Category: Food

Sacramento’s newest brewery pays tribute to one of California’s founding fathers of craft beer. Tomorrow, you can lift a glass and welcome Captain Frank Ruhstaller back to his old stomping ground. Join proprietor J.E. Paino and brewmaster Peter Hoey as they revitalize Ruhstaller Beer, first brewed in the River City in 1881.

Enjoy two beers and food at Mulvaney’s B&L. All proceeds will benefit a local charity. Advance tickets for $22 available here or $30 at the door.

Welcome Home, Captain Ruhstaller!
Tuesday, November 15 — 6-8pm
1215 19th Street, 95811

Beer lovers of Sacramento, this is one of those weekends you have been waiting for. Whether you want to drink, learn to homebrew, hobnob with other beer lovers, or do all of the above, you have plenty of chances to get your brew on.

The star this weekend is the 24th Anniversary of Rubicon Brewing Company. They will be celebrating Saturday and Sunday with 24 hoppy choices. See this blogpost for selections.

The American Homebrewers Association hosts Learn to Homebrew Day across the US. Local homebrew clubs from Davis, Sacramento and Elk Grove are hosting events.

Tonight, The Shack is hosting the staff of Knee Deep Brewing Company for the release of their Knee Deep in Powder winter ale. Several rare kegs will also be tapped. 6pm.

All weekend, Extreme Pizza will offer a variety of award winning IPAs from Stone, Mad River, Knee Deep, Firestone Walker and more, all for less than $5 a pint.

Tonight, sample fine ales and meet the brewer of High Water Brewing Company at the new Whole Foods in Folsom from 6-8pm.

Cheers!

One of my recent favorites is Sampino’s Towne Foods, a wonderful and quirky Italian deli and gourmet meat market on 16th and F Street. I may have never noticed it, tucked away next to 16th Street Donuts. What I really like about Sampino’s comes down to two things. First, of course, is the quality of the food – magnifico!

And second, the warmth of the place. I swear, I feel more at home at Sampino’s than I do in my own apartment. The staff at Sampino’s will do anything you want with the pastas, salads and meats you see behind the glass. You can point to a lasagna and ask them to heap it onto their chicken marsala, then skewer a pastrami sandwich, two porcini mushrooms and a meatball onto the lasagna with toothpicks. And they’ll do it.

Continue reading “Sampino’s Towne Foods: Welcome home”

“Hey honey, want to try someplace new for brunch?”
I’m surprised lighting didn’t strike me as soon as I said those unassuming words. It turns out the fates had a much more insidious plan to ruin my weekend up their ethereal sleeves.

SUNDAY (the day of reckoning)

11am- We are joined by our friend Tiffany, who, being game, says that she would love to join us for a little dining adventure south of the city. I tell her that there’s this place on Yelp that has some great reviews. From the map, it looks like it’s on the river and features some mouth watering soul food. Basically all I had seen in the reviews were the words “sweet potato waffles” and I was sold.
11:30am- We depart for Water’s Edge Bistro at Moon River Inn. Continue reading “The Brunch That Nightmares are Made of, or How to Ruin a Perfectly Good Sunday”

It took me a while to figure out what was going on on 19th Street. For months, I’d be driving down the one-way thoroughfare at about 30 mph, trying to share the road with cyclists, dodge vehicles coming out of the Safeway parking lot (one of the worst designed parking lots in the universe by the way), and make the light at S Street, when a waist-high sandwich board would distract me for a nanosecond. I couldn’t tell whether it was advertising clothing, popsicles, food, wine, or jewelry. When I finally stopped and pulled over one day, unable to deal with the confusion and distracted driving any longer, I realized that the sign was actually advertising for all of those things at the same time.

Confusing? Yes. But if you’re willing to put up with just a modicum of initial confusion, you’ll find yourself well rewarded at — wait for it — Fat Face @ Bows & Arrows. Is it a vintage clothing and jewelry boutique? Yes. Is it a culinarily clever café? Yes. Is it both? Amazingly, yes. Does it work? Quite well actually.

It really shouldn’t be all that confusing. Maybe I’m just too set in my ways to recognize a restaurant/boutique partnership as a standard American business model. However, my preconceived notions aside, there’s nothing wrong with eating in a vintage clothing store. Especially when the food, drink, and ambiance is utterly delightful.

Continue reading “I Love Your Fat Face (It’s Not an Insult)”

One of the thrills of blogging is extending the bounties of a life-changing discovery to countless readers. It’s that thrill that I resume with my describing Sam’s Hof Brau and my adventures there.

Sam’s Hof Brau is a “time out” from the judging eyes of society’s nutritionists and vegans. It’s a place that people visit for only one reason – to get serious about eating a lot of very fine carved meat.

I discovered Sam’s about a month ago when a very great friend of mine took me there for my birthday. We literally ordered every cut of meat on the menu – some of them in abundance – and several sides of Sam’s excellent potato salad. Where one might expect the grim spectacle of Man vs. Food-like perseverance, I was instead enchanted by the succulence of every bite.

Continue reading “Went big at Sam’s”

It’s not like I haven’t had gelato before. I’ve had my fair share in fact. But I wouldn’t call myself a gelato lover, or in a more appropriately Italian vein, a gelato aficionado. Nevertheless I am absolutely gaga over Devine Gelateria in Midtown.

Maybe it’s the creative range of flavors — bananas foster, fig/honey/ricotta, salty peanut — that has me shorting out my keyboard with drool; or maybe it’s the ridiculous quality of the product, so fresh and obviously natural that it makes Michael Pollan look like Colonel Sanders; or maybe it’s the absolutely fabulous (and when I say fabulous, I really mean faaaabulous) service I receive every time I go.

Whatever the reason, I’m stupidly excited every time I drive by the 19th St storefront, giddy like a fanboy every time I see the updated flavors listed on Facebook, and smiling like a dentist’s model every time I walk in the door. I love this place so unabashedly it’s embarrassing.  Basically, I’m saying, “Hey you should check it out, it’s pretty good.”

Devine Gelateria & Cafe– 1221 19th St

It was the the best of meals, it was the worst of meals. That seems to the be the reaction from my circle of friends/food enthusiasts whenever we get to talking about Tuli. The little joint on 21st and S seems to raise some heartbeats and some hackles each time it comes up in conversation. (What the hell is a hackle anyway? Oh, that’s right, I’m online, I could just look it up.)

First, the negative, as reported by several of my more trustworthy friends: the service can be maddeningly sparse and slow and cold; the outdoor seating is less than lovely and, since it comprises the majority of available seating, is frequently the only option available, even in the winter months; food orders, while delicious (there’s never an argument about whether the food is good, mind you) come out haphazardly, or in the wrong order, or never at all. Got it? This is all a pretty frequent meme in the “I hate Tuli and am never going back” camp.

Don’t get me wrong, I think this opinion is valid based on others’ experiences. Yet, I love Tuli, absolutely, unreservedly love it. Continue reading “Tuli, Still My Favorite”

Good luck to Ella‘s bar manager Chris Dooley who will be representing Sacramento in SF Cocktail Week’s Best in the West competition tonight. Chris will be tasked with creating a signature cocktail that represents Sacramento’s dining culture using a palette of challenge ingredients including passion fruit, grapefruit, basil, coffee, cucumbers, ginger, Absinthe and peach. Knowing Chris and his cocktail stylings, judges can expect something seasonal and fresh that not only tastes delicious, but looks beautiful and smells enticing.