Look out for ‘Take Out’: Sacramento’s Lisa Ling showcases cultural legacy of Asian dining

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Coming to HBO Max: Sacramento’s most storied Chinese restaurants, as told by a native daughter.

Del Campo High School alumna Lisa Ling’s new docu-series “Take Out With Lisa Ling” will dig into the history of Asian restaurants in cities across the United States — the immigration stories, the cultural legacies, the food that’s stood the test of time and that which has changed.

The Sacramento area and its Chinese restaurants will be profiled in one of the show’s six episodes when it hits HBO Max on Jan. 27, four days before Lunar New Year. Journey to the Dumpling in Elk Grove and Hop Sing Palace — founded by Ling’s grandfather in the 1950s and now the oldest active restaurant in Folsom — will be featured, according to promotional materials.

Ling and her crew were scheduled to visit Frank Fat’s, but an employee at the 82-year-old downtown Sacramento restaurant tested positive for COVID-19 the morning of the shoot, Fat Family Restaurant Group CEO Kevin Fat said. They previously filmed in the historically Chinese town of Locke in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, Fat said; a hostess at Locke Garden Restaurant said Ling hadn’t been there, so the trip might have focused more on history than restaurant food.

A trailer for “Take Out With Lisa Ling” shows Ling eating Korean, Bangladeshi, Japanese and Filipino food around the United States. She grew up in Carmichael and joined “The View” in 1999, followed by stints with National Geographic, The Oprah Winfrey Show and CNN, the last of which has aired her show “This Is Life” since 2014.

Hop Sing Palace generally serves familiar takes on Cantonese food, while Journey to the Dumpling carries Impossible Meat and dishes such as roujiamo (stewed pork with cilantro, bell peppers and green onions stuffed in small buns like sliders). A long-awaited second location is expected to open in midtown Sacramento in April.

The restaurant’s front-of-house operation feels very modern; in the kitchen, only one cook — “Uncle Wong” — speaks English, co-owner Yvonne Tan said. That marriage of old and new, as well as flavors tasted while traveling outside of China, is core to Journey’s identity and something about which Ling asked.

“The whole show focuses on the history of Asian cuisine (in the U.S.), but on our episode I think they maybe wanted to see how it was modernized in today’s world,” Tan said. “When people see that episode, I hope they see that we’re putting Sacramento and Elk Grove on the map. ... I just hope they take pride that a restaurant in their town is being featured.”

What I’m Eating

Newcastle is a Placer County town of 1,200 people, with the slowest internet in the U.S. (as of 2019) and one fun deli owned by Tag “Ziggy” Zygalinski. I stopped off at Newcastle Cheese Shop last weekend on my way to a hike in Auburn.

There’s old-timey charm to spare at 455 Main St., where checkered picnic tables and faux flowers line a wood deck next to an antique shop. Inside, a display tells the story of Newcastle from a railroad stop to a modest agricultural hub.

Signs and T-shirts bearing a cartoon rodent tease at Newcastle Cheese Shop’s most famous sandwich: the Rat Trap ($9). It’s a pile of turkey, ham, roast beef, pastrami, cheddar, Jack cheese and provolone, plus the standard sandwich fixings (lettuce, tomato, onions, mayonnaise, mustard and pepperoncini) that would make Dagwood proud. I wanted the sturdiness of Dutch Crunch but had to settle for soft sourdough after a morning rush cleared the shop out.

The set options are pretty limited aside from a veggie sandwich and a couple of salads, so I crafted a build-your-own sandwich ($9) with wafer-thin slices of honey turkey and pastrami alongside cheeses listed as “smokey sharp” and “hot pepper,” both of which were tasty but lacked the oomph their names promised.

Other cheese options like Point Reyes bleu, horseradish havarti from Wisconsin or Hoffman’s roasted garlic cheddar were unlisted on the menu but in the display case, and could be added to sandwiches or taken home, Zygalinski said. Next time!

Sides included an extraordinarily lumpy potato salad ($4), which wasn’t overdone with mayonnaise, and got a nice kick from a dusting of cayenne powder. There was a gooey, bean-heavy chili ($3.50) that came with a few elusive butt pieces of that Dutch Crunch. I washed everything down with a housemade iced tea ($1 with free refills), then headed out to hike it all off.