Best Sacramento-area restaurant meals I ate in November | Food reporter’s notebook
November saw the release of The Sacramento Bee’s 2024 Top 50 Restaurants list, a voluminous effort based on my reviews from over the past year. I’m Benjy Egel, The Bee’s food and drink writer, here to tell you more about my most recent meals.
Chillier weather called for homey Japanese curry and ramen in Elk Grove, while publishing the Top 50 list necessitated a celebratory beer and wood-fired pizza in Elk Grove. There was fine-ish dining in Lincoln as well, and waterside seafood surrounded by fall colors.
All of these reviews were first published in my free weekly food and drink newsletter. Sign up for future editions at bit.ly/sacbee_food_drink.
Fourk Kitchen
If there were 51 or 52 slots to fill on the Top 50 list, Fourk Kitchen likely would have made it. Paul Jansen’s project, which has locations in Lincoln and Folsom as well as Reno, Nevada, hosts one seating per night for four-course, prix fixe dinners ($64) with affordable wine pairings ($24-$44).
Jansen, who founded Citizen Vine tapas bar in Lincoln before selling it earlier this year and opening Sette Pasta House in Granite Bay, spent 11 years in the Marine Corps and spent another 18 in the Coast Guard Reserve. While Fourk’s dishes don’t typically break new molds, they’re executed with military precision before being brought to the cozy, friendly dining room covered in pictures of 19th-century forks.
No wonder 70% of Fourk’s customers are repeats coming back to try the new month’s menu, as Jansen said. The November slate started with herbed goat cheese spread across crostini, topped with cremini mushrooms cooked in white wine with onions and garlic and finished with microgreens.
Straightforward but tasty.
The second course was our table’s favorite: Plump shrimp scampi over Sette’s outrageously smooth polenta was so fine and velvety that you’ll want to keep it on your tongue for a few beats.
The third was a pleasant but somewhat forgettable airline chicken breast cooked sous vide with rosemary, seared off, coated with a thin Chardonnay cream sauce and served over tomato orzo. Dessert had a little more spark: a Thanksgiving-teasing slice of sweet potato pie, topped with bacon crumbles and a dollop of maple syrup-infused whipped cream.
Address: 825 Twelve Bridges Drive, Suite 65, Lincoln; 1177 Riley St., Folsom
Hours: 5:30-8:30 Wednesday-Saturday; closed Sunday-Tuesday
Phone: 916-409-2101 (Lincoln); 916-510-1235 (Folsom)
Website: fourkkitchen.com
Drinks: Wine pairings and a variety of bottles or glasses ranging from affordable to reserve, with one NA option. Beer and soda also available.
Vegetarian options: Available, but ask in advance. Vegan dinners not available.
Noise level: Pretty quiet, with most noise coming from an Americana-centric playlist
Outdoor seating: None
Washoku
The Sacramento’s hottest Asian restaurants are opening in Elk Grove, a trend I explored in a lengthy article this month. Washoku isn’t part of the newest class, having opened in July 2022, but the dignified, cozy dining room enclosed in dark wood adds its own homey touch.
Japanese food can be broadly divided into two categories: yoshoku, dishes adapted to or influenced by Western tastes, and washoku, traditional items crafted with a sense of harmony. While the specials menu at Daniel Yim’s izakaya in Stonelake Landing shopping center gears toward those old-school offerings — salmon sashimi ($17 for six pieces), beef tongue or eel skewers ($6/$7) — its main menu is more yoshoku dishes, some trendy now and others made popular in the 1960s and ’70s.
The hambagu ironyaki ($19), in particular, feels like an updated relic from the days when TV dinners reigned. A housemade ground beef patty is fried to order then laden with a rich, teriyaki-like glaze and served on its skillet with corn, a simple salad and rice or boiled potatoes.
Curry became a Japanese home staple in the 1960s, a way to deploy pantry fixtures and use excess meat. At Washoku, fish katsu, tofu and minced pork ($15-$19) go into the ultra-umami brown sauce alongside vegetables and (in some cases) ajitama, the jammy eggs commonly seen in ramen.
Speaking of ramen and savory, the Hokkaido’s ($20) murky, nutty beef-kombu broth will have you powering through the fried onions, basil oil and still-cooking sous vide beef filet to the cartoon fish on the bowl’s bottom. Tan tan tacos ($10 for two) apply another ramen’s spicy nature to an appetizer of minced pork nestled with avocado slices in wonton shells.
Address: 2513 W. Taron Court, Suite 120, Elk Grove
Hours: 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. and 4:30-9 p.m. Sunday and Tuesday-Thursday; 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. and 4:30-9:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday; closed Monday
Phone: 916-686-6683
Website: washokueg.com
Drinks: Sake, beer, tea and soda
Vegetarian options: Not a ton to choose from outside of tofu curry, spicy garlic edamame and a cold tofu appetizer in soy dashi
Noise level: Relatively quiet
Outdoor seating: None
The Virgin Sturgeon Restaurant & Marina
Garden Highway is one of my favorite stretches of Sacramento to see the leaves turn each fall, their orange, yellow and red hues forming a picture-worthy backdrop to the Sacramento River. A stretch of riverside restaurants (Chevy’s Fresh Mex, Crawdad’s on the River, Roosters Breakfast & Mimosas) all offer similarly spectacular views, but none predate the Virgin Sturgeon Restaurant & Marina — or have the same degree of charm, in my opinion.
First opened in 1976, the Virgin Sturgeon floats on a barge and can only be accessed via a converted Pan-Am jetway, each of which rises or steepens depending on water levels. Bobby and Renee Riggs have owned the locals’ joint since 2007, aided by servers who have waited on the snug yet lively wooden dining room for more than two decades.
True to its name, the Virgin Sturgeon is one of the few area restaurants to serve Sacramento County’s flagship fish. A smoked sturgeon ($20) appetizer or combination platter ($22) with shrimp, Cajun chicken strips and smoked salmon are the cheapest ways to try the meaty prehistoric fish, though it’s also available as a market price entree.
The famous crab sandwich ($21 with soup du jour, salad or Cuban black beans) took my mind to Maryland or Florida seafood shacks, even if those locales would serve a different genus. It’s a mess of succulent snow crab mixed with Old Bay, cream cheese, lemon and a secret sauce slid with tomatoes between two grilled slices of butter-lathered sourdough.
Carol’s catfish ($23 with the same sides, also available with eggs during weekend brunch), named for Renee’s mother, was coated in a zippy Cajun rub before being grilled, served over rice pilaf and topped by a mango salsa with a sneaky kick. For a non-seafood option, the spinach and strawberry salad ($18) with grilled chicken, candied walnuts and a mellow balsamic dressing make lighter eating enjoyable.
Address: 1577 Garden Highway, Sacramento
Hours: 9 a.m.-midnight Sunday; 3-10 p.m. Monday; 11:30 a.m.-midnight Tuesday-Friday; 10 a.m.-midnight Saturday
Phone: 916-921-2694
Website: virginsturgeon.net
Drinks: Full bar with warm cocktails for chilly winter days and nights
Vegetarian options: A zesty bean dip, spinach pasta salad and mushroom veggie burger are among the few choices
Noise level: Loud
Outdoor seating: Patio overlooking the Sacramento River
Hop Gardens
Are you an elder millennial or Gen Xer in Curtis Park? If so, chances are you’ve been to Hop Gardens, Jeannine, Matt and Pete Hawkins’ popular restaurant and taproom hangout that opened in 2018 on Franklin Boulevard.
A street-side patio and industrial indoor space give way to Hop Gardens’ 3,000-square foot outdoor back area, where TVs air basketball games and a mural displays a pint-holding slice of pizza smashing through a wall a la Kool-Aid Man. Pizza is indeed the focus on Hop Gardens’ food menu, 12-inch Neapolitan pies fired in a wood-burning oven to accompany a beer list that mostly sources from outside the region.
The Uncle Pete pizza ($23, though all pizzas are two for $30 on Tuesdays) is a meat lover’s pie that’s easy to love. Meatball crumbles, pepperoni, salami, mortadella and bacon pile onto mozzarella and Los Gatos-based DiNapoli tomato sauce atop a thin crust that’s charred on the bottom and flops toward the center.
The seedy citrus salad ($13) is better than what you’d find at a typical pizza parlor. Frilly red leaf and Romaine lettuces support sweet mandarin slices, salty feta and the crunch of toasted almonds and pumpkin seeds, crafting a nicely balanced salad aside from a heavy pour of poppy seed dressing (I’d get it on the side and apply my own next time).
Fully loaded potato wedges ($16, add bacon, chicken or steak for another $3-$5) were a delightfully heavy appetizer on a cold November night, streaked with chipotle aioli and cilantro crema with enough cheddar to form a skirt around the exterior. If I was coming to Hop Gardens for a game, a beer and a bite, this would be my order.
Address: 2904 Franklin Blvd., Sacramento
Hours: 4-9 p.m. Monday-Thursday; 2-10 p.m. Friday; noon-10 p.m. Saturday; noon-9 p.m. Sunday
Phone: 916-476-3889
Website: thehopgardens.com
Drinks: Twenty-four taps pouring mostly beer from around the United States, plus cider and seltzers, and lots of cans in a fridge. Wine and soda also available.
Vegetarian options: Several pizzas, some spruced up with white truffle oil or chile agave nectar. All can be served with vegan cheese or cauliflower crust.
Noise level: Loud inside, a bit quieter outside
Outdoor seating: Small patio in front, large one in back
This story was originally published November 30, 2024 at 5:00 AM.