The Sacramento area’s hottest Asian restaurants are opening in Elk Grove. Here’s why

How’s this for a Thirsty Thursday special: $25 per person, all you can drink.

At Z-Town Asian Gastro Bar, parties have two hours to put down as many towers of batch soju or vodka cocktails as they want. Elk Grove’s most vibrant slice of nightlife, a neon-lit shopping center beacon neighbored by a doughnut shop and Great Clips, was nearly full on recent Thursday night.

Z-Town is designed for customers to share those giant drinks and chow down on Asian fusion finger foods into the early morning, a stark deviation from downtown Sacramento’s nightclub scene but a familiar environment in Korea and Vietnam.

It’s no wonder, then, that Z-Town was the place to be this summer for young Southeast Asian adults in south Sacramento and Elk Grove. Ladda Venethongkham, 30, was at Z-Town three nights a week during the summer for rotating DJs and their EDM mixes.

“If we go to downtown (Sacramento), it’s very far for us and they’re not playing the music we like,” said Venethongkham, who lives in south Sacramento. “When Z-Town opened, it was so new for Elk Grove. It was just like, “oh my God. There’s not (another) place like that here.’”

Justin Tran, 26, said he came to Z-Town every night the bar was open until he started putting on weight, then cut back to once or twice a week. He jumped from table to table on a recent Thursday night, pouring shots from the Hennessy bottle service he had purchased.

“I did not think anyone would ever open anything like (Z-Town) this close by. Instead of me going (to) downtown Sacramento, I’m going to go right here,” said Tran, who’s lived in Elk Grove his whole life. “It’s the faces. I know everybody here already, I know the owners, and it’s always a good vibe.”

Z-Town is far from the only standout new Asian concept in Elk Grove. The city just south of Sacramento is increasingly becoming home to some of the region’s most noteworthy Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese restaurants and bars, from international chains to first-of-their-kind local businesses that have transformed the local dining scene.

Opened in November, Z-Town represents the region’s next wave of Asian consumers — and owners. A group of seven first-generation friends, all in their 20s, started the gastropub because they didn’t see the local combination of food, drinks and entertainment that felt true to their friends and culture. Now it’s in Elk Grove, and thriving: reservations are strongly encouraged for weekend tables.

“Our group of friends, we always kind of stick together. We celebrate any sort of occasion, and ... we go to so many locations, and we’ve never seen anything like this at all in Sacramento or in (Northern California),” co-owner Erik Tran said. “The concept is derived from Southeast Asia — it’s very popular there — and we kind of took that concept and brought it over to the U.S.”

Elk Grove has grown rapidly since being incorporated in 2000, and counts roughly 182,000 people as residents today. In 2010, it already had the 11th-highest percentage of Asian residents in any U.S. city at 30.6%; in 2022, 41.3% of city residents identified as Asian, according to the American Community Survey.

It’s unsurprising, then, that at least 13 new Asian restaurants opened in Elk Grove from January through September, said Elk Grove City Councilman Darren Suen. The list includes Ember Korean BBQ’s bulgogi, Taste of Pho’s rave-worthy pho dac biet and Shabu Gen’s all-you-can-eat Japanese hot pot.

“When you look at the demographics of Elk Grove being (heavily) AAPI and a lot of influx from the Bay Area, it’s not surprising to me that they bring those tastes with them and the demand for those tastes,” Suen said. “It’s not hard to imagine why people would want to set up those restaurants to satisfy the desire to go for those types of food.”

How Elk Grove’s food scene has changed

Suen’s great-grandparents immigrated from Southern China in the mid-1920s to work as Smith Family Farm sharecroppers in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. They eventually opened a restaurant called Heung Heung Cafe on Stockton Boulevard, competing with downtown Sacramento institution Frank Fat’s to serve customers at the California State Fair.

Suen moved to Elk Grove around when the city became incorporated at the turn of the century, and for a while, its dining scene was defined by chain restaurants, he said. Now, “it’s gotten so much better.”

Journey to the Dumpling’s xiaolongbao revolutionized the region’s dumpling scene upon opening in 2016, compelling customers to endure long wait times for soup-filled delicacies until a midtown Sacramento location came online this past November. S.E.A. Hut followed in 2018 with Cambodian creations such as prahok ktis (spiced ground chicken dip) rarely seen around the region, plus dishes from Thailand, Laos and other Southeast Asian countries.

The next wave of innovators are continuing to stake their claims in Elk Grove’s dining scene. Ten Seconds Yunnan Rice Noodles is the region’s first restaurant dedicated to “crossing-the-bridge noodles” from China’s Yunnan province. Say hi to Hello Temaki, a sleek sushi bar from the owners of Umai Bar & Grill that opened in Laguna Pointe shopping center in March and specializes open-faced hand rolls stuffed with dry-aged bluefin tuna, A5 Wagyu beef or soft-shell crab.

Vincent Nguyen, 28, was raised in San Jose before moving to Elk Grove in high school, more than a decade ago. He stuck around after graduation but regularly drove back to the South Bay Area, where Grand Century Mall awaited with a wealth of Vietnamese foods he couldn’t find around Sacramento.

Nguyen grew up going to the mall, which he described as a Vietnamese community space centered around a vibrant food court, almost every weekend for green-tinted pandan waffles and sugarcane juice called nuoc mia. When he quit his 9-to-5 job to open a restaurant, he wanted to bring those items to Elk Grove. Pho and banh mi, after all, were already represented by generations of Vietnamese Americans who came before.

Thus was born Cane Corner, Nguyen’s cafe in Elk Grove Marketplace that opened in March. Drinks with flavors such as kumquat or pennywort are sweetened via pressed sugarcane and fruit juice — no artificial sweeteners allowed — leaving them with a fresher, more subtle taste than the boba teas available citywide.

Five-dollar pandan waffles have been a hit, too, crisp on the outside with a chewy interior and a gently sweet, floral flavor similar to vanilla. Cane Corner’s coffee offerings have also expanded to meet demand, including a decadent Hanoi specialty called ca phe trung that includes an egg yolk beaten into sweetened condensed milk.

“The main thing we wanted to focus on was the sugarcane (juice). That was our main niche,” Nguyen said. “But we realized not everyone is going to have a taste for it or enjoy it, so we have to kind of cater toward everybody.”

Don’t knock these chains

Nguyen drew inspiration from the Bay Area. Alan Lin cribbed his entire concept from there — or really, from Japan.

Lin is the Sacramento-area franchisee behind Kajiken, a Michelin-rated chain that specializes in abura soba, Japanese bowls often described as “brothless ramen” with thicker buckwheat noodles. It became the first area restaurant to focus on abura soba when it opened in The Ridge shopping center on Aug. 22.

“It’s so different from regular ramen,” Lin said. “I like the texture of the noodles. It’s really chewy and thick, and blended with the soy sauce and the special oils in there, it gets a much stronger flavor than regular ramen.”

A China native who’s lived in Elk Grove since 2010, Lin frequently travels to Asia and fell in love with abura soba on a 2021 trip to Japan. His post-trip cravings were finally satiated when Japan-based Kajiken opened its first West Coast location in downtown San Mateo in February 2023.

People lined up for the opening, and the 2023 California Michelin Guide recommended Kajiken for its nine abura soba varieties. Lin walked away from his meal ready to become a franchisee, and knew Elk Grove was the right place for the concept, he said.

Beloved Asian chains often make their Sacramento-area debuts in Elk Grove — California’s most liveable city, according to Liveability.com’s annual rankings — particularly those with more niche offerings. SomiSomi was born out of Los Angeles’ Koreatown and specializes in ah-boong, fish-shaped waffle cones stuffed with soft serve; it opened in 2020 next door to where Kajiken is now before expanding to Curtis Park and Natomas Marketplace.

Taiwanese hot pot phenomenon Tasty Pot also first dipped its toes into Elk Grove’s Capital Reserve Retail Center in 2020, then later added North Natomas and Roseville locations, with a Davis one on the way. Paris Banh Mi chose the same shopping center for its first California sandwich shop in 2022.

It’s a phenomenon that Lin, a franchisee as well as a founder, understands well. He opened the first T% Coffee & Tea boba shop at the Sacramento-Elk Grove border in 2019, and grew the brand to have six locations in Northern California, with two more on the way.

“The community is nice, the city looks beautiful and it’s pretty safe, so Elk Grove is kind of becoming a top choice if you’re moving from the Bay Area or other states,” Lin said. “There’s more variety of Asian foods or different restaurants in Elk Grove because different people move to the area and they bring their own culture, their own food into the area.”

No slowing down

Eye-catching Asian concepts have opened outside of Elk Grove, too. Southside Super brought delicious Korean and Vietnamese home cooking to Southside Park in May, and Rice Theory’s musubi and onigiri drew sellout crowds to South Land Park upon opening in August.

Yet Elk Grove’s high Asian population and ambitious restaurateurs have led to a new Asian restaurant concentration like no other. Z-Town’s owners scouted possible locations for a year, including several in downtown and midtown Sacramento, before settling on their current spot in Bel Air Village.

There’s little reason to expect a slowdown, particularly as Sky River Casino draws thousands of gamblers to Elk Grove. The two-year-old casino off Highway 99 unveiled expansion plans in June for a 300-person hotel, more gaming space and a spa, among other additions.

For smaller restaurants and bars such as Z-Town, there’s an opportunity to ride the big business’ coattails, Erik Tran said.

“Sky River is attracting all sorts of clientele and customers down to Elk Grove,” Tran said. “When they’re either done with gambling or winning a big pot, they want to come and spend a little bit (more) but don’t want to drive all the way to downtown (Sacramento). Then Z-Town is their next spot.”

This story was originally published November 13, 2024 at 5:00 AM.