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.
I’ve been wanting to bring Lisa Thibodeau’s writing to Abridged readers for a while. A few weeks ago, I found the story to make that happen.
A former magazine editor, Lisa left cubicle life behind to found Happy Road Farm, her 1-acre slice of land in Loomis. When not growing flowers (extras of which go to local hospice organizations, retirement homes and the Loomis Library & Community Learning Center), she plies her old trade as a freelance writer.
So when I heard about AB 778, I knew who to contact. The 2022 law required most state organizations to source at least 60% of their produce from California farms by the end of 2025. School districts were exempted, but that hasn’t stopped San Juan Unified, Elk Grove Unified and others from choosing to meet that mark, as Lisa found — good news for our area’s farmers. Come for Martin Christian’s photo of the happiest little fruit cup eater you’ve ever seen, stay for descriptions of school lunches that sound better than you remember.
Elsewhere in today’s newsletter, I dined on delightful hand rolls and gold-speckled uni toast at an Elk Grove sushi restaurant. Recent San Diego transplants and sweet-toothed coffee drinkers will also want to check out a new Vietnamese cafe when it opens in the city this spring.
And if, like me, your Super Bowl interest doesn’t extend much beyond the snacks and drinks, we’ve got a list of bars doing it big for the Big Game. For those celebrating at home, Zoe B. Soderstrom will have a game day “Cooking In Season” recipe out this Friday.
Benjy’s Bites
Here’s my favorite item or two from a local restaurant this week. Send me yours at begel@kvie.org.
Hello Temaki | 9261 Laguna Springs Drive, Suite 150, Elk Grove | 916-775-6826
Looking for a nice meal out in Elk Grove? I’ll throw a hearty recommendation behind Hello Temaki, Yu Feng Liang, Larry Hoang and Ann Le Hoang’s two-year-old Japanese restaurant in Laguna Pointe shopping center. Hand rolls are the focus at the wraparound sushi bar, presented as nori-wrapped scoops in branded wood cubbies.
The crispy maitake mushroom HR and salmon HR with chili garlic and pickled wasabi, among others, drop to just $5 during happy hour (11:30 a.m.-3 p.m. and 4-6 p.m. daily, plus all day on Monday). Hello Temaki is also the only restaurant I know of around here with a shigureni HR ($7), thin-sliced beef soaked in a sweet ginger marinade, cooked to a feathery tenderness and dusted with spicy ichimi togarashi.
Thinking more about balling out than budgeting? Order the Hokkaido uni toast ($26), two decadent slices of toasted baguette laden with sea urchin, aged bluefin tuna, truffle oil and edible gold flakes. The spicy tuna, habanero masago and jalapeño-kimchi mayo in the torched Shiso Dreamy ($17) roll is tempered by the namesake leaf, shrimp tempura and a tomato-fish sauce mixture.
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.
A week will come when I’m no longer writing about soup, but this ain’t it. This week, my partner Abbey and I bubbled up a Crock-Pot’s worth of white bean-sausage-kale soup, a weeknight staple in my house growing up. My mom came up with the recipe but maintains that it’s very flexible based on taste preferences and available ingredients.
We sautéed Nugget Markets’ Italian chicken sausage, onions and garlic, along with a Trader Joe’s pre-packed mirepoix mix. Those ingredients were joined by diluted chicken broth, two cans of Navy beans, kale and a handful of oregano and thyme in the slow cooker, then finished with grated Parmesan and black pepper. Hearty, healthy and inexpensive, we’re running it back this week with additions of porcini mushrooms, potatoes and a touch of preserved lemon.
In the news
California schools were exempted from a law requiring state organizations to source at least 60% of their produce from California farms by the end of 2025. But several Sacramento-area districts chose to meet that threshold anyway, with an emphasis on local farms when possible. Lisa Thibodeau has the story.
Contributor Becky Grunewald gave her list of nine must-try Sacramento appetizers. Then we asked readers: what else would you add? Responses included Tower Cafe’s pommes frites, Octopus Baja’s conceptualized tacos and Hawks Public House’s duck liver mousse.
Em Coffee House will expand from San Diego to Elk Grove this spring, the cafe announced on social media. It specializes in Vietnamese coffee, particularly in colorful lattes with flavors such as pandan or white truffle, and offers flights of any four drinks on the menu. Fill your cup here.
Happening this week
- There’ll be Super Bowl watch parties galore this Sunday. Extra-festive bars with food include: Barwest (Midtown Sacramento), The Trap (Greenhaven), Porchlight Brewing (East Sacramento), Bob’s Club (Elk Grove) and Rocky’s 7440 Club (Citrus Heights), the last of which is hosting a potluck.
- Flatland Brewing will celebrate its 10th anniversary from noon to 10 p.m. Saturday at 9183 Survey Road, Suite 104 in Elk Grove. It’ll include five new can releases, an imperial stout bottle release and food from attached pizzeria The Pizza Peel.
- Haraz Coffee House’s Folsom location had its grand opening Jan. 31 at 194 Blue Ravine Road, Suite 120. It’s the second area outpost for the Michigan-based Yemeni coffee shop after the initial Roseville cafe, with Arden Arcade and North Natomas locations on their way.
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.