A Sacramento chili cook-off like you’ve never seen, plus a Patrick burrito in Orangevale

The following is from City of Treats, a food and drink newsletter by Abridged Senior Food Editor Benjy Egel. Want it sent directly to your inbox? Sign up here.

As we journalists (us journalists?) have been getting Abridged up and running over the past year, our PBS KVIE colleagues and board members have been setting up a first-of-its-kind local food festival. 

The inaugural PBS KVIE Chili Cook-Off will be held from 2-4 p.m. on Sunday, April 26. It’s a showdown not between home cooks, but by top restaurant chefs from Davis to Elk Grove to Fair Oaks.

Participating restaurants include: Binchoyaki, Brasserie du Monde, Canon, charQterie, Kodaiko Ramen & Bar, MacQue’s BBQ, Magpie Cafe, Meristem Cafe, Mulvaney’s B&L, Riverside Clubhouse, Show Izakaya, The 7th Street Standard, Willow and Zelda’s.

You may notice that none of those restaurants have chili on their regular menus. That’s part of the fun: we’re asking chefs to come up with something different from their normal focus, and they’re coming back with different definitions of what chili can be.

MacQue’s will have house-smoked beef sausage and brisket, The 7th Street Standard’s is a chicken chili verde and Show Izakaya plans to serve sashimi-grade bluefin akami with sesame chili oil in a kombu-katsuobushi dashi. Winner gets hefty bragging rights — and a WWE-style championship belt made for the event.

This chili cook-off is sliding into the role of PBS KVIE’s annual spring fundraiser, hence the $100 ticket price, which helps fund the work we do here at Abridged and around the building. That Benjamin gets you two-ounce cups from all participating restaurants as well as wine and tequila tastings from Teneral Cellars and Enelalma Tequila, two drink tickets (beer, wine or NA beverages) and one year of access to Passport, the PBS streaming service normally available to donors who give $60 or more.

This Benjamin will be emceeing the event. In the meantime, I’m recommending a family-friendly Mexican staple in Orangevale, a sheet-pan weeknight dinner and a trio of other events this coming Saturday.

Benjy’s Bites

Here’s my favorite item or two from a local restaurant this week. Send me yours at begel@kvie.org.

La Placita | 9272 Greenback Lane, Orangevale | 916-988-2940

For 38 years, La Placita has been an Orangevale cornerstone at the end of a strip mall. The Hernandez family has built arguably the city’s most popular restaurant, a snug temple of faux brick and sloped archways with a packed dining room even on Monday nights.

A friend of the family’s, Patrick, helped out in the kitchen in the 1990s. He’d end his shifts with a giant burrito stuffed and topped with carne asada, green bell peppers, beans, rice and cheese, all stewed in a red chili sauce. Thus was born the Patrick burrito ($17.75), available today in XL and chimichanga forms as well. It might be enough for two meals, particularly if one starts with Colombian chicharrónes ($13.75), a plateful of deep-fried pork belly pieces. Covered with a salt mix and served with a limey red sauce, they’re denser with more meat than their puffy Mexican cousins.

Egel’s Nest

I live, play and cook in this community just like you. This recurring section is a window into my life outside of restaurants and bars, always with a food and/or drink angle.

Ever since I started cooking for myself in college, I’ve fallen back on a simple sheet pan dinner: roast vegetables with sausage. It’s been deployed for sweet potatoes and turnips, imitation meat logs and Cajun-spiced pork, and it came to me again last week as I stared at a head of cauliflower sitting in the crisper drawer.

As the oven heated to 425ºF, I roughly chopped the cauliflower and covered it with a mixture of olive oil and Oaktown Spice Shop’s Carlito’s Rojito Yucatán rub (achiote powder, cumin, coriander, garlic, cinnamon and more). After letting that roast for about 10 minutes, I split pre-cooked chicken apple sausages and slid them onto a corner of the tray. They came out with a slight char after about 15 minutes, just as the spiced cauliflower was ready to go as well.

In the news

In interviews with Abridged, multiple former Localis and Betty Wine Bar + Bistro employees accused chef/owner Chris Barnum-Dann of sexual harassment, withholding tips and using racial slurs. Many of the allegations are from 2018-2020, and Barnum-Dann said the environments in his kitchens are now different.

Refugees, asylees and other legal immigrants lost CalFresh benefits on April 1 as a result of the “Big Beautiful Bill” passed into law last year, eliminating hundreds of dollars in food-purchasing dollars from their wallets. Grocery stores such as Shams Market, which largely serves Afghan residents in Arden Arcade, are now turning customers away. 

Three Sacramento bars — The Snug, The Butterscotch Den and Kru Contemporary Japanese Cuisine — were named among the best in the western U.S. in Tales of the Cocktail’s 2026 Spirited Awards last week. Winners will be announced July 23 in New Orleans.

Happening this week

• The 16th annual Taste of East Sacramento will be held Saturday night at Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church. Tickets are $95 until Thursday, then jump to $125 at the door; they include tastes from more than 50 surrounding restaurants, breweries and wineries.
• The Taste of Elk Grove falls that same night at the Sacramento Asian Sports Foundation, with tickets going for $70 or $75 at the door. Participating vendors include La Fiesta Meat Market, Maharani India Restaurant and Barsetti Vineyards, along with more than 40 others.
• Sacramento’s Turn Verein expects thousands of beer lovers Saturday afternoon for Bockbierfest, a celebration of the German dark lager. Expect traditional Bavarian food, music and dancing with your $25 ticket ($5 for kids).

Benjy Egel is the senior food editor at Abridged. Born and raised in the Sacramento region, he has covered its local restaurants and bars since 2018. He also writes and edits Abridged’s weekly food and drink newsletter, City of Treats.