Dining

I have thought about Zindagi Indian Bistro often since we first dined there six months ago and were blown away by several elements of the experience, especially the wonderfully balanced and precisely seasoned food, the modern décor and a small wine and beer list that aspired to be food-friendly.

Long before Ruth's Chris, Morton's, Sutter Street Steakhouse, Land Ocean and Chops began serving thick cuts of beef to restaurant-starved Sacramento, there was the Broiler.

First Impressions visits dining spots in the region that are new or have undergone recent transitions.

Over the past year, Enotria has quietly and carefully been hiring one top-flight restaurant professional after another, all with designs on transforming this place into the best restaurant in the city.

You can't beat the prices on appetizers during happy hour. Tacos, housemade four-cheese mac 'n' cheese, chili, hot dogs, corn dogs and nachos all are free.

The recent Lake Tahoe Food and Wine Festival at Harrah's and Harveys in Stateline, Nev., at Lake Tahoe was over the top in a good way.

I have a dangerous job, I hope you know. Besides having to write unpleasant things about unpleasant people who own and operate sharp instruments, I am obligated to eat enough rich, fatty food to make my primary-care physician cringe.

You can spot the restaurant from down the street. A bright-red door greets you, while the ample windows give you a peek inside the inviting space. Once inside, the atmosphere is fine dining, but with a family and neighborhood feel.

Admittedly, we're not on close terms with the finer points of Indian food, but we do know what's good.

We've been dropping by lots of new places lately, trying a wide variety of food and compiling plenty of first impressions.

Select from $3 draft beers and well drinks, and $5 select wines by the glass and martini cocktails. Snacks are $3, $5 and $7.

Everyone's searching for excellent food at bargain prices, and that's what the Oak Cafe delivers. It's the student-run restaurant on the American River College campus, and what comes from its kitchen is as good as the fare at many high-end dining spots. That's saying a lot, but it's true. And get this: Lunch is only $15.

The problem with reviewing Blackbird Kitchen + Bar is that it's a wonderful restaurant, a pretty good restaurant and a muddled and middling restaurant. It all depends when you go, how you order, who is overseeing the kitchen and who is waiting on your table.

We fired up the Batmobile the other day to see where it would take us. Two hours later we were on Highway 101 at the exit to historic Santa Rosa, 50-some miles north of San Francisco.

At the Sacramento Burger Battle on Tuesday evening at Raley Field – there were two battles – the competition among the 15 restaurants and personal battles to finish trying all 15 creations.

When Revolution Wines came to town and set up shop about seven years ago, it was an exciting – even momentous – occasion in local culinary circles.

With a day to go before Sammy Hagar was set to take the stage at the new Roseville restaurant bearing his name, 238 Vernon St. was a blur of activity Friday morning. Today, the city celebrates "Sammy Hagar Day" with an outdoor street party.

The subject was pizza and which restaurant in Sacramento serves "the best." Not a good starting point to the conversation, as "the best" of any dish is such a subjective concept that the notion is nullified before it even reaches the table.

It's easy to say something is done the New York way. You can put it on your sign, you can stamp it on your menu and tell everyone who will listen that you're making pizza the way it's made at Patsy's in Harlem, Luzzo's on the Lower East Side or Grimaldi's nestled beneath the Brooklyn Bridge.

The last time I ate in a four-star white-tablecloth restaurant, I was frustrated and unhappy. (Bear with me; I'm not asking for sympathy.) This wasn't an isolated incident: It simply isn't what I want anymore.

This laid-back restaurant has a sushi bar and an alcohol bar against the back wall. Multiple flat-screen TVs play in the background. Stone-topped tables match the stone-topped bar.

It being an election year, this column has tried for months to wrangle an invitation to dine at the White House and run a review. How come they don't return phone calls?

First Impressions visits dining spots in the region that are new or have undergone recent transitions. Have a candidate for First Impressions? Email us at brobertson@sacbee.com.

First visits to unfamiliar restaurants are generally a scouting trip and little more. Should we take a deeper look or cut our losses and move on?

"That's the thing – cars mean cigars," said an expertly coiffed woman, making an "Eeew!" face and waving away a cloud of tobacco smoke.

It is tempting to assume the worst: When a restaurant is big and busy, when it offers a good bit of pizazz to go with its many styles of pizza, and when its very existence holds so much hope for a once-dire part of downtown, surely the overall quality is going to suffer.

Sometimes there are big surprises waiting in little restaurants. You just have to go inside.

"Chez Daniel" means house of Daniel, even if nobody really has a house in a Folsom strip mall next to a martial arts studio.

oxy has a Paris-meets-ranch theme with intricate crystal light fixtures, a carved wooden bar, Brazilian cowhide booths and some western-themed paintings

Some folks know them as "guilty pleasures," but this column prefers to think of them as "go-to" dishes. You know the ones: You get an urge for a certain something and immediately turn to a longtime standby. With that concept in mind, let's explore some go-to's that keep on goin':

Harry's Cafe is the real deal because the food is a reflection of everything Harry Luong is all about

The 400,000-member-strong National Restaurant Association reminds us that the three most popular ethnic cuisines in U.S. restaurants are Italian, Mexican and Chinese.

The color scheme is elegant and relaxed, with shades of blue and brown throughout the restaurant. The entrance is via a staircase off 28th Street.

First Impressions visits dining spots in the region that are new or have undergone recent transitions.

The hamburger is a simple concept – a ground-beef pattie on a bun, with condiments.

I have a friend who loves food, knows plenty about it and has discerning, no-nonsense taste. One day, he called me up and mentioned a restaurant in his neighborhood, sounding a bit bewildered.

An upgraded, more energy-efficient McDonald's restaurant has reopened at 6370 Mack Road in Sacramento.

The beers and ciders constantly change so you can try a plethora of new drinks such as strawberry lemonade, raspberry, blood orange and watermelon ciders.

At one end of the dining spectrum are chain-restaurant outlets that seem to pop up overnight. At the opposite end are fine-dining houses that most of us visit a few times a year for special occasions.

Conceived by co-owners and friends Matt McNamara and Teague Moriarity, this tiny 29-seat restaurant is easy to overlook. But the food is something special – artistic, thoughtful and executed to perfection – with service to match.

We were in Carmel-Monterey to check out three restaurants when we saw the World anchored a few hundred yards off Fisherman's Wharf.

Many folks who love great pizza spend a good portion of their adult lives obsessing over it – searching for it, traveling near and far to eat it and, ultimately, compiling a list of their favorites.

On a recent Thursday, the inside of Pour House looked like a construction site with sawdust on the floors and wallpaper ready to be applied. But by late July or early August, this bar and eatery at 19th and Q streets is set to open.

The parking lot, the street out front and much of the surrounding residential neighborhood were smoky with the fragrant, primeval aroma of meat sizzling over glowing coals.

Regular and late-night happy hours offer the same drink deals; however, the food specials are only from 9 to 10 p.m. on Sunday, and from 10 p.m. to midnight on Wednesday and Thursday.

It's that time of year, like it or not, when the mercury climbs well into the 90s and sometimes beyond. We simmer, we seethe, we overheat.

You have to admire the way Mark Helms goes about his business: He's focused, passionate, sincere and loyal to his craft.

The two wine-by-the-glass offerings are the Sawbuck Malbec and Stellina Di Notte Pinot Grigio.

The weather was too hot to stay in Sacramento, so we made a plan: Go for a bike ride and a swim at South Lake Tahoe, stopping at a few restaurants on the way up and down the hill.

Skip Wahl worked for Chili's for 17 years, rising through the ranks to become a general manager and trainer.