The Porch

2012. This year, we set some goals that may not be conducive to maintaining a blog, but hopefully can improve our overall quality of life. One of those goals is to limit our eating out to twice a month. For us, that's not an easy order to fill, but we don't count gift cards or meals that other treat us to (whew), so that might be the saving grace as we transition into cutting back.

Another idea I've been pondering is to live more fully in reality than in virtual reality. To play with my dog daily, write daily, knit, create something tangible whenever possible. I may not blog as much, but when I do, it will be to share something really special.

I am starting with The Porch. When my husband and I traveled to Portland (OR), we fell in love with Screen Door, an upscale Southern food mecca. When I heard that a similar restaurant was opening up in Sacramento, I knew that this would be our first meal out of the 2012, and it turned out to be a great decision.

When we first arrived at the restaurant, I immediately loved the old-fashioned sensibility of the damask curtains, refurnished antique mirrors and porch light on the facade.


From beginning to end, our food was to die for. It started with a Muffalatta spread and crostini toasts, compliments of the chef - not too salty despite the presence of capers and green olives. I actually considered spooning this tasty stuff into my mouth once the toasts were gone, but withheld in anticipation of the good things to come.

The Porch Salad had perfectly cooked, sweet, tiny beets, plus nuts, apples, and a light creamy dressing. Then came the entrees, which were anything but light - buttermilk fried chicken, biscuits, velvety mashed potatoes with chunky sausage gravy, tangy collard greens with vinegar.


My Shrimp Po Boy was a dreamy sandwich filled with bacon, avocado, crab mayonnaise, lettuce, and cornmeal-breaded shrimp. My mouth waters just remembering it! This is the best sandwich of the year for 2012 so far, and it will be hard to beat! (Last year's choice: Cuban Pork sandwich from Seattle's Paseo.)


For dessert, we had the Black Bottom Creme Brulee - the "black bottom" refers to a layer of chocolate ganache on the bottom, a welcome surprise to our mouths. Loved the blueberry sauce served with it - a great compliment to the dish.

Bottom Line: I'm recommending this place to our friends. It's a splurge for dinner, but I will be coming here for lunch as fast as I can afford it again!

My Lunch at Fat Face (aka Bows and Arrows)

Remember that time I encouraged you to indulge your inner hipster and eat at Fat Face? I had only tried one of their popsicles back then, but when I got a half-day off this week, I took my own advice.

Fat Face is now housed in a so-called "hipster haven" thrift shop/art gallery called Bows and Arrows. The cafe in the back specializes in interesting, tasteful food, most especially pork sandwiches and popsicles, along with unique drinks and appetizers.

The sandwiches on the menu were split between 2 vegetarian (poached fig and eggplant "meatball") and 3 forms of pig flesh. The BLPT (with peaches) sounded tempting, but my husband and I ended up splitting two kinds of pork sandwiches:

Mesquite Pork in a tangy housemade BBQ sauce with housemade coleslaw on Acme bread. Pictured with mixed greens and vinaigrette.

Mexican Coca Cola-braised pork, topped with cotija cheese, romaine, and tomato salsa.
Pictured with kettle chips.

And we couldn't resist the chocolate chip cookies, fresh out of the oven! (Or a strawberry rhubarb popsicle - not pictured, because it was devoured too hastily. We couldn't let it melt, right?!)

The patio was also gorgeous, filled with blooming flowers and inviting tables. It looked like the perfect place to savor an afternoon or evening meal.


Since Bows and Arrows is right across the street from my brother-in-law's workplace, we invited him to meet up with us for lunch. As we ate, he confided his first reaction to our request: Why are we eating lunch in a thrift store? But the great crostini he ordered won him over in the end. With food this good and style to boot, something tells me that this will not be the last time we dine in this thrift store.

Review: The Eatery Opens in West Sacramento

One nice thing about being in the process of moving is that it gives you a perfect excuse to eat out. We were very excited to try out the much-anticipated new addition to the West Sacramento Southport Town Center Plaza, The Eatery. To locals, this is the spot where Q'doba used to be, but you'll hardly recognize it now.

The interior looks like a chef collaborated with an Anthropologie designer and this is what they came up with - muted colors, floral patterns, re-purposed mirrors and bedroom furniture, and lots of space.

This upscale casual non-chain restaurant is a first in our town, and many people are obviously glad to have it here. Although the Eatery only opened in the last couple of weeks, the place was hopping on a Thursday night around 6pm.


The food features comfort American cuisine and strives to maintain a strain of simplicity. A few things they did well:

Look out, Squeeze Inn! There's a new burger in town. This burger was excellent - perfectly cooked to order, a great bun that didn't get soggy (my pet peeve), crisp butter lettuce, and mildly sweet zucchini pickles on the side. The french fries, sprinkled with salt, pepper and fresh herbs, were formidable as well, actually tasting of potato instead of oil - how refreshing!

My one suggestion: The beef is labeled "natural", which doesn't mean a whole lot these days. If they, like Burgers N Brew, used Niman Ranch beef, this burger would be about perfect in my book.

The chef is keepin' it simple with a dessert titled "Cookies and Milk". Three chocolate-walnut cookies with milk for dipping - how can you go wrong with that?

The restaurant is new and just beginning to get its footing and makes a few missteps. The BBQ chicken salad was utterly devoid of BBQ flavor, and really should have been called Fried Chicken Salad. It contained mixed greens, fried chicken pieces (dabbed with a miniscule amount of BBQ sauce - I think), cubes of white cheddar cheese, biscuit croutons, almonds, a teeny bit of fresh corn (needed more!), and a buttermilk dressing. While it was still a tasty salad, the sweet and tangy BBQ flavor I was looking forward to just wasn't there.

Since it's so new, I fully understand that it may take some time for the Eatery to work out all the kinks. I am nonetheless thrilled to have a place like this in our town. I look forward to seeing how the menu will change (seasonally I hope?) and improve with time.

Super Natural... Every Day?

In 2008, shortly after I started my blog, I discovered 101 Cookbooks, one of the most popular food blogs on the web. Heidi Swanson seemed like the sort of person who ordinary people want to spy on, or live vicariously through, depending on your perspective. After all, would wouldn't be curious about a vegetarian hipster from the Bay area who travels, cooks healthy, exotic food and photographs it all as she goes?

After a while I became disenchanted. Who was this health nut of a character with a pantry full of ingredients like tempeh, millet and wild nori seaweed? I found it all a bit much. However, with Heidi's new cookbook, Super Natural Every Day, selling like hotcakes, I decided to give a go at a few of the simpler sounding recipes.

I made:

Green Lentil Soup

And Baked Oatmeal with Blueberries

I really liked the lentil soup, despite the small rock I bit into one particular bite. (They aren't kidding when they tell you to pick through your lentils! There is a reason for that, I've learned.) The soup was simple, dotted with spiced butter and sprinkled with green chives. The flavor was reminiscent of an Indian daal, and it was very tasty with wheat saltine crackers.

The baked oatmeal was rich (even more so because I substituted part leftover coconut milk from the lentil soup for the regular milk) and a hearty yet healthy breakfast. I loved the flavors of the coconut, spices, blueberries and walnuts all layered in one dish.

Heidi, maybe you and I can be friends again after all.

I Need You to Know... About Pork Belly

I consider it my solemn blogger duty to report that there may be something missing in your life. At least it was missing from my life until this weekend, when a trip to local Sacramento restaurant Roxy alerted me to the deficiency.

Pork belly.

Not pig stomach as my husband initially thought it meant, but pork belly - a tender, moist, rich cut of pork taken from the stomach region.

We had brunch at Roxy on Saturday, a rancher-owned restaurant where the quality of the meat draws locals out morning, noon and night. To be specific, the dish that blew me away consisted of the following: A crispy Southern-style biscuit topped with a slice of braised pork belly, melted aged cheddar, and a softly poached egg. Oh, and a few vegetables and greens, but they're not really the point here.

Have you ever cut open a delicate poached egg and watched the yellow yolk ooze over a braised piece of pork belly so tender that it falls apart when you cut into it? I highly recommend it if you haven't.

I now consider my duty complete.

Restaurant Review: Pizza at Onespeed

What is a blogger's worst nightmare after planning a special dinner at a fabulous restaurant you've been wanting to try for some time? Forgetting your camera. Sadly, thus was my fate when I enjoyed a recent dinner with friends at a highly acclaimed, immensely popular pizza place called Onespeed for my birthday. So I've borrowed a few pictures to help illustrate my visit, although I didn't get the shots I wanted to.

One of the first and coolest things you'll notice about the laid-back ambiance may be the gorgeous wood-fired oven, decorated with a colorful mosaic-like pattern. It's beauty and art meets utility.


Onespeed is the newest project by Rick Mahon, local celebrity chef and powerhouse behind one of the most well-established restaurants in town, the Waterboy. Featuring French-style food, the Waterboy is the kind of place where you will find sweetbreads on menu... and people rave about them. I see Onespeed as poor man's- ok, middle class man's - Waterboy. You get the high quality ingredients and thoughtfulness in the way they're assembled, in a more casual atmosphere and with a less expensive price tag.

Paul and I arrived earlier than the rest of our party, and while we waited we ordered the fries with aioli dipping sauce, having heard them praised. We knew we were in for a treat at first bite- the fries were fluffy inside, and thick aioli mildly redolent of garlic; each element was a perfect specimen of what it was supposed to be, and compellingly addictive.


Later, after being joined by our friends and ordering a myriad of mix and matched pizzas, we found further satisfaction in a chopped salad made special by hearty chunks of blue cheese, applewood bacon, and homemade croutons. We liked all of our pizzas, from the crispy, medium-thick crust to the creative toppings ranging from sheepsmilk cheese and spinach to arugula, sauteed mushrooms and artisan prosciutto (see below). For dessert, my apple cranberry crisp with vanilla bean gelato was just right, not too sweet nor too monstrously big.


Lately, there seems to be a rash of restaurants that connect pizza with cycling. There were hard core cyclist discussing vintage bikes standing near our table at one point. I also noted that the pizza delivery guy actually transports the pizza by bike. (He must deliver fairly close by.) This one was a winner, and we will be back.

Restaurant Review: Shoki Ramen House

In a cute older neighborhood of Sacramento called Curtis Park lies a remodeled home which now houses our city's most popular ramen noodle house - Shoki Ramen House. Because of limited seating, plan on arriving early to get a seat (they open for dinner at 5:30pm). Otherwise, you'll need to sign in and wait for a while before enjoying what makes this place so popular - a bowl of authentic Japanese ramen. Also, make sure all your party members are present when you put your name in; you will not be seated until this occurs.
The handwritten board on the wall will inform you that the special broths require 8 hours of slow simmering. Also, the board claims, because there is no MSG or presveratives in the broth, it will not make you as thirsty as other versions will. (I appreciate this as I once had a bad experience with a bowl of noodles in Japantown, San Francisco that left me parched as the Sahara for the rest of the day.)
Two of the most popular dishes include Shoyu, or soy-sauce based broth, with cha siu pork:
and the spicy Tan Tan Men, served with flavorful minced meat, greens, and bamboo shoots. I got extra shitake mushrooms in my bowl as well since I love me some mushrooms.
Pictures of newspaper articles on the wall show the owner gently massaging the ramen noodles, as part of the traditional method of preparing them. Formerly a nutritionist in Japan, he developed a wonderful whole wheat ramen noodle which I tried and found to be just as toothsome and delicious as the traditional variety.

The chef's efforts prove worthwhile, as each bowl warms and satisfies the hungry customers and keeps them coming back for more. Another sign on the wall indicates that Shoki will be moving to a larger location soon, promising more seating and convenience with the same high quality food. Sacramento looks forward to this move!

I Finally Try the Real Pie Company!

Today was a monumental day. I finally procured a pie from the Real Pie Company of Sacramento. They can only be ordered once a week and must be picked up at the local Corti Brothers store, but I found the effort to be well worth my time and money.

The crusts are made of all butter, and are as flaky as any crust I have ever eaten. The owner, Kira Donnell, uses family farms to procure her fine ingredients, such as the strawberries and rhubarb that filled the pie I bought. This is the next best thing to homemade, and probably better than many of those as well, depending on who is making it. :-)

They aren't easy to get; it took me several weeks to order in time to get one of the pies. However, Kira recently acquired an assistant and says she should be able to take many more orders starting this week. With summer on the way, I can't wait to order my next seasonal pie!

Ode to the Sacramento Soup Nazi

Today, nearly a year since I wrote this review on Yelp, I wanted to share a memory of the most unique, wonderful daytime dining experience I have had in this city...

It was a cloudy, drizzling April morning and I finally had the day off. I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it - finally try La Bonne Soupe Cafe, after reading many positive reviews on Yelp. With the restaurant's limited hours of operation, I work too far away to make eating there a possibility under normal circumstances. So, I planned my trip carefully, parking at the Westfield parking lot, walking 2 blocks or so to the restaurant, and arriving right about the time it opens, just a little before 10:45am, before the lunch rush.

The Frenchman does carry somewhat the air of the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld. He's a little abrupt, but I merely found myself marveling at his presence of mind with a line so long and only him to man the station. He created each sandwich as carefully and attentively as if there had been a single customer in line.

I chose the goat cheese with olive and roasted pepper (a daily special) and the cream of vegetable soup, then sat down at a table and perused one of the books on the bookshelf about the meaning of names as I enjoyed the most perfectly crafted lunch I've had in ages. The sandwich consisted of a good baguette (crispy on the outside, soft on the inside) filled with lettuce, tomato, mild, creamy goat cheese, just one olive and one red pepper, both cut in half, and a few secret sauces that linger in your mouth throughout the day like a haunting melody. The key here is quality over quantity, in true French style. What vegetables were in the cream of vegetable soup? I neither know nor care. Perfect temperature, perfect spices, perfect blend of flavors.

My meal at La Bonne Soupe Cafe was more than a lunch. The food and ambiance transported me back to a Parisian cafe in springtime, flooding me with memories of a study abroad long ago. Would that I could return daily. Alas, I shall await my next day off.