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

Pho and other Vietnamese soups in south Sacramento. Northern Thai dishes with some U.S. touches at a Placer County favorite. Forward-thinking California cuisine at a downtown relic with no shortage of history.

These were the best meals that I, The Sacramento Bee’s food and drink writer, ate throughout December 2024.

Each review was first published in my free weekly newsletter on Sacramento-area food and drink happenings. To sign up, visit https://www.sacbee.com/newsletters?newsletter=sacramento_food_drink_newsletter.

Auburn Thai Garden Restaurant

It’s rare to see a classic Thai restaurant with as deep and international a beer list as Auburn Thai Garden Restaurant. That’s a testament to owner/operator Nu Boonkham, who also co-owns Rocklin’s tremendous Moksa Brewing Co. and offshoot restaurant Moksa Barrel House in Roseville.

Boonkham was born in a small town in northern Thailand and learned to cook from his mom’s former boss at long-closed Citrus Heights restaurant Bangkok Thai Cuisine, a woman they lovingly called Grandma Yupa. His Auburn restaurant takes pains to capture Thai food’s rich flavors, albeit with a few personal influences.

Take the yellow curry with gnocchi ($13), an unusual combination that also includes the more standard sliced chicken breast, carrots and onions. Boonkham’s parents each worked two or three jobs when he was a kid, and a fancy dinner out meant Olive Garden, where he fell in love with gnocchi. This dish combines two childhood flavors: the coconut curry he enjoyed at home, and the light potato dumplings signifying a special occasion. Note: Garlic butter mushrooms ($12) have a similar backstory.

Roasted duck noodle soup (MP) is more traditional through-and-through, and arguably the house’s best dish. Eric Vong, a fried of Boonkham’s who works at Vinh Phat Supermarket in south Sacramento, roasts ducks that swim with caramelized garlic, bean sprouts, scallions and fresh rice vermicelli (Chhun’s Supermarket, also in south Sacramento) in a terrific five-spice broth.

Auburn Thai Garden offers a standard pad Thai ($10-$15 depending on protein) as well as pad Thai chaiya ($13), a South Thailand variation that uses glass noodles in lieu of rice noodles. The tiger prawns, chicken, tofu, eggs and accompanying ingredients are tossed in a housemade tamarind sauce in both stir-fries: a more typical pad Thai chaiya would use coconut and curry paste, which Auburn Thai Garden can also do if customers call ahead.

Address: 175 Palm Ave., Auburn

Hours: 11:30 a.m.-3 p.m. and 4:30-9 p.m. Monday-Friday; noon-9 p.m. Saturday; closed Sunday

Phone: 530-887-8696

Website: auburnthai.com

Drinks: A wealth of American craft beers and European imports available for as little as $5 a pint, along with locally-produced wines and an array of soft drinks.

Vegetarian options: Most dishes are or can be made meatless

Noise level: Relatively quiet

Outdoor seating: None

The 7th Street Standard

Downtown Sacramento’s history meets modern California dining at the 7th Street Standard, opened in late 2021 beneath the 11-story Hyatt Centric Hotel a few steps from Golden 1 Center. It’s become a choice brunch spot in the years since and an upscale dinner destination, albeit one where half the diners might be in Kings jerseys (wearing team gear on game nights knocks 20% off your food bill).

The Hyatt Centric stands at the corner of 7th and L streets, where the Hotel Clayton originally opened in 1911 before giving way to the Hotel Marshall in the 1930s. The sixth-story Clayton Club rooftop bar, open evenings Wednesday through Saturday, pays homage to the space’s original name. Jazz stars including Billie Holiday and Louis Armstrong famously played at the Hotel Marshall, and their posters from that time decorate The 7th Street Standard’s walls.

Chef Ravin Patel grew up in South Natomas after his parents immigrated from the Indian state Gujarat, and occasionally folds South Asian flavors into the 7th Street Standard’s fare. A lobby Christmas tree and hot cocktails give the restaurant some holiday cheer, as do latke-like poblano-onion pakoras ($12).

The cut pepper and onions are marinated in salt and Madras-style curry powder, tossed in chickpea flour and fried to order, five crispy fritters plated over cumin-mint-cilantro yogurt and finished with a tamarind reduction and cilantro microgreens from GourmetnGreens in Old Foothill Farms.

Holiday eating tends to be heavy, making heart-healthy dishes such as the 7th Street Standard’s grain salad ($15) particularly welcome. The wintery bowl of quinoa and wild rice gets dressed up with copious curly kale, pickled fennel, dried cranberries and roasted cauliflower and butternut squash, then finished with sherry-maple vinaigrette, sunflower and pumpkin seeds and fried sage. It’s sweetness in one bite, acid in the next and umami in the third, a balancing act you can feel good about while eating.

When I asked chef de cuisine and Tower Bridge Dinner chef Pedro DePina what people ought to order at the 7th Street Standard, the first thing he said was chicken and dumplings ($37). A menu staple since Day 1, it features a sous vide airline Mary’s Chicken breast that’s seared and butter-basted in a cast iron skillet and served aside roasted Thumbelina carrots, peppery gravy and a pair of airy, plump cheddar-chive drop biscuits.

Address: 1122 7th St., Sacramento

Hours: 7-9 p.m. daily

Phone: 916-898-1100

Website: the7thstreetstandard.com

Drinks: Full bar with long wine list and shorter but top-notch list of cocktails and mocktails

Vegetarian options: No current entrees but smaller items such as squash soup, Caesar salad and housemade hummus with roasted vegetables, chili crunch and pita chips.

Noise level: Pretty quiet in the dining room, louder at the bar

Outdoor seating: None

Pho Ru

Soup season is officially upon us. For me, that always means trips to cozy south Sacramento pho dens such as Pho Ru, the latter word translating to “cradle” or “lullaby” in Vietnamese.

Seven-foot-tall faux noodles greet customers as they walk into the Southpointe Plaza restaurant on Mack Road, owned by Lynn and Patrick Nguyen. Lynn lived in Vietnam before immigrating to the U.S. in the mid-1990s, running a San Fernando Valley restaurant called Song Phat for 11 years and moving to the capital region to open Pho Ru, where Patrick is the chef, in 2015.

Pho Ru offers 11 types of lemongrassy pho ($11.75-$14.75 for a medium bowl, $2 extra for a large) stocked with tendon, well-done brisket and rare filet mignon. Yet my favorite bowl was the mi hoanh thanh sup sate ($13.75), a clear broth spiced with the Vietnamese chili oil sate and filled with shrimp, fried garlic, pork wontons and the customer’s choice of egg or rice noodles.

Wok-tossed clams with shrimp chips ($11.80) are a simple and easy-to-like appetizer, one you might pull together at home with a few pantry basics. Shelled clams shine through a sea of water chestnuts, Thai basil and onions. The plate is topped with sesame seeds, ready to be scooped by airy, crunchy cups of shrimp-flavored fried tapioca starch.

Pho Ru may be Sacramento’s only Vietnamese restaurant to whip up bobo butter crunchy beef ($15). Strips of meat are dyed ruby red by a fish sauce/chili marinade that’s two parts sweet and one part spicy, then pan-fried and served with do chua (pickled daikon and carrots) over rice.

Address: 6115 Mack Road, Sacramento

Hours: 10 a.m.-8:30 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday; closed Monday

Phone: 916-476-3754

Website: phorurestaurants.com

Drinks: Smoothies, Vietnamese coffee, juices and sodas

Vegetarian options: Egg rolls and pandan caramel flan, but that’s it. A couple of cabbage salads can be prepared without chicken or shrimp.

Noise level: Quiet

Outdoor seating: None

Tomato Alley Free House

Tomato Alley Free House is a charming neighborhood beer-and-bites hangout, open since 2019 in Richmond Grove. The pint-sized joint between T and U streets is usually filled with regulars on stools yammering over rock music, surrounded by neon signs and faux windows showing scenes of Sacramento.

While the British term “free house” merely refers to independent pubs that sell beers from multiple breweries, it feels like an apt descriptor for Steve Senn’s freewheeling, homey bar and grill. Three-dollar happy hour sake bombs flow from 5 to 7 p.m. weekdays at the watering hole, but Tomato Alley’s board games and warm welcomes make it easy to settle in.

Tomato Alley exists as a social place for drinks and smaller casual eats — namely, hot dogs. There’s the Chicago dog with its electric green relish, a banh mi dog bearing the Vietnamese sandwich’s acid and heat plus Sriracha mayonnaise, a downtown dog (all $9.50) topped with bacon, grilled onions and jalapeños.

All use the same skinny, squeaky beef wieners, which can be substituted for a plant-based Lightlife Smart Dogs, between housemade buns. The chimichurri dog ($9.50) is the lone exception, deploying a fat, smoky hot link from Sacramento-based Burgess Brothers alongside pickled onions with a thin spread of the Argentinian green sauce over the top.

The roasted pork belly bao trio ($13) are a fun, shareable option outside of the glizzy realm. Three steamed buns are folded like tortillas, brushed with hoisin sauce and a tingly Sriracha-based spread, then filled with frilly scallions and slabs of pork.

Address: 2020 16th St., Suite A, Sacramento

Hours: 5-9 p.m. Monday; 5-10 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Sunday; 5-11 p.m. Thursday-Saturday

Phone: 916-228-4880

Website: tomatoalley.com

Drinks: Six taps and a long list of canned beers, with an emphasis on sours. Wine, kombucha, cider, seltzers, soju and sake also available, along with a decent crop of non-alcoholic beverages.

Vegetarian options: Veggie dogs can be substituted upon request. Grilled cheeses with kimchi or tomato soup are also available, as are sun-dried tomato/mozzarella panini.

Noise level: Loud

Outdoor seating: Small patio with heaters