Why it's great that the International Food Blogger Conference is coming to Sacramento

September 20, 2015 0 Comments

We just got some news that I think is great for Sacramento. One of the best (and my favorite) food bloggers' conferences is coming to Sacramento in July 2016. Next year's theme: Farm to Fork (big surprise). That means about 500 of the nation's top food bloggers (and a few international) will be coming to town.

 The International Food Blogger Conference (IFBC) is one of the top in the country.  I love it and I've gone to IFBC four times myself. There are many reasons.

 First is the content. The sessions are actually helpful and educational. Whether it's about improving search engine optimization (SEO), food photography, or pitching book deals, you will come out having learned something. Second would be the speakers. Over the past few years the speakers have included documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock, famed food critic Jonathan Gold, Saveur editor Joel Oseland, and famed food photographer Penny De Los Santos. Finally is the camaraderie with food blogging friends made over the years from across the country.

 What does it mean for Sacramento?  500 or so food bloggers in town? Promotion! Promotion of our food scene, farm to fork, and all the wonderful things our area has to offer in terms of agri-tourism.

 One thing IFBC does is offers food bloggers a huge conference discount as long as they write three posts devoted to IFBC. While some will be writing about the conference, many will be writing about their visit, the restaurants they ate at, the events they attended. Again, great promotion for Sacramento.

 The Friday is always pre-conference activities. This will include tours and so I can picture visits to farms, orchards, breweries, or wineries in the area. Then Friday and Saturday evening events are a showcase of the bounty of the region with samplings of food and drink from purveyors and local restaurants. After that, bloggers will be descending on restaurants around town.

 To promote Farm to Fork across the U.S. and attract visitors to come, you can't ask for a better promotional opportunity than for IFBC's hundreds of food bloggers to spread the word.  





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Sacramento has a new Empress

August 31, 2015 0 Comments

In what must be the most anticipated restaurant opening in a decade, Empress Tavern is finally ready to open. After months and months of delays and waiting, we finally get to see what took so long. And boy is it worth it. 
Chef's Table
It may be named Empress Tavern, after the old Empress vaudeville theater it sits under (now the Crest), but pretty much everyone in town drops the "Tavern" and just calls it Empress. And it is a regal restaurant. You will see every dollar spent and every day spent waiting when you go down those stairs.
Prime rib bites
On Saturday I was one of the lucky ones to attend the VIP soft opening event. This is obviously not a review, but just my first impressions.

The exit to street level was where the emergency exits were, cut into the little inset to the right of the Crest box office and alongside the Mediterranean Cafe's patio. Now the glass doors are replaced with curved wooden doors akin to those that often open into wine caverns in Napa or France. They set the mood for what you will find inside.
I often went to movies in the downstairs Crest theaters, so I remember the configuration well. Two smaller theaters sat side by side and the floors were considerably sloped for seating that afforded good views over others' heads. Now you will find the host stand at the top of the stairs, descend the stairs to the landing where you can make a grand entrance - see everyone and be seen by everyone. You will take in a transformation that is almost unbelievable. Arched brickwork to look like wine caverns and underground cellars. It's pretty amazing.
When I saw Michael Thiemann later in the evening I had to ask about the bricks. I could not believe they would basically build a building underneath another. I thought it might have just been thin slice brick veneers, but Thiemann assured me that they had a team of brick masons in here and every brick in there is real. Anyone who remembers Greek history and the importance of the arch will be in awe.

 Inside the bar occupies the center with 360 degree access. I liked that many of the tables have leaves on them to make them either square or circle in shape. The benches are similar to Mother in that they also act as storage bins. On the far wall are the most impressive tables. There are several arched alcoves with longer tables for parties of 6-8. Someone joked that they should place bar doors on them so it would look like prison cells.  At the farthest corner is the Chef's Table, long and beautiful.

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Uber paradox and why you should tip

Uber paradox and why you should tip

August 28, 2015 0 Comments
I wanted to do a follow-up article to the one I did in January (It's not worth it to drive Lyft and Uber in Sacramento) because this week Uber has been celebrating its One Millionth Ride in Sacramento. All week long they've been doing special things for Uber customers. On Tuesday there was Chando's deliveries, Wednesday a chance to win a trip to Hawaii, and Friday a chance to win a cruise. Yay. Great. But what about the drivers? Zip. Nothing.

 What Uber SHOULD be doing is having two celebrations. One for the customers, but another for the drivers!  We are the ones doing all the work for miserable pay. Better yet, pay us more!

 My prior post goes into all the reasons it sucks to be a driver now. I've actually stopped driving. I'm not interested in making money for greedy Uber and losing money myself. 

 The Kum-ba-ya of Uber is gone

 I find it interesting that at first it seemed the whole idea of ride sharing was that people could sign up and drive Uber on their spare time and make some money. A kumbaya, sense of community, communal idea. And at first the money was good. 

 Now the only way to make money driving is to go full-time. I truly think that for part-time drivers they are losing money, not making it. It's the working of full-time+ hours that helps the drivers to average out their dollars/hour earnings. 

 So think about it. Uber has become as taxi as any taxi company. Full-timers are sticking with it, but part-timers are giving up. New drivers sign up, become quickly disillusioned and quit. So much for kumbaya.

 So this is why you should take pity and tip your Uber driver

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Cochon Heritage BBQ in SF 9/13

August 25, 2015 0 Comments
If you have seen my numerous posts over the years of Cochon's events, then you know they are among my favorite foodie events ever. These are paleo, meat eating fests where there are pounds of flesh up for consumption. Now I suppose that doesn't sound super attractive, but let me tell you, these events are worth the price.


 This is the first Heritage BBQ in San Francisco and it basically sounds like a combination of Cochon and Heritage Fire.  Like Cochon which features 5 chefs cooking 5 pigs and Heritage Fire which features roasting every kind of beast over open flame, Heritage Fire mixes the two: 5 chefs, 5 pigs, lots of barbecue styles from around the world. 

 The event takes place on Sunday, September 13th at the Magnolia Brewery location in the Dogpatch neighborhood. This year’s competing chefs include Dennis Lee of Smokestack/Namu Gaji, Geoff Davis of The Dock, Michael Rafidi of RN74, Nicolai Lipscomb of The Battery, and John Madriaga of Spruce.

 The BBQ styles represented will be Hibachi, Korean BBQ, Asador, Braai from Africa, Char Siu, Caja China, Churrasco, Barbacoa, as well as regional American BBQ styles from Texas to Kansas City.
Heritage Fire
The all-inclusive stand up tasting event features 1,400+ pounds of heritage pig, “pop-up” culinary experiences, premium wines, artisan cheeses, sustainable seafood, hand-crafted spirits, fine cocktails, and a very impressive selection of whiskies, ryes and bourbon. The stunning lineup of sponsors behind this celebration of heritage species include Williams-Sonoma’s local butcher demo, WilsonArt’s “Perfect Manhattan Experience” featuring Eagle Rare, Buffalo Trace, Breckenridge Bourbon, Hirsch and Luxardo cherries, Magnolia Brewing Co, Common Cider, Creekstone Farms, Krave Jerky, Creminelli Fine Meats, California Olive Ranch and La Brea Bakery. A portion of the proceeds always benefit the local culinary school while building opportunities for local food producers. All tickets include endless drinks and tons of food and are limited to only 250 tickets per event.
Tickets for general admission start at $100, and VIP tickets for early admission are $200. To purchase tickets, visit the website http://cochon555.com/2015-tour/sanfranciscobbq/.

Where:                  Magnolia Brewery 
                             2505 3rd St, San Francisco, CA 94107


Disclosure: I was given a free pass for this post.

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Hidden Sichuan

August 24, 2015 0 Comments
Click to add a blog post for Hidden Sichuan on Zomato

Hidden Sichuan has been getting good reviews lately and so I headed out with my Chinese friends again to get their judgment. I'll be referring to my 2013 review of Sichuan Spice House in Orangevale because we had many of the same dishes to compare and I was with the same Chinese friends. 

 Hidden Sichuan is located in a shopping complex at Hwy 99 and Bond Rd. behind the In n Out Burger.  It's nicely decorated with a wallpaper mural depicting ancient China along one wall and nice shelving and art on the others.  There were tables and booths and everything was quite comfortable.

 The menu was quite large. This time there were only three of us, so we ordered only four dishes. In the end we were pretty happy with three of the four but with noticeable differences from the same items we had at Sichuan Spice House. If you like, open the review link above so you can compare the pictures of the items as well.

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Simple Poke at Lunch

August 06, 2015 0 Comments

Sacramento might be on a poke binge right now with the opening of Fish Face. (See my post: Fish Face) I love the options that they offer, being able to make different combinations of poke each time you visit. Then I recently discovered that Costco has ready-made poke in four varieties available for grab n go! I tried two last week and they were great and about the same price as Fish Face's.

 Thing is, I make poke a lot myself. It's easy and super healthy. There are only a few clean, whole ingredients and it's low in calories while high in nutrients. 

 While I often make my poke with raw fish, I have a quick version that I often take to work. I thought it was no big deal, but my friend Suzanne asked me to post it anyway, so here it is.

 The key ingredient to make it "safe" to take to work and not worry about spoilage or contamination is to buy cold cured salmon or lox style salmon. Here's my secret  - I go to Ikea and buy their frozen lox.  Go to their grocery section and in the freezer section you will find single portion, individually vacuum sealed pieces of salmon in packages of four. 

 For the seasoning, I prefer ponzu sauce over soy sauce. Ponzu has citrus added to make it a bit fruity. I recently found a chili ponzu (pictured) that has some spice to it. Add that with the takarashi, which is a hot pepper powder, and it gives it a nice kick.

 So my bowl consists of:

 1 package of Ikea lox
1 avocado
1 sheet of nori (seaweed)
Ponzu sauce
Takarashi

 Cut up the avocado and salmon and toss in a bowl. Tear up the nori into small pieces and add to bowl. Add Ponzu sauce and takarashi to taste. Toss and enjoy.
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Have an Offal Day 3 on August 16th

July 29, 2015 0 Comments


Often my best ideas come in the early morning. Every day I get up and search the internet for food stories and it's usually during this time that my mind starts churning. That's when I first thought about creating the Sacramento Food Film Festival two years ago. It's also when I thought about creating Have an Offal Day back in March.

 I think I was watching some cooking show, probably something with Andrew Zimmern or Anthony Bourdain since they seem to eat the most offal. I suddenly wondered if there was such a thing as a good tasting haggis. I had haggis back when I was in Edinburgh when I was a teenager. I tried it and didn't care for it (I found it bland) and it wasn't until later that I was told it was sheep's stomach filled with intestines and other stuff. So here I am one morning wondering if it was possible to make a tasty haggis. Taking the thought a little further, why not have some event with a bunch of offal dishes? 

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Localis - the hot new F2F restaurant

July 27, 2015 0 Comments
This octopus dish was the only thing not local and not on the tasting menu

I happen to pretty much know the foodie circle in town. The chefs, the restaurateurs, the bloggers, the general foodies. That's not to brag but to make a point. When these folk all rave about a restaurant then it's time to make note. They don't throw around kudos lightly.

 The current restaurant with bragging rights for getting the most raves from all foodies in town would be Localis. Located in the space formerly occupied by Tuli Bistro and Trick Pony (21st & S), Localis has been getting the most buzz — all of it great.

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I'd like to be your friend, not just an acquaintance

I'd like to be your friend, not just an acquaintance

July 23, 2015 0 Comments
Milestone birthdays tend to bring out a lot of emotion and thought. Some dread them, others embrace them, many ignore them.

 For me, turning 50 was not a dreadful thing. I actually think turning 51 will be more difficult. What it did do was make me more contemplative of my life. One area I've been dwelling on a bit is Friendships.

 Over the decades people have gotten more and more distant and a lot less civil to each other. One of my favorite movies is Gone With the Wind and I always think to the scene where Rhett and Scarlet are pushing Baby Blue's pram down the sidewalk. Each time they pass someone Rhett tips his hat and they all greet each other — "Good morning, Mrs. Meade." "Good morning, Captain Butler". Even into the 60s and a bit into the 70s people would greet each other at work every morning.

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Time to pig out at Heritage Fire 2015

July 15, 2015 0 Comments

Hey, gang. It's that wonderful time of year again! Heritage Fire is one of Northern California's premiere food events with a barrel load of the region's top chefs. From Sacramento to Napa to the Bay Area, the best love to congregate at Charles Krug winery for a day of paleo eating - all meat, all the time. 

For an overview of last year's event, check out my post highlighting the Sacramento chefs.
This year, so far, we have representation by Michael Thiemann who will soon be opening his meat-centric restaurant, Empress. The other chef I will note is one I consider to be an adopted to Sacramento chef, Matthew Accarrino of San Francisco's SPQR. The reason I say that is because he's become good friends with our Sac chefs and Michael Passmore of Passmore Ranch. And, by the way, he was a James Beard Award nominee this last year. 

 During this meat fest you get to dine on all sorts of proteins: rabbit, lamb, pork, beef, sturgeon, chicken, and more! All done over outdoor fire pits.



There's plenty more to Heritage Fire. In addition to the meat-laden feast, the event includes animal theatre cooking, butcher demonstrations, lawn games, live music and the opportunity to learn directly from the farmers and producers behind the great wines, brews and ciders of the event. Bring a cooler so that you can purchase some of the butchered meats to take home. Money raised from the butcher sales will benefit the students of the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone.

Come join me and our chefs and represent, Sacramento!

To purchase tickets, visit the Heritage Fire Napa ticket page.

Disclosure: I received a press pass for this post.
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