Husband-wife restaurateurs-chefs Randall Selland and Nancy Zimmer recently opened another fine place to eat, this one in the El Dorado Town Center. It's named and modeled after the popular Selland's Market-Café in East Sacramento.
We dropped in Tuesday night and found the place slammed and joyfully noisy, like a party with endless wine. The revelers were in attendance partly for the Selland Group's well-deserved reputation for serving really good food.
But let's add the joke: If you open an envelope in the El Dorado Hills-Folsom area - much less a restaurant - crowds will form. Remember that local foodies actually camped overnight in the parking lot at the Palladio center in Folsom so they could rush the new Whole Foods store on opening morning, Oct. 26.
Anyway, the new Selland's Market-Cafe occupies a 4,200-square-foot corner space in the New Orleans Building. It's spacious and well-designed. Is that a real stamped-tin ceiling? Various sizes of wood tables fill the dining hall, competing for space with shelves of packaged merchandise - jams, jellies, horseradish cream sauce, key lime curd, crackers, sauces, flavored olive oils, wine and the like.
The cooks in the open kitchen keep the display cases of hot and cold foods filled with top-quality dishes, including shredded beef brisket, pork carnitas, pork roast, meatloaf and many salads. The astute staff was particularly helpful.
We ordered chicken breast with light gravy and sauteed mushrooms ($7.95), panko-crusted salmon with soy-citrus glaze ($8.95), a side of Asian noodle salad with carrot, bell pepper, scallion, peanuts and spicy sesame dressing, and an apple croustade - pie crust hand-formed into a disc and filled with sauteed apple and cinnamon ($4.95). What's that saying? It's all good.
Selland's Market-Cafe is at 4370 Town Center Blvd., El Dorado Hills; (916) 932-5025. Also: 5340 H St., Sacramento; (916) 736-3333. More information: www.sellands.com and www.thesellandgroup.com.
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