Now that’s Italian ChiCken ParmeSan, SamPino’S The first time you walk through the door into Sampino’s on F and 16th streets, your head will spin. One minute, you’re in the parking lot of a modest Midtown shopping center, the next you’re in a cozy cellar dining room in Old Brooklyn. On my first visit, my lunch companion, who grew up in that borough when the Italian-to-hipster ratio was off the charts, ordered the chicken Parmesan, and because he is a regular (and his last name ends with a vowel) I followed suit. This is a hearty, spicy, cheesy, almost overwhelming experience. It is also, surprisingly, a bit chewy—and apparently I like chewy chicken Parm. I’ve since learned that Michael Sampino’s marinara is famous, as it ought to be. At $7.99, this meal is a steal.
—alex Gilrane Farro and beet salad. Photo by rebecca huval
Playful risks at Recess by RebeCCa Huval
Recess Cafe 1102 Q Street, (916) 389-0121 Good for: a quick, nutritious bite for early breakfast or lunch—only on weekdays!
Notable dishes: teacher’s Pet, farro and beet salad, chia pudding
$$$
California cuisine, downtown
Sacramento still has a workaday downtown. Restaurants often close for the weekend and target state workers who just want a breezy lunch that’s a step above a BLT in a Ziploc bag. In March, Recess Cafe entered this fray with a whimsical sensibility for such a utilitarian walk-up counter. Joe Mayo and Ross Dreizler opened the eatery “to serve creative and healthy food for busy working folks,” according to their website. Their restaurant offers breakfast and lunch inside the lobby of the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office. Dreizler formerly worked as the chef behind Sapporo Grill Steak House at the Firestone Building, where he crafted funky rolls and lettuce wraps. Now, he’s applying that playfulness to lighter meals. Week by week, Recess Cafe’s menu seems to gather new items as if it were collecting the ready-made meal section of the Sacramento Natural Foods Co-Op. The California lunch cuisine is lovingly plated inside readyto-go Tupperware, but features more flourishes than its containers might suggest. Breakfast options include a hefty breakfast burrito and egg sandwiches as well as fruit cups and chia pudding. Sandwiches skew toward the green side, with a rare sighting: a purely vegetarian sandwich with avocado and aioli. Nutritious food at a reasonable price ($4-$9) should be enough of a draw, but the patio out front makes this a real 24
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recess. For the office worker, a dining table underneath leafy trees makes this a breather from cubicle life. The food quality? Like many a lunch, it’s a mixed bag. Let’s start with the good. The farro and beet salad ($3.95 for small) tastes inspired for something so tiny. Lemon crème fraiche added a whisper of sourness to beets that gushed with beet-sugar. Nutty, chewy bits of farro broke up the red vegetable medley, while arugula added a welcome zap of bitterness. Oh, and that vegetarian sandwich? I didn’t understand how vegetables between two slices of bread could taste so crave-worthy. The Teacher’s Pet ($7.50) is more than the sum of its parts, which include creamy avocado and swiss cheese, heightened with saltiness and sourness from the pickled red onions and kalamata olives. Red pepper aioli pulls it together with a fatty base. But I was disappointed by the School House Special ($7.50). Several small tiles of smoked salmon were randomly scattered about an open-faced sandwich of cream cheese on sliced bread—the lovechild of a New York bagel and an Australian avocado toast. The ingredients were all fresh, including cucumbers and pickled onions. It was only the presentation that made little sense. The bagel-toast Frankenstein was topped off with a cluster of three razorthin lemon slices, and I wasn’t sure if I should eat them or squeeze them. (I ate them whole and sourly regretted it.) I was pulled back in by the chia pudding ($4.95). Sweetened with maple syrup and layered with yogurt, the little bursts of almond milk-soaked seeds were wonderful with their toppings of strawberries and blueberries. To be playful is to gamble on experiments that could fall flat. Recess Cafe admirably aims to entertain the palates of the downtown crowd with more than just the ordinary. I’d say it’s worth the risk. Ω
Majorly crisp Sonoma CoaSt Chardonnay from Sean minor WineS The temperature crept toward 100 degrees on a recent summer day. A beer seemed too heavy and a cocktail too complicated. Instead I reached for the wine list and asked for something I rarely order: a chardonnay. When it comes to whites, I like them dry as the desert, and this one, the Sonoma Coast Chardonnay ($22 per bottle) from the Sonoma-based Sean Minor winery, didn’t disappoint. It’s buttery, yes, but with its notes of apple and pear, as well as a bit of pineapple, cardamom and cinnamon, it also exhibits a strikingly crisp mineral summer-ready finish that’s refreshing whatever the weather. Seanminorwines.com.
—raChel leibroCk
The V WoRd
Sumac in your burger The two most common vegan menu items in the nonvegan world arguably are veggie burgers and hummus. Now that it is mid-June, aka the Great Sacramento Vegan Burger Battle month, those of us who are halfway through eating at the 30-plus battling eateries (search for “sacveganchefchallenge” on Facebook) may be experiencing burger burnout. So how about a hummus palate cleanser? Because the hummus at Sactown Kabob (2440 Fulton Avenue, Suite 1) tastes like we’ve been doing hummus wrong our whole lives. Sactown achieves the perfect viscosity and balance of chickpeas, tahini, lemon and garlic, then sprinkles sumac on it. A genius move for this Persian restaurant, even though hummus isn’t Persian— it’s Mediterranean. Seeing hummus on a plate next to saffron-infused rice and kabob is like seeing tacos with a side of cornbread. But who cares, because their version is excellent, elevated with the tart, underutilized and underrated sumac. Chefs, have you considered sumac in your burgers? It would be amazing.
—Shoka