Best Sacramento-area restaurant meals I ate in August | Food reporter’s notebook

The Sacramento region holds great food at all price points, from an anniversary destination or a ritzy steakhouse to an unassuming Moroccan cafe or a well-trodden community burger joint.

These were the best meals that I, The Sacramento Bee’s food and drink writer, ate in August around the capital region. All reviews were first published in my free weekly newsletter; sign up for future editions at bit.ly/bee_food_drink_newsletter.

Rose Park Bistro

Rose Park Bistro is a welcome new addition to Fountains at Roseville shopping center, suitable for special occasions or just a nice dinner after picking out some clothes. Opened in December by co-owner and general manager Bulent Ozel, who’s also a partner in Burlingame’s Park & Howard Bistro and Folsom’s upcoming Fiori Local Italian Pizzeria, it’s quickly become one of the region’s best relatively fancy New American restaurants.

Ozel’s sister-in-law Zuzana Ozel, an interior designer, helped create a gorgeous space replete with green velvet chairs, striped floors and light streaming from table lamps, overhead oblong orbs and large windows. Rose Park Bistro’s dining room can easily be celebratory as well as intimate. On my visit, we were neighbored by a young woman’s group birthday dinner on one side and a couple on the other side sharing sparkler-topped dessert for their 63rd wedding anniversary.

The food deserved that sparkling decor, too. Butternut squash gnocchi ($14), an 11-dumpling appetizer with pools of Gorgonzola cream sauce and carrot-and-basil-infused olive oil, was fluffy and bouncy on the first bite before cheesy and earthy tastes burst to the fore.

Butter-poached lobster bucatini ($36) in creamy lobster sauce could be an embarrassment of richness in the hands of a less-skilled chef. At Rose Park Bistro, it was an illustration of balance. Shrimp, garlic-roasted tomatoes, lemon breadcrumbs and the sauce’s surprising lightness elevated the browned-and-salted lobster tail atop hollow noodles.

Beef lovers can opt for the cheapest entree, a house burger ($20) with bourbon-bacon jam, Gruyere cheese and truffle fries, or splurge a bit for teriyaki-marinated skirt steak ($36). The latter was steeped to perfection — flavorful but not overpowering — then grilled over high heat, cut into tender slices, topped with crunchy onion strings and plated alongside grilled asparagus and garlic mashed potatoes.

Address: 1017 Galleria Blvd., Suite 160, Roseville

Hours: 11 a.m.-9 pm. Sunday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Friday and Saturday

Phone: 916-474-5658

Website: roseparkbistro.com

Drinks: Full, beautiful bar, with experimental cocktails a highlight. The Queen Bee ($16) is a tasty and royal eye-catcher featuring Barr Hill gin, Lillet Blanc apertif, orange liqueur, honey, lemon and a mixed berry-infused smoke bubble applied at the table.

Vegetarian options: Appealing salads, a mix of appetizers and mushroom risotto as a main.

Noise level: Medium-loud

Outdoor seating: Patio with ample tables

Little Morocco Cafe

Rejoice, downtown Sacramento workers: an excellent new breakfast-and-lunch spot has emerged on the ground floor of affordable housing development 7th & H Apartments. Little Morocco Cafe, opened by Moroccan immigrant Jamaleddine Kabbaj in February, celebrates the North African nation’s cuisine with trademark touches of warm hospitality.

The halal restaurant (menu boards are designed to look like Islamic arches) doubles as a caffeine bar, where a small espresso corner plays second fiddle to cups of mint-infused green tea poured from ornate silver kettles. Couscous is a Friday-only special, along with mahi mahi in spiced cream sauce, but tagines and kebabs are available throughout the week along with Moroccan-influenced salads and sandwiches.

That tea pairs great as a breakfast pick-me-up with baghrir ($4.50), a trio of miniature pancakes soaked in honey and butter. Made with semolina flour, they’re left unflipped in the pan to fill with spongy air bubbles.

Dates and harissa-tossed chickpeas add flair to Little Morocco Cafe’s green and quinoa salads. The Marrakech chicken sandwich ($11) is an unassuming gem served with crinkle-cut fries: lemon-marinated shredded chicken, salty green olives and a touch of heat meld beautifully together on the chewy baguette.

France has beef bourguignon, Mexico has birria and Morocco has tangia ($17), the name of both the beef dish and the clay pot in which it’s cooked. Two slow-cooked hunks of tender, stringy beef were bathed in a delicious yellow sauce made with preserved lemon, saffron and cumin.

Address: 716 Seventh St., Sacramento

Hours: 8 a.m.-3 p.m. Monday-Friday

Phone: 916-246-0009

Website: littlemorocafe.com

Drinks: Tea is the house drink, but there’s a coffee bar as well, and refreshing mint and strawberry lemonades for the summertime heat.

Vegetarian options: All breakfast items and salads are meatless, but only the Berber veggie delight sandwich (grilled eggplant, zucchini, red bell peppers and harissa aioli on a baguette) and Friday couscous among the heartier items.

Noise level: Quiet

Outdoor seating: None

Skip’s Kitchen

Sometimes, you just want a really good burger. Northeastern Sacramento County residents have gravitated toward Skip’s Kitchen for the past 13 years when that feeling has struck.

Everything is approachable at Skip Wahl’s “gourmet-casual” restaurant, a Carmichael dive along El Camino Avenue that emphasizes down-home food done right. Your meal will be comforting, and it might be free: employees fan out of a deck of cards after every order, and anyone who pulls a joker gets their food on the house.

Mini beef Wellingtons ($11.59) are a unique starter that exemplifies that highbrow/lowbrow model. Five bite-sized strip steak pieces are marinated in oil and a proprietary spice blend, then wrapped in white wine-cooked mushroom duxelles before being covered with buttery, flaky puff pastry and served with a piquant dipping sauce. It’s the rich man’s version of pigs in a blanket, a happy hour version of a 1960s classic.

A hamburger feels mandatory for any first-timer, and while deluxe versions have cherrywood-smoked bacon or mushrooms sauteed in garlic butter, I opted for the Skip’s original ($12.70) featured in “Sacramento Eats: Recipes from the Capital Region’s Favorite Restaurants.”

A six-ounce, 85% lean blend of ground sirloin and chuck came nestled with tomatoes, red onions, pickles, lettuce and a house sauce (ketchup, mayonnaise and whole grain mustard) between two brioche buns. It comes with your choice of criss-cut or sweet potato fries: the former were fried too long on my visit to keep a fluffy center, so my recommendation is the latter.

Skip’s underrated star is a salad, of all things. The heap ($9) is as big as it sounds, a mound of spring greens and romaine lettuce with wonderfully contrasting bites of sweet-candied walnuts and dried cranberries, crunchy carrot ribbons and celery and savory bacon and blue cheese.

Address: 4717 El Camino Ave., Carmichael

Hours: 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday-Saturday, closed Sunday

Phone: 916-514-0830

Website: skipskitchen.com

Drinks: Beer, wine and soda in old-fashioned translucent Coca-Cola cups.

Vegetarian options: Housemade mushroom-walnut patties are available for all burgers, and a few salads are meatless.

Noise level: Pretty loud

Outdoor seating: A shaded patio with faux turf and picnic tables that’s nicer than the interior, though roadside

V’s Paradise

In Old Sacramento, it’s been a rough ... while. A $47 million planned renovation announced in 2019 was postponed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and violent crime spiked last summer on the historic waterfront. Even Mayor Darrell Steinberg’s August announcement that the revitalization funding was mostly back came on the heels of Rio City Cafe closing after 30 years on the waterfront.

One spot of hope? V’s Paradise, a steakhouse that opened in March in the 7,000 square feet of Front Street that once housed Fat City Bar & Cafe. It’s clubby enough to have carousels of bright cocktails presented with dry ice, historic enough to include original fixtures and interesting enough to pull in complementary Armenian and Asian tastes.

Take the Armenian Caesar ($16), a steakhouse staple with one or two key differences at Vardan Sargsyan’s restaurant. The salad includes radicchio alongside romaine lettuce and is topped with a mountain of shredded Parmesan as well as chaimen, an Armenian spice mixture that adds extra crunch and a hint of heat.

Local chef Tyler Bond (formerly of Lemon Grass Restaurant, now working to open modern Chinese-Vietnamese concept Chu Mai) consulted on the opening menu, and his touches still appear in items such as the Pacific black cod ($43). Served over a reduced congee base with broccolini, the tender fish was partially slathered with a terrific miso mustard sauce and dusted with charred leeks.

Meatier options range from steak frites ($42) with shallot jam to rib-eyes ($69) with bordelaise sauce. Yet some of these entrees feel like more flash than finesse, such as salty, boneless Wagyu short ribs ($57) in a rich demi-glace.

Address: 1001 Front St., Sacramento

Hours: 5-10 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. and 5 p.m-midnight Friday and Saturday, closed Sunday-Tuesday

Phone: 916-888-8800

Website: vsparadiserestaurant.com

Drinks: Full bar, including an arak-rum-date-rose water cocktail called “jalabi,” and a high-end wine list.

Vegetarian options: No entrees, but sides and small plates such as tomato gazpacho and warm Brie with apricots.

Noise level: Loud

Outdoor seating: None

This story was originally published August 30, 2024 at 7:00 AM.