Near the end of 2005, Zion Taddese moved her restaurant, Queen Sheba, from Howe Avenue to Broadway, where, she learned quickly, she belonged.

Taddese's Ethiopian restaurant, with its communal-style dishes, vibrant spices and richly flavorful meals, found an instant home on the 1700 block. It's in the spot that once housed the off-the-river Virgin Sturgeon, and it's hard to imagine a better street for Queen Sheba's soul-expanding food than the two miles of culinary adventure and authenticity that is Broadway.

"Almost all of Broadway is ethnic restaurants, and people come here for all the different food," Taddese said last week. "They're open to trying different things and that really helped us. Even when I was on Howe, people were telling me I should move over here."

Broadway is a treasure for foodies, and it's Sacramento's most unique, diverse and, really, most delicious street. The food origins include Chinese, Nepalese, Ethiopian, Vietnamese, Mexican, Japanese, and American – don't forget Pancake Circus – and there is no place like it in the Sacramento region, no other stretch with such an array of eateries reflecting so many cultures and so many styles.

"If you can't get out of town, it's a great place to go traveling," said respected food journalist Elaine Corn. "You can go halfway around the world on the same block. And you can go on a budget. Nothing there is too expensive."

Corn knows Broadway. On Friday, she concludes her yearlong documentary series, "Broadway: Around the World in 30 Blocks," on Capital Public Radio. It's been a personal, nuanced, eloquent and mouthwatering portrait.

"The place that sums it all up," Corn said, "in its multicultural approach to everything, including the art on the walls, is the Tower Café."

Corn's final installment is on the Tower Café, in the 1500 block. It will air at 6:33 a.m. and 8:33 a.m. Friday at (KXPR) 90.9 FM, or the report – and the entire series – can be found at www.capradio.org.

The documentary was a team effort from CPR and was funded by a grant from the California Council of the Humanities. It was also a love affair for Corn, a food reporter, multiple cookbook author, teacher and former food editor for The Bee.

"We saw Sacramento's diversity through food," Corn said. "You can learn so much about people that way: their traditions, their ingredients, their history, their approach to life. It's a window to their culture."

Broadway, too, is a window into the history and culture of Sacramento, and into this region's current nature. Broadway is both a blending point and a divide between the core city's youth, energy and ethnicity, and the neighborhoods to the south.

Those assorted, seemingly audacious food styles connect to people in both directions because of the varied ethnic populations nearby, the urban residents in the core and because of what urban geography professor Robin Datel calls "adventurous eaters" living in nearby Land Park and Curtis Park.

"The street is a place where mom-and-pops thrive," said Datel, the chair of the geography department at California State University, Sacramento. "It's not a place for chains, and it's not midtown."

It was, however, a food destination for nearly a century. It started life as Y Street on the edge of the city. To its south were farms in the early 20th century. The west end near the Sacramento river and the trains was industrial, which included poultry and produce wholesalers.

When the street was paved in the early 1920s, the mix of homes, workers and food nearby made it a natural spot for restaurants, Datel said.

The street got the name Broadway after the Tower Theater opened in 1938, and the owners wanted to upgrade the glamour quotient. The food momentum continued as early versions of supermarkets sprung up – independent produce, dairy and meat vendors under one roof – then more markets and drive-ins took root from the late 1930s through the 1950s.

The Asian influence started around the 1950s, Datel said, as redevelopment on the west side of the central city pushed Chinese and Japanese residents and businesses toward Broadway. One of the landmark restaurants, Hong Kong Cafe, opened at Fifth Street in 1962.

Cultural and culinary diversity have a momentum to them. Broadway became a safe place for new immigrants who learned they could succeed with restaurants. For instance, Southeast Asians found Broadway in the late 1960s for those reasons, Datel said. And that momentum still continues. Zion Taddese is proof.

"Broadway embodies the two kinds of eating Americans are famous for," Datel said. "Standardized, homogeneous foods – that's fast food – and also the ethnic food you'd expect in a country of immigrants."

For Corn, who admits having a soft spot for Pancake Circus, that melting pot put her in foodie heaven.

"I learned so much. I got to go in their kitchens," she said. "I watched Zion make Ethiopian butter. She puts all these spices, more than 20, things like cardamom, fenugreek, chili, paprika, spices you can't pronounce in English, into a big pot with butter.

"Then it boils and boils, and it looks like dirt. She keeps going. All of sudden, it clears up and it's yellow and thick. She strains the butter off and it has those exotic, animated Ethiopian flavors."

That butter is for meat dishes. It's one part of one kind of dish at one restaurant. You can see Broadway's lure for a foodie.

"This is just a hunch," Corn said, "but I bet a lot of really good chefs spend their nights off on Broadway."

Call The Bee's Rick Kushman, (916) 321-1187. Listen to him Tuesdays at 8:40 a.m. on NewsTalk 1530 (KFBK).