Asian meets Cajun at Elk Grove Park celebrating Lunar New Year and Mardi Gras
Tuesday was an auspicious day. Lunar New Year, known as Tet in Vietnam, and Mardi Gras, the bacchanalian celebration preceding the Catholic tradition of Lent, fell on the same day.
To celebrate, a festival was held in the sprawling Elk Grove Regional Park. It was a riotous mashup of performances, parades and, of course, food.
This Tet celebration has been going for more than 30 years, according to festival co-chair Bao Thien Ngo. It originally was hosted in the Little Saigon area of South Sacramento. It moved to Elk Grove in 2024. This was the first time they gave it a Cajun flair.
When I arrived, dragon dancers were bobbing to clashing cymbals on the main stage. At the other end, zydeco music blared on a second stage.
The collision of these cultures is not new. Many Vietnamese refugees settled in New Orleans. So as I perused the so-called Mardi Gras & Asian Cajun Village, I wondered whether I would find that perfect intersection of the two.
The festival had some of the more obvious options you find at any fair, funnel cakes, smoked turkey legs and the like — but they were in the minority. Among the other vendors, culinary creativity was on display: Filipino burritos, Korean cheese dogs, even bacon spam musubi lumpia.
I was immediately drawn to the iconic purple, gold and green that adorned Glam Meme Sweets Treats and Catering’s booth. I was also drawn to the sweets. Based in North Natomas, proprietor Tara Henry has been selling her Cajun confections for about three years.
All her recipes are generational, passed down from her family in New Orleans. I couldn’t resist a slice of king cake and a classic praline. The two set me back $20. I’ve eaten a lot of king cake in my life, and it very often disappoints. Henry’s was moist, tender and sweet.
I spotted another booth advertising banh cheung ($12), a classic Vietnamese Tet dish. Simon Nguyen of Simon’s Fusion told me all about how they’re made, usually involving many hands. The dish is made as a cake of sticky rice filled with pork.
“It’s lightly salted with black pepper, and then there’s mung bean. You don’t really need seasoning much, because it just gets salty by itself,” Nguyen said. “They will choose a night where they can gather together and start making them. And you make them overnight. It takes eight hours just to boil it. Then the best way I like it is when you fry it, after you cut it into chunks.”
I have to confess, I’ve never had banh cheung before, and thought it was more dumpling-sized. It is not. It’s a square brick about four inches square and two deep, and easily weighs a couple pounds. The banana leaf imparts a tea-like fragrance, but it’s quite dense.
The closest I found to an actual Asian-meets-Cajun experience was at My Lumpia Lady. Kathleen Rapisura-Pardo makes fusion lumpia, channeling her Filipina heritage, her husband’s Mexican roots and local Sacramento ingredients. She began the business in 2020, when the pandemic hit.
“I was a registered dental assistant. Everything shut down. A friend of mine said, you should sell your food. So I started selling plates, and I started selling out,” Rapisura-Pardo said. “So I got my licensing, my permits, everything, insurance, and then I did a couple of markets. Then I started getting asked to come to more and more and more markets, and then it just grew from there.”
I tried the jalapeno-crawfish lumpia ($12). Rapisura-Pardo stuffs a jalapeno half with a creamy crawfish filling, wraps it in a spring roll wrapper and fries until golden. Served with a sweet dipping sauce, it’s a satisfying bite.
However, wherever the jalapenos are coming from these days, they’re beastly hot. I’ve found this to be true all over of late.
What I’m Eating
I met up with my friend Lisa Lin the other day, to talk about her family’s Lunar New Year traditions. At her suggestion, we went to check out Sapha Kafae, a new-ish cafe modeled after ones in Southeast Asia.
Lin was born in the United States, but her parents come from a small village in the southern province of Guangdong. Lin showcases her mother making her traditional foods on Instagram. Mama Lin has become something of an internet celebrity.
As we talked about her family’s celebrations, our food came. We had the Dipper’s Delight ($22), an artfully laid out snacking board of pork skins, pork belly, hard-boiled egg, carrots, radish and lettuce with two styles of nam prik, the spicy Thai dipping sauce. This sort of choose-your-own-adventure plate makes for my favorite kind of eating.
We also tried the Lion City Coffee Ribs ($15), air-fried pork ribs with a sticky-sweet coffee glaze. The ribs were tender with a good chew, and pulled cleanly off the bone. A very potent pandan cold brew ($6) brushed away any mental cobwebs from the morning.
Primarily a brunch-lunch joint, Sapha Kafae hosts a mahjong night the last Thursday of each month.
Sapha Kafae
Address: 1331 O St., downtown
Hours: 8 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Monday-Friday; 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday
Phone: 916-840-5437
Website: saphakafae.com
Vegetarian options: Few, though you could pick around the non-vegetarian items on the communal platters.
Noise level: Moderate
Openings & Closings
Citrus Heights-based Neapolitan style pizza place Benji’s Woodfire Pizzas is opening a second location in the Rancho Cordova’s Rivergate Shopping Center at 2350 Sunrise Blvd. The grand opening is set from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 27, according to an announcement on social media. Proprietor Andray Mikayelyan began the business as a mobile pizza trailer before opening the first location in late 2023.
The former location of Saigon Alley Kitchen + Bar in Folsom will soon be home to a new dim sum spot. According to the Sacramento Business Journal, a sign for the new business, Palette Dim Sum & Lounge, went up on the facade of the building at 2770 E. Bidwell St. The business also applied for a license to sell alcohol.
Bay Area-based Palmetto Superfoods has opened its first Sacramento location, in The UV shopping center at 440 Howe Ave. at Fair Oaks Boulevard. Specializing in acai bowls and smoothies, Palmetto was started in San Francisco in 2019. It has since expanded to more than a dozen locations, with more announced for future openings.
