating, yet oh so creamy industrially created as a side effect of partial hydrogenation of plant oils – a process developed in the early 1900s and first commercialized as Crisco in 1911, trans fatty acids?

“It’s going to be a big fight,” said Terri Mead, manager of Sacramento’s Pancake Circus Restaurant. “We don’t want them telling us what we can and can’t use in the restaurant.”

You tell’em Terri (a nay sayer from the Pancake Circus? Get out…). We don’t want those health freaks telling us what to do. Next thing you know we’ll have the government telling us that we have to maintain a certain level of “cleanliness” and “freshness” in order to “pass” a random “inspection” or face being “shut down”.

As someone who just threw back 3 or 8 zero trans fats per serving Tagalongs, let me just say that I don’t miss the trans fats at all.  And if it is good enough for our Girl Scouts of the USA, it’s good enough for me.