Food reporter’s notebook: The best restaurant dishes I ate around Sacramento in July

There’s creativity and quality execution throughout the Sacramento-area dining scene, if one knows where to look. It’s seen in established favorites unsatisfied with resting on their laurels and humble strip mall joints serving dishes you won’t find anywhere else.

These are the three most interesting Sacramento-area restaurants at which I ate during July. All were first announced in The Bee’s free weekly food and drink newsletter as I found them. You can sign up here for those recommendations each week, plus relevant articles and musings on the Sacramento restaurant scene.

Few Placer County restaurants keep crystals at the register, offer an oil-free menu and sell bags of dandelion tea and cauliflower crackers to go. Yes, Zest Kitchen is all-vegan, and doesn’t try particularly hard to come up with artificial meat substitutes familiar to steak-and-potatoes types.

The restaurant at 2620 Sunset Blvd., Suite 1 in Rocklin instead mostly relies on simple fruits and veggies, both as standalone dishes and as rough substitutes in place of meat. There was no mistaking “coconut bacon” bits for the real thing on the BLT ($10.39, comes with wavy housemade lentil chips), but the smoky flavor paired with coconut mayonnaise made that sandwich the best my coworker Hannah Holzer and I sampled.

We didn’t miss meat with Zest’s Tiger Mountain mushroom burger ($11.43) because the pile of sliced portobellos, a bean sprout patty, creamy herb cheeze sauce, red pepper rings, and jalapeño slices felt so far from the traditional idea of a hamburger. A bittersweet, super-smooth black panther pudding ($5.19) made with raw cacao, avocado mousse and maple syrup made for a pleasant dessert.

Special occasions call for special dinners, and my family celebrated my birthday at The Waterboy earlier this month. I think Rick Mahan’s 25-year-old, French-inspired bistro sometimes gets viewed as stuffy among millennials and younger, but it’s an O.G. farm-to-forker that stays innovative, doesn’t always require a reservation and didn’t mind my parents’ separation anxiety-addled dogs joining us on the patio.

Instead of the famous veal sweetbreads, we started with the steak tartare ($16), three piles of raw Five Dot Ranch (Napa) beef on crostini somewhat overshadowed by a heavy olive oil bath. Pan-seared scallops ($38) with pancetta, summer squash, cucumber slices and tomatoes swimming in an acidic gazpacho were more nicely balanced. Better yet was the veggie entree ($26): a soft poblano-corn biscuit, ratatouille and Full Belly Farm (Guinda) green beans with walnuts, goat cheese and shallots.

Ready to try Thai dishes beyond pad Thai and tom yum? Venture out to the eastern edge of La Riveria at 9679 Folsom Blvd., where intimate, casual Kaidao Thai Street Food transitions assertive flavors from night market to full-service restaurant.

You won’t find many other places serving rambutan curry ($16) around Sacramento, but the lychee-like tropical fruit adds a much-appreciated layer of sweetness to the eggplant, bamboo shoots, red bell peppers and choice of meat (we picked chicken) swimming in red liquid.

The spicy southern Thai specialty kua kling ($13) was another delicious red curry, this time dry with a consistency similar to larb. Presented on a leaf-shaped plate, it’s full of makrut lime flavor no matter the choice of mincemeat (chicken, pork, tofu, veggies, beef or seafood).

Our favorite dish was arguably the simplest: sticky, large hunks of grilled skewered pork called moo ping ($20). Coated in a coconut marinade, they were full of sweet-savory flavor even without the tamarind and cilantro chili dipping sauces.

This story was originally published August 2, 2021 at 7:40 AM.