What I ate in Italy, plus East Sacramento pancakes and three new restaurants

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.

Ciao! I’m back from 12 wonderful days traipsing through Italy, from Florence to Sicily. Thanks to Keyla Vasconcellos for filling in for me in this space last week — hopefully everyone appreciated having a fresh voice in their Tuesday inbox. 

If you’ve tuned into food media at all over the past few years, you’ve seen much larger personalities than I go to Italy. Stanley Tucci, Alison Roman, Bobby Flay and Giada De Laurentiis — all of them launched TV shows about exploring and eating in “The Boot” after the COVID-19 pandemic. What has long been a top American vacation destination seemed to reach new heights this decade, with Eater senior reporter Bettina Makalintal even penning a 2022 piece titled “I Am Tired of Watching People Go to Italy.”

That popularity doesn’t take away from how incredible Italian food can be. Among the many culinary highlights from my trip: Neapolitan pizza in a converted church, the Florentine bean-kale-bread soup ribollita, fresh-fried arancini as big as softballs, lampredotto (cow’s fourth stomach on a roll with parsley-garlic sauce) from a street cart and thick pizza weighed by the pound in Rome. And that doesn’t even touch on the pasta: toothsome penne all’arrabbiata, pappardelle with wild boar and bucatini with raisins, sardines and pine nuts in the Sicilian fishing village Cefalù.

Now, enough of my pining — let’s talk about food that people in this region can easily access. Today’s newsletter includes an East Sacramento brunch favorite, a farm-fresh lunch spread and a trio of exciting new openings: Hawaiian shave ice, dim sum and loaded burgers. 

Let’s get to it.

Benjy’s Bites

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

Orphan Breakfast House | 3440 C St., Sacramento | 916-442-7370

On the rare occasions my partner gets to pick where we eat, brunch is normally at Orphan Breakfast House. The 17-year-old East Sacramento restaurant a block from McKinley Park is defined in part by owner Chris Pendarvis’ many quirks, such as not offering ketchup (customers can bring their own) and payment by cash or check only (there’s a free ATM inside). Yet it’s also one of the city’s better places for a morning meal, as evidenced by the line of people waiting each weekend for breakfast burritos, stellar rosemary potatoes and Mast Coffee drinks overflowing with whipped cream.

Orphan’s menu might be described as “21st century diner grub, with some Cali-Mex influences.” I’ll always get the savory cakes ($8.50 for one, or $17 for a three-stack), buttermilk pancakes studded with bacon and jalapeño slices, topped with a thin jack cheese skirt and meant to drown in real maple syrup. But consider the spring scramble ($18) special if visiting before the end of April. Dominated by sautéed asparagus hunks with backing from bacon, shallots, tomatoes and Parmesan cheese, the seasonal creation comes with potatoes and two slices of toast.

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.

Coming home from vacation with jet lag and a travel bug, I had little interest in cooking last weekend and even less in another meal out. So my girlfriend Abbey, our friend Paul and I put together a fresh, simple lunch spread Sunday.

I swept through a Sunday farmers market and walked away with a handful of perusements — Asian pears, apples, English peas, heirloom carrots and early cherries. Abbey had ordered Battin’s Bagel Bike’s specialty soft pretzels earlier in the week, and grabbed a tub of whipped cream cheese after picking them up from the baker’s home in River Park. Adopting the “rip and dip” philosophy of The Laundromat, our favorite San Francisco bagel shop and pizzeria, we dug in.

In the news

Marina Texeira and Mark Mitchell, the owner and manager of Downtown Sacramento bar and music venue Torch Club, were arrested last month outside their business. Teixeira was arrested on suspicion of a trio of misdemeanors (resisting, delaying and obstructing a peace officer, disorderly conduct under the influence of drugs or alcohol and battery on a peace officer), while Mitchell was arrested on suspicion of the first two charges plus felony resisting or obstructing a peace officer with injury involved. Teixeira has been a vocal critic of the city’s code enforcement policies, saying they make running a business such as hers exceedingly difficult. By Monday, Sacramento City Councilmember Phil Pluckebaum reported that the Torch Club had met the conditions on its permit and passed code inspection.

Capay Valley growers greeted visitors Sunday for the Rustic Ramble, a self-guided expedition to a handful of area farms. It’s part of a larger movement to promote the northwestern Yolo County agricultural region as a tourism destination, Daniel Hennessy wrote.

Happening this week

• Range Kitchen & Tap expanded Thursday from its original Roseville restaurant to 1813 Capitol Ave. in Midtown Sacramento, formerly home to Sibling by Pushkin’s. A burger with local beer cheese and pickled onions is one house specialty, along with rotating pizzas topped with farmers market finds.
• Yang Kee Dim Sum & BBQ just began its soft opening at 8347 Elk Grove Florin Road, Suite 127 in South Sacramento. The Cantonese deli is the newest concept from Justin Yang and Jane Li, who also own Yang Kee Dumpling in Davis and Roseville. 
• Hānai began an indefinite residency Friday at 1701 R St. in Midtown Sacramento. The Hawaiian shave ice stand began doing pop-ups at Urban Roots Hospitality Group restaurants a year ago (and at other businesses in 2023), and moved into the Side Hustle window next to the group’s Good Neighbor concept. Look for frosty treats as well as loaded musubis and kalua pork sliders.

Want to find more events like this in the Sacramento region? Check out Abridged by PBS KVIE’s new events calendar and send feedback to events@abridged.org.

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.