Appetizers

Here's some exciting news for the downtown restaurant scene: it keeps getting better. Now, there is a new entry coming into the mix, a promising place called Blackbird Kitchen & Bar.

For months, foodies have been keeping their eye on this nicely transformed building with the blackbird mural on 9th near J (right across from Temple Coffee), but restaurants almost never open on time (check out the coming in Feb. 2012 banner in the window of the still-working-on-it Firestone Public House at 16th and L). Check out Blackbird on Facebook.

I called Blackbird on Monday and got a recording, which stated the restaurant will be officially open Wednesday from 4-10 p.m., dinners only to start. The menu will be limited at first. I'm told Blackbird had a family-and-friends soft opening over the weekend to work out the kinks.

These folks look serious about being a significant player in the casual/fine dining category. We'll be stopping in soon for a look. Expect to see Blackbird in an upcoming "First Impressions" piece in The Bee.

I wish them well.

How many Sacramento chefs can you identify? Well, there's an impressive collection of photos on Facebook that will help put a face with the name -- and, perhaps, their food. Check them out here

Since I don't want to spoil it, here's a hint on the photo above: it's the new executive chef at one of the city's most elegant restaurants..

The photos are the work of Debbie Cunningham, a state employee who has become increasingly passionate about photography and manages to squeeze in assignments during her off hours.. She has routinely photographed special food-related events and has been invited to shoot candid behind-the-scenes action in some of the city's top kitchens.

Insight on Capital Public Radio recently took a look at the the Sacramento restaurant scene, interviewing Pajo Bruich, executive chef at Lounge ON20, and a member of a new group that aims to get Sacramento a higher profile on the statewide and national culinary scene. It's called Sactown Dining Collective.

Conducting the interview, in dulcet tones, I might add, is Rick Kushman, a lover of food and wine, and a former colleague we miss at The Bee.

Listen to the interview here. Bruich makes several excellent points and raises the ongoing questions many of us are asking: What's it going to take to enhance the city's reputation for restaurants. Do we have to do more? Or say more?

For more on the Sactown Dining Collective, go to the group's Facebook page.
If you want to read more about Bruich and company at Lounge ON20, check out what I said after their Valentine's dinner extravaganza by clicking here.

Blair Anthony Robertson is The Bee's restaurant critic. Follow him on Twitter, @blarob.

Magpie Café, which has quickly established itself as one of the city's consistently great dining experiences, will celebrate three years in business this weekend.

Anyone familiar with the restaurant world knows that getting that far means overcoming all kinds of hurdles - several of which can doom a restaurant sooner than later. We're talking about concept, staffing, the physical space, the lease, the menu, the food costs, and all the intangibles that happen behind the scenes.

Then, if you're good, you start to build a clientele. Magpie has gone way beyond that. It is now one of those foundational restaurants in Sacramento. It has helped redefine the city's restaurant landscape, has taught its legions of fans about clean, honest flavors and excellent technique, and it continues to showcase great food morning, noon and night.

One sign of a great restaurant is how impactful its food is. I can sincerely remember nearly everything I have eaten at Magpie during my dozens of visits - precisely where I was seated the first time I smelled the gnocchi with duck, how I felt when I tasted the rib eye steak with pan sauce, the iconic chicken for two, the risotto with duck egg, the breakfast sandwich, the simple salad with chicken and beautiful watermelon radishes, the trout sandwich, the pork five ways (pictured), the carrot cake cookie, the seared ahi with runner bean ragout, the crab Louie, all the soups. On and on. This is just off the top of my head.

>

Many folks tied to the Sacramento food scene have maintained a long-running, often appropriate and sometimes misguided discussion about the quality of the area's restaurants. Often, the discussion focuses on the lack of inspired, inventive and edgy meals (the definition of edgy is subjective and elastic, ranging from keeping the bones in the chicken breast all the way to, say, serving all those "gross" parts of animals, as well as vegetables you've never seen before).

The discussion and debate revolve around wooing customers without turning others off, food costs, and all kinds of other factors...like staying in business during a dreadful and persistent recession. In these times, is it best to play it safe or fire up the edgy ideas and invite people to be more adventurous eaters?

When I saw the rather stunning menu for an upcoming wine dinner at Maranello in Fair Oaks, I had hope. It would certainly be considered a highly adventurous - and possibly high-risk -- meal in Sacramento. We're talking veal carpaccio and lamb belly wrapped in lamb sweetbreads. Now that's edgy. It made me think of the kind of thing Mark Liberman is doing at AQ in San Francisco.

So I gave executive chef Gabriel Glasier a call and asked him to walk me through the menu, complete with his thoughts.

As noted in this space several weeks ago, Meadowood in St. Helena is a world-class restaurant that didn't stop trying to be great when it was awarded three Michelin stars. The restaurant closed this winter for several weeks to dramatically retool the kitchen, tweak the décor in the dining room and rethink its purpose moving forward.

Part of that thinking is off to a rocky start, inviting such labels as "elitist," "self-important" and "ostentatious." I'm referring to the $500 per person tasting menu that runs to 20 courses, includes exclusive seating at the "chef's counter" in the kitchen, and if you want wine pairings, it will set you back another $350 or so. Even if you're one of those heartless 1-percenters and you stiff the waiter, you're still looking at around $1,000 for a meal that, from the looks of it, will either thrill you or overwhelm your taste buds. An on-call priest to give last rites is an additional $350, not including tip (OK, I made that up). Locally, by comparison, I believe the priciest meal is the $125 prix fixe at The Kitchen Restaurant, followed by Ambience..

With visions of brioche and buttery croissants, the line snaked down Washington St. in Yountville on a recent morning. The message was clear: Bouchon Bakery (6528 Washington St., Yountville; 707-944-2253), the heart of Thomas Keller's baking operations, had finally re-opened. Bouchon Bakery creates the baked goods for the French Laundry, Ad Hoc and Bouchon Bistro, along with running its retail shop that doubles as a popular foodie destination. Bouchon Bakery's retail space had been closed a month for remodeling. The bakery itself also required an overhaul following a September fire which reportedly started above the bread oven.

The remodeled bakery features a new, two-door entrance and added cash register that ideally allows for a smoother flow of traffic. The bakery itself, which goes through some 1,200 pounds of dough a day, has also increased its cooking capacity. Its new steam tube deck oven is capable of baking 120 baguettes at a time, which are sent to Keller's restaurant operations and other eateries around Yountville.

"As business increased, we'd outgrown the space," said Matt McDonald, Bouchon Bakery's head baker. "This space was built out to do more volume. It's a non-stop, 24/7 operation."

So many good spots for brunch, so little time. For the next few weeks, I will be searching high and low as we prepare a list of the best brunch restaurants in the Sacramento area.

If you have a favorite, please let us know. Shoot me an email or make a comment below. It can be a fancy special-occasion spot or a little hole-in-the-wall. Doesn't matter. We just want good food and a great brunch experience.

If you want an example of a place that knows how to make brunch, check out the photo above of the smoked salmon omelet with fire-roasted red pepper sauce I had recently at Maranello in Fair Oak. It was a thing of beauty -- cooked perfectly, without even a hint of browning -- and the flavors were intense and satisfying. Kudos to executive chef Gabriel Glasier and his kitchen staff. This kind of cooking demonstrates good technique and great attention to detail.

And I'm on the lookout for more great food like this.

Blair Anthony Robertson is The Bee's restaurant critic. Follow him on Twitter, @blarob.

Many fans of the cooking and warm, friendly environment at Bistro La Petite France in Granite Bay have been upset to learn that their beloved restaurant has closed, albeit not for good.

But because of a issues regarding the lease, the husband-and-wife team of Christophe and Claudine Erhart were compelled to close the bistro and find a new location. By the first week in April or thereabouts - after plenty of heavy lifting, scrubbing and painting - the couple expect to reopen in Historic Old Folsom.

Explains Christophe: "We had been trying to renogiate the lease with our landlord. It just wasn't going anywhere. In order to continue to do what we wanted to do, it was just too difficult. Claudine and I are really hurt. We loved that place. This created a whole brouhaha in Granite Bay. Granite Bay is not happy about us leaving. We had people with tears in their eyes when we told them.

"We're turning away 12-15 reservations a day because people don't know we're closed."

Two of the best gourmet hamburgers on planet earth can both be found on J Street within a couple of blocks of one another in East Sacramento.

But life at the top isn't all it's cracked up to be. In fact, there's burger-centric controversy simmering at both restaurants - Juno's Kitchen and Delicatessen and Formoli's Bistro.

This isn't about a rivalry. Each "controversy" stands on its own, the only connection being the excellence of the burgers and the sometimes negative reaction from customers.

Let me explain, beginning with Juno's.

When I reviewed Lounge ON20 several months ago, I named its charcuterie plate as the best dish I had encountered in the past year. So, what happened since then? I stopped in at Lounge ON20 recently with that question in mind, wondering what the kitchen was doing with its already stellar charcuterie plate. The answer: to remain the best, you have to keep pushing forward.

That's what chef de cuisine Mike Ward is doing. We were already elated by his earlier charcuterie offerings, and this new one is superb, too. Take a look at the artistry and execution. As for flavors, there was so much going on here, such a lively and dynamic offering of tastes, colors, textures, surprises.

See if you can identify some of the following on the plate (click on the photo to make it larger):

• Duck prosciutto sprinkled with Jurassic salt
• Fermented black garlic puree
• Pickled red beet puree
• Pickled quail eggs
• Yellow romesco puree
• Cornichons
• Pickled ground cherries
• Virginia ham jowls
• Two kinds of mustard: minced chile mustard and traditional whole grain mustard
• Pickled shimeji mushrooms
• Burnt caramel gastrique
• Corned beef tongue with , next to dots of burnt eggplant (really sweet and caramel)
• Chorizo pate with Fresno chile gel
• Pickled cherries

Congratulations to Ward, executive chef Pajo Bruich and the rest of the hard-working crew at Lounge ON20. This kind of attitude is what helps inspire and challenge other chefs, resulting in more enterprising work and elevating our overall dining scene in the Sacramento region.

Blair Anthony Robertson is The Bee's restaurant critic. Follow him on Twitter, @blarob.

Several of our best restaurants are doing special foie gras dinners as the deadline for foie gras prohibition draws closer.

This March 29 dinner at Hawks, at $120 per person, looks amazing. This is not the time to address the issue of foie gras. We'll do that another time. What's noteworthy is the creative approaches the kitchen is taking for getting foie gras into every course, including dessert.

I tried to get a reservation, but it's all booked up. I guess I need better connections! Nevertheless, congratulations to Hawks on the sold-out dinner and the overall excellence of the dining experience here.

Blair Anthony Robertson is The Bee's restaurant critic. Follow him on Twitter, @blarob.

I am looking at a photograph published in the Wall Street Journal showing one of the greatest chef's of our generation. Grant Achatz's restaurant in Chicago, Alinea, was awarded three Michelin stars and it has been listed by some as the best restaurant in the United States, and by others as one of the best restaurants in the world (how anyone can know these things without actually visiting all of the contenders within days of one another is a topic for another time).

Achatz is slim. His shirt is untucked. But my eyes looking over his shoulder. Yikes! He has a microwave! And it's white! And it's over his range! It's one of those gawd-awful microwaves that doubles as an exhaust hood - the kind that we used to have, the one that couldn't exhaust anything to save its life. The range and oven are also white. I rubbed my eyes. Refocused. Still white.

For the past decade or so, whether it was on one HGTV show after another or in magazines dealing with style and design like "Dwell," we have been led to believe that anything but stainless steel appliances are the kitchen equivalent of a fashion faux pas. We were supposed to make our kitchens look more commercial, more rugged. Watch HGTV. "Househunters," for instance. The first thing folks say when they walk through and encounter white or black appliances is, "Oh, we'll have to upgrade those." There is a slight and recent trend to offer other appliance options, like hiding them behind cabinetry.

The accolades and opportunities continue to pile up for Pajo Bruich, the talented executive chef at Lounge ON20 in midtown.

Hot off a Valentine's dinner that won raves, Bruich has been recruited to show off his modernist cuisine at a special event in Napa Valley this spring.

Bruich is slated to be a featured guest chef at one of the private estate dinners for this year's Napa Valley Wine Auction. It's a who's who of the food and wine folks in the Napa Valley, and it is quite an honor for Bruich to be invited, especially when you scan your eyes down the list of other chefs involved: Thomas Keller, Christopher Kostow, Cindy Pawlcyn and Gary Danko, among others.

In the restaurant business, Valentine's Day is known as "amateur night." It's the night when a lot of folks new to fine dining go out looking for a little romance, some good food and a pleasant experience. Sure, they might fumble the ball on occasion, like ordering a Diet Coke with sweetbreads, tipping $3 on a $100 ticket because that's all the cash they had left, or leaving behind their doggie bag like half of restaurant diners always seem to do.

But Valentine's is also a valuable night for restaurants. Not only is it an immediate way to take in revenue, it's a big chance to win new and perhaps longtime customers. Those rubes drinking ice water with their meal? They may one day grow up to be true epicures and wine lovers.

Along those lines, I wondered which restaurant really got this. Many restaurants embrace Valentine's Day, but I haven't seen one do it any better than Lounge ON20.

Executive chef Pajo Bruich's concept and execution we're brilliant. He came up with a menu that had wit and charm, as well as creative cooking with his now-signature modernist style.

The 6-course prix fixe menu concept was a tour de force. The amuse bouche, for instance, was given the title "Blind date;" the soup was called "Spooning;" the charcuterie was titled "It's complicated;" followed by "the Break-up": hamachi tartare for her and lamb tartare for him; followed by "the Make-up," beautiful grass-fed rib eye; the dessert was a dark chocolate cremeux with peanut butter ice cream dubbed "the perfect match."

Just look at some of the photos here (credit: Donahue Photography), including the dazzling charcuterie plate (above) created by chef de cuisine Mike Ward, the steak at the top, and the dessert below.

Valentine's Day may be amateur night at some restaurants, but it was nothing but smart and professional at Lounge ON20. It look like a tremendous culinary achievement and, more than likely, a way to win plenty of loyal customers well into the future. Below is a shot of the actual menu.

Blair Anthony Robertson is The Bee's restaurant critic. Follow him on Twitter, @blarob.

In recent years, it has become commonplace to include every farm and farmer on restaurant menus. This was initially greeted as a good idea -- it taught us to appreciate where our food was coming from and, in doing so, it brought new attention to farmers who were doing things the right way.

At some point, avid restaurant-goers began to see it as overkill. They were reading about farms and farmers and small towns in far-off lands they had never heard of, and they didn't know what to make of all the names. Some restaurants began dialing it back, mentioning the source only when it really seemed to matter.

The Porch, the new restaurant that opened on K Street in midtown recently (in the building occupied for years by Celestin's) has an excellent way of showcasing its ingredients without shoehorning them onto the menu. A link on the restaurant's website called "Providers" goes into great detail about the origins of the food. For those into this kind of thing, it's quite informative.

The sandwich bread, for instance, is as local as you can imagine -- they get it at Old Soul Bakery, which is a block or two away. The cornmeal comes from Grass Valley Grains, "a small one man farming operation on a fifth generation farm in Wheatland."

The Porch is one of the few restaurants around serving grits. The website tells us: "Our grits are from Ridgecut Gristmill in Chico and from War Eagle Mill in Rogers, Ark. Due to the demand of white hominy corn (used for masa), we can't always get our grits from Chico."

Check out the link and learn a little about The Porch and its products. It's good reading. Further, it shows that this new restaurant, still finding its footing, is already conscientious about sourcing and meticulous about dealing with responsible and ethical farms.

Blair Anthony Robertson is The Bee's restaurant critic. Follow him on Twitter, @Blarob.

I finally got hold of Timothy Newbold -- and no, it wasn't at the ICU.

Newbold, as you may recall, is the guy who wolfed down the double burger with bacon and cheese, along with the amazing "disco fries Ryan" at The Eatery. Just a fun little challenge for this West Sac restaurant.

Newbold not only rose to the challenge, he did it to make his brother proud and get the family name on the wall. The feat for all comers will now be known as the "Newbold Challenge."

Turns out, Newbold, 34, is a super nice guy, a stay-at-home dad who worked as an insurance broker for 10 years. He and his wife have four daughters.

He did the feat as sort of a last hurrah before going on a diet -- he wants to lose 140 pounds. Let's wish him well.

Tim was nice enough to answer a few questions I emailed him, but before we get to that, let me quickly address the topic of "gluttony," since I have been getting emails and voicemails about eating and overeating. This little challenge is just for fun. No one is putting a gun to anyone's head. Not only is the food of the highest quality, it is also priced reasonably. No one at The Eatery thinks a double burger and disco fries should be a part of anyone's daily diet.

Here's what Tim emailed me:

1. I took the challenge in response to the urging of my brother. He is amused by things bearing our names. Newbold is not a very common last name so its kind of novel I guess.

2. Honestly I have never done a challenge like this one and I was full after the burger was gone and I still had not touched the salad or Disco Fries Ryan. I just pushed forward. Seriously could have fed a small family with that much food.

3. I didn't eat for 30 hours after "the Challenge" I was not comfortable for the first few hours and by 10pm my blood sugar was 309...never that high before that I know of.

4. The food was awesome! I am kind of a burger junky, but only good burgers. This one destroys the field. I would say top three of those that I have tried, maybe number one (I will let you know next time when I have a chance to savor). Salad was made to order and SUPER fresh. What can I say about the fries...legendary.

5. As for the name thing...Awesome! That's why I did it. I really don't eat like that I have NEVER eaten that much food in my life. It was super fun. Thanks and Kudos to Jess and all of the staff at the Eatery!

Magpie Café puts out some of the best food in the city, night after night. If you go there, you can see the kitchen in action.

I recently heard Magpie was hiring. No, you won't be starting at the top if you land one of the jobs. Magpie is looking for cooks, not chefs.

Since the restaurant has been so well regarded for its quality food, I called co-owner and chef Ed Roehr to find out what kind of people he was hiring.

A couple of weeks earlier, I had read a piece about Rene Redzepi, the celebrated chef at Noma, the Copenhagen restaurant regarded by many as the greatest in the world. Redzepi was responding to a question about how an aspiring chef could be lucky enough to snag a non-paying job at Noma when he said: "We receive a truly humbling number of job applications [...] We don't necessarily look for the most impressive resume as, most of time, it's better to have someone who has cooked three-four years at a more modest restaurant rather than a chef who has hopped from one great kitchen to the other, only spending a year or less in each."

Not to compare Magpie to Noma, but I am interested in how quality places seek out and hire quality people. At the end of the day, it's the people who make or break a restaurant. Magpie put an ad on Craigslist looking for two or three line cooks.

Kudos to Sacramento Magazine and Mari Tzikas for the cover story in the current issue, "15 Great Nights Out."

Lots of good ideas and they show just how much there is to do in our thriving city. The piece even mentions a new place, The Eatery, in West Sacramento. Just so happens, my review of The Eatery is coming this Sunday in The Bee.

Read Tzikas' entire piece here.

Blair Anthony Robertson is The Bee's restaurant critic. Follow him on Twitter, @Blarob.

I didn't think much of it when I got the email from Meadowood, a restaurant in St. Helena that last year earned three Michelin stars. The notice said the restaurant would be closed for about 10 weeks beginning in January "to undergo an exciting renovation." Sure, it's a nice dining room but a little bit low-key, and it could use a splash of fresh color. Then I saw there will also be an extensive reworking of the kitchen to "allow for more space, better control of temperature, superior equipment and overall flow for service. The new kitchen will also include a Chef's Counter, which will seat up to 5 guests."

That's when I realized what I already suspected: Executive chef Christopher Kostow, though honored and humbled by all the recent praise of his food, wasn't satisfied with the greatness he has already achieved. If you've ever eaten at Meadowood, you can see the passion and inventiveness in Kostow's cooking. When I reviewed Meadowood more than a year ago, it was a Michelin 2-star restaurant, but it was pretty clear it was heading way, way up. I spoke extensively over the phone with Kostow, going over his thoughts on several dishes I had from the chef's tasting menu. I took note of Kostow's competitive fire, along with his humility. Months later, he was featured in "Art Culinaire," where he talked about creating dishes you won't find at any other restaurant. The very greatest dining experiences are like that. When we ate at Corton in New York City (in October), the chef's tasting menu contained course after course of food so unusual and edgy and complex that I took note of all the dishes I had neither seen nor tasted at any other restaurant. Chef Paul Liebrandt's mindset and ambition are similar to Kostow's. (Try to watch the documentary about Liebrandt if they re-run it on HBO; it's called "A Matter of Taste: Serving up Paul Liebrandt" and they follow his highs and lows for 10 years).

The recent Meadowood email directed me to click on a link to read Kostow's personal explanation for the temporary closure. It's an extraordinary example of what it takes to achieve excellence. Turns out, the temporary shutdown isn't solely about aesthetics in the dining room and functionality in the kitchen. It's about getting to the next level, even if there are no more Michelin stars to recognize that kind of achievement.

The chef says:

"The team and I continue to be humbled by the accolades and attention paid to The Restaurant since its inception.

I look forward to welcoming you back to The Restaurant.

The Restaurant at Meadowood will reopen March 12. It will be exciting -- and perhaps inspiring -- to see what the rethinking and retooling will bring us in the days that follow.

Blair Anthony Robertson is The Bee's restaurant critic. Follow him on Twitter, @Blarob.

I am a big fan of controversy. It's important, stimulating and essential. Controversy is often how we figure out who we are and where we stand. It's how we change our minds or reaffirm what we believe, whether we're talking about the Middle East, the presidential election or a plate of pasta. Reflection is a good thing, too. But there's a difference between controversy of the stimulating kind and controversy that takes an unfortunate turn - leading to insults, needlessly stirring up anger and, worst of all, missing the mark.

I am referring to Rick Mahan's reaction to my largely positive review of his restaurant, The Waterboy. I was quite surprised to hear about it. I thought I had been very generous in my praise, and my criticisms were largely quibbles. But based on the tone and the language of his reply on Facebook, I was left wondering: Did I write a restaurant review or call a foot fault on Serena Williams?

I wanted to clarify and correct a clumsy slip in Sunday's review, out of respect for Rick Mahan and the crew at The Waterboy, as well as our many eagle-eyed readers. In a short section about the dessert served at a special Thursday prix fixe dinner, I referred to carnaroli as a pasta rather than a rice. I apologize for getting it backwards.

To casual, non-foodie readers who happened to land here for something to read, that last paragraph must have sounded overly serious. Hey, I apologize for that, too!

As a writer, my obligations are many - to opine, to entertain, to inform --- but the most important fundamental is to be clear. Sometimes, the more you try - the more you stir and hone and fuss and fumble - the worse it gets. Throw in the whir and flurry of deadlines, one writer's effort to trim a line or two to fit the space and you end up calling rice pasta. I think.

It seems I have heard from every person who has ever made risotto, letting me know -- and gleefully chiding me -- that carnaroli is a rice. Thank you. I have that very rice in my pantry, purchased at Corti Brothers (if you're looking for it), and over the years I have made risotto that has ranged from dreadful to delicious.

Here's what I thought actually went down at The Waterboy that very pleasant Thursday evening. Toward the end of the meal, we chatted about dessert with our server, who informed us that they were using a plump Italian rice used for risotto. Every other course on the menu that night had a pasta component. During the give-and-take, our impression was that this rice was selected because it gave a pasta-like quality to the dessert. There was plenty of chatter, and it's possible we misunderstood our server's point, which may have been simply that the rice is Italian in origin. My minor - and it turns out clumsily realized quibble - was that the rice was just too firm for rice pudding (while our lasagna didn't seem firm enough). This was a small point and, in hindsight, wasn't really worth getting into.

For all those who felt CIA-superior for knowing your rice, you can thank me for the ego boost, especially on a chilly Monday morning. And for those who didn't notice and skimmed right over the error, let me reflect the spirit of my email in-box today: HOW COULD YOU POSSIBLY BE SO DUMB?

Kelly McCown, the chef who took the already popular Ella Dining Room & Bar to new heights, is leaving the elegant K Street restaurant for a new opportunity in wine country.

Outspoken and passionate about his craft, McCown was also known as something of a provocateur in the local restaurant game during the 2 ½ years he was in town. Online or in person, the chef tried to urge fellow chefs to think bigger and aim higher in order to elevate the city's dining scene beyond the "safe and secure cuisine" label that is sometimes all too fitting.

McCown, 44, will return to the site of the once-acclaimed (it earned a Michelin star) and now-shuttered Martini House in St. Helena. It was there, beginning in 2002 as chef de cuisine under executive chef and partner Todd Humphries, that McCown continued to expand his impressive repertoire. The new restaurant in that location has a working name of Goose & Gander, and the style of food is believed to be along the lines of a "gastro-pub," a term McCown doesn't necessarily like. He will be a partner in the new restaurant.

Last week, I wrote a story about the ongoing trend of eating out for dinner on Thanksgiving, how more and more restaurants are getting booked up for a holiday meal that was once a rock-solid, home-cooked tradition. Now, more than ever, folks are leaving the cooking and the serving to the pros.

We wanted to test this trend for ourselves -- and it went off without a hitch. We ate at the Pilothouse Restaurant on board the historic Delta King riverboat in Old Sacramento. It was a buffet-style dinner with a nice selection food and good cooking. What's more, the restaurant staff was excellent -- very friendly, attentive, and professional. I certainly appreciated that they were working on the holiday. I hope the many other patrons did, too -- and tipped accordingly.

We chose the Delta King because we were looking for something more intimate than the large hotel buffets we have experienced during previous Thanksgivings. Those hotels -- the Sheraton Grand and the Hyatt Regency downtown -- both have very good buffets. But they have become so popular that, even with reservations, there was plenty of waiting around before we actually got to our table. Last year, the Sheraton actually asked for our credit card before we were even shown to our table. There's something about paying and then standing around in a lobby for 35 minutes that rubbed us the wrong way.

Last Sunday, I wrote a little story about a holiday trend: more and more folks are going out to eat on Turkey Day. In that story, we provided a sampling of places serving Thanksgiving dinner, and I heard from plenty of restaurants the next day saying that they, too, will be open. The most noteworthy email was from an employee at Sam's Hof Brau who retired in 2009 after 40 years. So here's your reminder: Go to Sam's for good, honest food that won't break the bank.

I also heard from Evan's Kitchen in East Sac. They're already booked up, and people are practically pleading for a meal this Thursday. Here's what Laurette Elsberry writes about Evan's:

"Somehow, with all the bad things going on everywhere, people seem to be more upbeat this year about this special day. We have all time slots full, with a cancellation waiting list. One group of 4 was so disappointed that they couldn't get in that Evan is having them come in one half hour earlier than we planned to open so they could take a table that was not reserved until 3 - so they are coming in at 1:30."

I'm headed out for Thanksgiving, too. We booked our reservation about 10 days ago. Wish I could tell you where!

Some readers expressed concern about product sourcing in my "First Impressions" piece on Juno's Kitchen & Delicatessen. Specifically, in this farm-to-table, local-first restaurant town, they were not thrilled that chef Mark Helms uses beef from New Zealand. I may have raved about his burger, but some wondered why he didn't get his beef from around here.

It's an excellent question - and a tough one.

Before I address it, let's begin with a digression. Way back in 2004, The Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op went through a red meat controversy (the Co-op wanted to carry red meat, while opponents didn't want anything more, animal-wise, than seafood and chicken in the store). After much debate, the very ethical store opted to carry organic beef from Prather Ranch in Klamath Falls, Ore. It seems so long ago, because well-sourced beef is such a big-seller at the Co-op now - and so mainstream. Back then, I went to Prather Ranch to check out what it was all about and learn why it met the Co-op's very stringent guidelines. I note that it was a five-hour drive, one-way, which meant I passed a lot of other beef ranches large and small just getting there.

Now that Oliver Ridgeway has taken charge of the kitchen at the Citizen Hotel's Grange Restaurant downtown, I was curious about the so-called "national search" to fill the executive chef position after Michael Tuohy's departure.

Turns out, the Joie de Vivre Hotels, which owns the Citizen, spent plenty of time and money to find the right chef for the job. I had a lengthy chat recently with Morgan Plant, vice president of food and beverage for JdV, to get some of the details.

After Tuohy announced several months ago that he was leaving to pursue other opportunities (he landed, somewhat surprisingly, at Dean & Deluca in St. Helena, where I spotted him working behind the counter last weekend), Joie de Vivre decided to place detailed and extensive Craigslist ads in every major city in the country. They also used the website Hcareers.com, which specializes in the hospitality industry, as well as Starchef.com (Tuohy was once named a StarChef "rising star").

"We did a fair amount of incentivizing people we knew in the industry," Plant said. I think that means they asked around.

What do executive chefs make? That, of course, depends on the restaurant.

Here's the latest on Daniel Pont and Chez Daniel, his new restaurant in Folsom. If you missed my story a couple of days ago (it ran in the business section), the 72-year-old French chef is getting back in the professional kitchen, many months after selling his famed downtown lunch spot, La Bonne Soupe.

Pont called me at home (at 10:30 p.m.) Thursday and I could hear the excitement in his voice. After three months of work, including a month's worth of frustration with getting his fire alarm to pass muster with the Folsom Fire Department, the chef is ready and eager. I didn't mind the late hour. I was actually sipping a very nice glass of Cotes du Rhone, and I figured 10:30 to a Frenchman is like 7:30 to an American.

He said expects to be open Tuesday. But the man who became famous for his lunches will be open only for dinner, at least to start. Dinner will be served from 5-9 p.m.Tuesday to Saturday. The menu will feature food that is much more involved and sophisticated than the soups and sandwiches that won him such a devoted following downtown.

The phrase "exciting restaurant news" and "Natomas" don't often appear in the same place, and that's too bad. No, the land of franchise eateries has had little to cheer about in the way of dynamic, locally owned food choices.

But that just might be changing, thanks to a new venture that pairs two of this region's most creative and ambitious chefs - Aimel Formoli (Formoli's Bistro) and Billy Ngo (Kru, and the recently closed Red Lotus) - to bring a new food experience to Natomas. I admire the work of both chefs, so I'm anticipating big things -- and ready to fire up Google Earth to chart out a decent bike route from downtown so we can visit soon!

I chatted with Formoli last night about plans for Pork Belly Grub Shack, which is expected to open in about a week. It will be at 4261 Truxel Rd., Suite A.

Formoli tells me the new venture will be casual and affordable, but that doesn't mean they will be cutting corners with ingredients or skimping on creativity. The food will have a farm-to-table approach that emphasizes sustainable, quality products and the menu "will have a little bit of everything."

Formoli and Ngo have developed quite the culinary partnership in recent times, joining forces to host periodic beer-centric dinners that have won raves from those lucky enough to attend. While their main gigs won't be neglected, Formoli and Ngo plan to rotate in and out of the Grub Shack, which also will have a dedicated head cook of its own to hold down the fort.

The menu has yet to be revealed, but I understand it will feature fresh takes on burgers, sandwiches, tacos and more - featuring pork belly and several other meats. A banh mi sandwich? That too.

"We don't want to be pigeonholed," said Formoli, whose wife, Suzanne Ricci, is also involved in the project. She is well known to regulars at Formoli's Bistro.

We'll have more on Pork Belly Grub Shack after it opens. Until then, keep up with them by searching for them on Facebook and Twitter.

Zagat, the restaurant guidebook publisher known for its use-generated content, released its annual book on the best restaurants in the U.S., including several from the Sacramento area.

Among those scoring exceptionally high ratings for food - 29 out of 30 - are Ambience in Carmichael, Taste in Plymouth, and Mulvaney's and The Kitchen in Sacramento. Then there's the shocker, Sunflower Drive-in in Fair Oaks, a vegetarian restaurant that is apparently destined for the kind of cult status once reserved for La Bonne Soupe, whose popular owner, Daniel Pont, sold the small, beloved downtown cafe earlier this year. Under new ownership, La Bonne Soupe has struggled to find its footing and, once at the top of Zagat's list in the food category, is no longer included in the national guidebook.

That 29 rating, by the way, is the same as the French Laundry in Yountville and one point higher than Meadowwood in St. Helena, both of which have been awarded three Michelin stars and are considered world-class dining destinations.

Sunflower didn't do nearly as well in the "décor" category, scoring just nine out of 30. That's because it is a walk-up eatery in which you order at the window, often accompanied by one or more of the famous feral chickens that roam through the Fair Oaks village. Ella, by comparison, scored 27 for décor.

The book, 'Zagat: America's Top Restaurants," is 348 pages and costs $15.95.

Here's another food-related event for Saturday that features a great cause, great food and the makings of a spirited, high-caliber chefs challenge.

The event, organized by Betsy Hite of Elegant and Easy Gourmet Catering, is Saturday (Oct. 8) from 5-10 p.m. at Project R.I.D.E headquarters, 8840 Souuthside Ave., Elk Grove. Tickets for the unlimited tasting are $35 per person, with several other group ticket options available. For more information, visit the website here.

The chefs challenge includes quite a culinary line-up: Bret Bohlmann of Boulevard Bistro, David Hill of The Chef's Table, Ian MacBride of Lucca, Billy Ngo of Kru, Adam Pechal of Tuli and Thir13en, and Alwin Santiago of Clark's Corner. I have eaten at and enjoyed the food at every one of these restaurants, so I can only imagine the entries these talented chefs will put forth Saturday night.

After executive chef Michael Tuohy left Grange in May, there was plenty of speculation about what would become of the Citizen Hotel's highly regarded downtown restaurant. After less than three years in town, the personable Tuohy had developed a reputation as a force in the farm-to-table movement, showcasing the area's bounty on his menus and leading groups of foodies on frequent tours of the nearby farmers market. At the end of May, Tuohy moved on, perhaps surprisingly, to Dean & DeLuca in the Napa Valley.

Grange didn't rush the quest to land a replacement. After a national search and more than 100 applications from throughout the United States and internationally, Grange has hired Oliver Ridgeway, a British citizen. Classically trained in French cooking, Ridgeway's experience includes a stint as sous chef at The Carlyle, the renowned New York Hotel, and most recently, and as executive chef at at the Inn of the Anasazi in Santa Fe. His professional resume extends to restaurants in the U.S., Australia and the United Kingdom. He began working in the kitchen as a young boy in Horsham, England, where his father owned a restaurant.

"Chef Ridgeway is known for his passion for seasonal cuisine and a fresh modern approach to ingredients. Grange's dedication to the local farm-to-table platform remains unwavering, and Chef Ridgeway will shepherd Grange in a way that stays true to its original concept and vision while bringing a fresh energy to the restaurant," according to Lori Lincoln, director of public relations for Joie de Vivre Hotels, the Citizen's parent company.

It was startling -- but in a good way -- when the newly re-imagined restaurant at Lounge ON20 was cited by Gayot as one of the Top-10 restaurants in the U.S. featuring molecular gastronomy cooking techniques. Startling because the hot new restaurant's kitchen, headed by executive chef Pajo Bruich, is in some pretty amazing company. Alinea and WD-50 are ranked on another list -- S. Pellegrino's -- as two of the best 50 restaurants in the world. I ate at WD-50 (in New York City) last September, and the meal was a tour de force of creative cooking, including a deconstructed eggs Benedict I'll remember for years to come.

What's all the fuss about locally? Just check out the cheese and charcuterie plate at Lounge ON20 (pictured above). It's a thing of beauty, complete with plenty of avant garde and classical technique. I contacted Bruich after running across this photo (again, it was Facebook that got me!).

I contacted Bruich and asked him to tell me what we're looking at. He says the plate is available by special request for $20 and includes the following: pate de campagne cooked sous vide, guanciale lasso, lard, andouille sausage, porchetta stackers, winchester super aged Gouda, house made ricotta, fiscalini aged cheddar, crater lake blue cheese, chevre-fig cheesecake and a whole lot of house made extras! Everything done in house, all of it, the bread, jams sauces.... served with fleur de sel crackers by (pastry chef) Elaine (Baker)

Congratulations to the Lounge ON20 crew, including chef de cuisine Mike Ward, for the fine work on this plate and for the national recognition.

Note to self: I really shouldn't check out Magpie Cafe's Facebook page while I'm trying to work. My eyes locked onto the photo above and now I can't concentrate. I had a different version of Magpie's halibut several months ago and can highly recommend it. Maybe I'll have to rearrange my dinner plans for tonight so I can have some closure with this photo!

Mark Helms, the highly regarded chef who made Ravenous Café a destination for discriminating food lovers in the Pocket area, sold the restaurant a couple of months ago. But he wasn't sitting still or staying out of the kitchen.

What's Helms up to? We're about to find out as early as next Wednesday, when Helms promises to have his new enterprise up and running - in East Sacramento, just three blocks from his home. I spoke with Helms this morning and he told me he is putting the final touches on Juno's Kitchen & Delicatessen at 36th and J. The space is small and seating will be limited, so Helms says he will focus on takeout meals. If his track record is any indication, this won't be a run-of-the-mill deli.

Just as he did at Ravenous, Helms will combine top-notch ingredients with creative approaches to the cooking and presentation, with an overall emphasis on the kind of farm-to-table cuisine that showcases what's local, sustainable, and humane.

John Paul Khoury, the corporate chef for Preferred Meats, stopped by the house today to cook up some sausages and give me a chance to sample three products the company hopes to make available soon.

Known to chefs at some of the area's finer restaurants, Preferred is a boutique company that supplies top-shelf meat with an emphasis on sustainable agriculture. I have done several tastings with JP, most focusing on steak or pork, and find these sessions to be helpful. I try to keep up with the latest and best products out there, and I find that comparing different meat from various sources helps me appreciate the often subtle differences..

Now, Preferred is making its own sausage, with a proprietary blend of Berkshire and Duroc pork in a thin lamb casing. JP cooked up three kinds of sausage in my trusty cast iron pan: a breakfast sausage and two kinds of Italian -- mild and hot. In addition to this tasting, JP was making the rounds Friday to several restaurants.The sausage is not yet being sold, so he was simply looking for feedback from chefs. This is part of the business the public often doesn't get to see. Good chefs are constantly on the lookout for products new and great. The taste has to be there, and the price has to make sense. Then there's the all-important logistical component: can you get it to us whenever we need it? If the answer is no or maybe, a chef may pass on it.

After he does enough sausage tastings with chefs, taking notes along the way, JP may tweak the recipes slightly to arrive at a finished product that enough chefs will want to put on their menus.

The next stop for JP on Friday was to see Chef Pajo Bruich at Lounge ON20. I called Pajo later and asked for his impressions.

He said: "I appreciate what JP is doing getting input from myself and other chefs around town and it's nice to think we will have a hand in the finished product
I thought the sausage was very well made. From my perspective it seemed to be 100 percent about the quality of the meat they are putting into the sausage. The meat was fantastic."

Pajo and I agreed that, if anything, the overall flavor profile was straightforward and perhaps one-dimensional. But when you are using high-quality meat, the chef pointed out, you don't want it to be overshadowed by a plethora of seasonings.

I thought the quality of the sausage was very good, and especially I enjoyed the spicy heat of the breakfast sausage, which was seasoned with sage, garlic and chili flake. JP said some of the feedback from chefs was that there might be too much heat for a breakfast sausage. I could go either way on that, but I grew up putting Tobasco on my eggs, so I enjoy the heat.

In a matter of weeks, these sausages -- tweaked recipes or not, high heat or a version toned down a tad -- will likely land on several menus in the area,

The next tasting on JP's schedule Friday was with Chef Pajo Bruich at Lounge ON20. I called Pajo later to get his impressions.

"I appreciate what JP is doing getting input from myself and other chefs around town and it's great to think we will have a hand in the finished product.
I thought the sausage was very well made. From my perspective it seemed to be 100 percent about the quality of the meat they are putting into the sausage. The meat was fantastic."

He said:Pajo and I differed a little on the seasonings -- he thought the Italian sausage needed more coriander and fennel, while I could have been happier with a bit less. But we agreed that, if anything, the overall flavor profile was straightforward, even one-dimensional. But when you are using high quality meat, the chef noted, you don't want it to be overshadowed by a plethora of seasonings.

If you're a fan of Sampino's Towne Foods, as I am, here's something new you might want to jump on. The Italian deli and eatery best known for its great sandwiches at lunch, is about to start a series of weekly family-style dinners. From the looks of things, it's a six-course affair for $25, which is quite a bargain. The meal sounds quite ambitious, especially the two kinds of risotto. The first dinner is tonight (Friday).

Last I checked, there were still some openings. Sampino's, which is in a small shopping center at 16th and F streets, is taking names from its email list to fill slots of the dinner, but if you want to get a last-minute spot for tonight, give them a call ASAP: 916-441-2372. And if you want to know about future dinners, ask to be included on their email list. Sampino's is at 1607 F St. Unfortunately, Sampino's did not include the time of the dinner. (We will update once we find out.)

Here's a rundown of the menu I received via email:

Fresh Baked Bread
Foccacia, Italian Loaf, Fennel Balsamic Vinaigrette

Antipasti
Assorted Olives, Giardinara, Pepperoncini

Zuppa
Tomato Mozzarella Cream Bisque
Primi
Timbale
Puff Pastry, Penne Pasta, Meatballs, Hardboiled Quail Eggs, Salami, Mushroom,
Marinara, Parmesan Granna Padano

Risotti
Sicilian Fennel Sausage w/Porcini & Salmon Mousse, Clam & Shrimp.

Secondi
Chicken Cacciatore
Braised Chicken Thigh w/ House Cacciatore Sauce
with/Tapenade Rubbed Artichokes, Creole Sauce
or
Wild Salmon Roulade
Spinach, Sundried Tomatoes, Pesto, & Asiago Cheese
with/Tapenade Rubbed Artichokes, Creole Sauce

Insalta
Mixed Green Salad
Diced Tomato, Parmesan Reggiano, Organic Farm Fresh Tomatoes
Italian Herb Vinaigrette

Dolce
Lemon Sorbeto w/Strawberry Mint Tartar

These vignettes from Zagat about bad people behaving badly at restaurants were amusing -- and recognizable, though I have not encountered a blow-up doll.

Blair's last three posts:

A Matter of Price: Is the Lounge ON20 menu revision cause for concern?

From the test kitchen: Biba's Bologna-style ragu

Dine and dash: Our governor's french fry problem

Lately, this blog's subtitle could be: "Bad News about Food and Wine." Yes, we've hit a rough patch with restaurant closings, but there are still plenty of restaurants doing well. As restaurant critic for The Bee, I tend to look in restaurant windows when I pass by - not because I enjoy seeing people talk with their mouths full but because I like to know how the restaurants are doing. I can't sift through the books, but I can look at the seats.

But somewhere between the closures and the thriving restaurants like Magpie, Mulvaney's, Waterboy, Ella, Formoli's, Lucca, New Canton, OneSpeed and others, is the restaurant that is compelled to change its menu and cut its prices in an effort to fill more seats and sell more food. In this case, I'm referring to Chris Macias' report last week about the new version of Lounge ON20, the one serving up creative, modernist, and high-end food the likes of which we don't get to see here often enough. This is actually the new-new version, as Lounge ON20 went through a major revamping a few months back by showcasing cooking that touched on the avant garde.

Biba Caggiano has a nice new book, "Spaghetti Sauces," 129 pages of spaghetti sauce recipes of all kinds, from basic butter sauces ready in 10 minutes to seafood sauces and and meat sauces like the one I have simmering right now -- simmering for 2-plus hours.

The latter recipe is for Bologna-style ragu. Bologna is the city in Northern Italy where Caggiano was born and raised. She then moved to the U.S. and eventually opened one of Sacramento's most respected restaurants. Click on the pictures to make them bigger; apologies, but there is no aroma feature with this software.

This sauce builds flavor slowly, beginning with melting butter and then cooking minced carrots, celery and onion.

Then you add ground beef, pork and veal, along with small cubes of pancetta. This cooks at high heat for about 10 minutes.

Next, I poured in a cup of red wine and cooked that down until most of the wine had evaporated. More flavor (and the kitchen smells great).

Then comes time for the classic ingredient -- a 28-ounce can of San Marzano tomatoes. The book says to puree them in a blender. But I went with doing it by hand the way they do in Italy -- squeezing the tomatoes until they were pretty much liquefied. Then the tomatoes are added to the pot and simmered -- and simmered -- for two-and-a-half hours.

It thickens and the flavor deepens over that time. I will be writing a short story on the book, along with a few recipes in the upcoming Food and Wine section on Wednesday

When you dream of becoming a chef and change your life to chase down that dream, it's supposed to go something like this:

You kiss your lousy job and your miserable boss goodbye, you immerse yourself in culinary school, and you show all your instructors that you have a knack for cooking that just might revolutionize the restaurant world. You do an internship at a top-flight restaurant, where the staff compares your palate to Mozart's ear. You graduate, and you sift through all the offers, settling for the one that brings in the most money at a joint with the most Michelin stars. The TV gig, the three-book deal and the Lamborghini are just around the corner.

The reality, of course, is something else, and Scott Fenner -- talented and determined as he is -- recently got a heaping dose when he gave notice at Ella Dining Room & Bar. He went back to his former world of working construction.

It wasn't because he couldn't cook.

He just couldn't make ends meet.

Every once in awhile, I go into a restaurant or store and am so impressed by something - the food, the service, the selection of groceries or some intangible - that I will find myself thinking: I wish a place like this could be located within walking distance of where I live.

It has happened with Café Luna in Placerville, with Taste Restaurant in Plymouth and Ambience in Carmichael. I wish Corti Brothers were across the street, so I could scuttle over there for a bottle of wine and some pasta. I wish Taylor's Market was around the corner. I can ride my bike to both, but walking is a stretch. We were in Newcastle riding our bikes this Saturday and we dropped by Newcastle Produce. I wish there were a Newcastle Produce II somewhere downtown. Great little store.

When I reviewed the much-admired Italian restaurant Biba several weeks back, I withheld a rating for the "ambience" category. Biba Caggiano had told me prior to publication that she planned to close the restaurant for a week and remodel.

The restaurant has closed, reopened and the remodel is complete - there is new art on the walls and those walls have been given new life. In the bar area, which is what customers encounter when they walk in the front door, paneling has been added and the paint gives the room a darker overall clubby feel. Beforehand, the bar had lots of mirrors and brass fixtures that suggested you were entering a themed restaurant called "Ode to the '80s."

Due to the timing of my vacation, I'm late telling you about a pretty cool event this weekend that combines a few of my favorite things: riding bikes, the American River bike trail and, of course, cooking great food.

It's too late to sign up for this event, unfortunately, but it's worth knowing about it. Don Bybee of Transpocycle and John Boyer of Edible Pedal have put together a bike ride and overnight camping adventure that highlights what a great area we live in for bikes. It's a 22-mile ride on Saturday from midtown up to the camp site at Negro Bar State Park along Lake Natoma, with a return ride on Sunday.

The Sacramento food and dining scene has been credited with bringing new energy to Sacramento's urban core. Just think of all the restaurants that did not exist a decade ago and just recall how easy it was to find a parking spot in midtown or downtown back then.

Now comes the ripple effect, and it, too, is bringing positive energy to neighborhoods - and there's plenty of potential and opportunity ahead. One of the best examples of this is a new business called Local Roots Food Tours operated by Lisa Armstrong, a former private chef who moved to the area from Indiana 12 years ago. The tours are not only drawing great crowds, they're a positive force in the downtown neighborhoods of Alkali Flats and Mansion Flats.

Just a couple of things to add to my review of Taqueria Jalisco, which ran Sunday. First of all, Kudos to the 8,000 or so eagle-eyed readers who pointed out that, yes, it's usually spelled "tostada," not "tostado," as I wrote it (twice!). I think I looked at that word 20 times while I was writing the review and simply looked right over the ending. Any way you spell it, the tostadas are quite good at Taqueria Jalisco.

Thanks to a link on Facebook, I recently read a short essay by local chef Mark Liberman about the "farm to table" movement, along with the "even worse newly anointed locavore movement."

Huh?

Yes, the backlash is at hand, thanks to people who seem a little too happy with themselves for buying locally grown food and looking down their noses at those who dare to eat something imported.

(If you have an opinion about the politics and/or glorification of eating locally, please give your two cents in the comments section).

Ginger Elizabeth Chocolates has earned a national reputation for its handcrafted, luxurious chocolates and small desserts such as the gianduja cake and the café cremeaux.

Once you visit the small shop on L Street, it's easy to understand why. Quality. Consistency. Premium ingredients. Time-tested technique.

So, when I finally got around to trying the ice cream sandwiches, available seasonally from May through October, I had great expectations. I bought all three flavors ($5.50 each), took them home and planned how I would taste them - one per day, each neatly sliced in half, and then savored as slowly as possible. The lemon, then the pistachio and, finally, the salted caramel.

As I write this, I have at my side a copy of "Italy al Dente," by Biba Caggiano, an excellent cookbook published in 1998. As I look back at yesterday's review and the visits to Biba the restaurant in the weeks prior, I am reminded of Caggiano's passion for Italy, Italian food and, as much as anything, good, old-fashioned hospitality.

That's a shame that Odonata Beer Co. had to shut down, as Chris Macias just reported. Perhaps that piece of bad news for a local beer label can be tempered by some good news: as in, 250 jobs up for grabs.

That's right, when's the last time you saw a story about 250 jobs? But that's how many people Yard House, the Southern California restaurant chain with 30 locations and 4,450 employees nationwide, is planning on hiring at its newest site opening soon at The Fountains, that upscale shopping center across from the Galleria in Roseville.

I know I have lots of vegetarian readers. I hear from them all the time. A long time ago, several asked that I include a notation in the ratings boxes indicating whether a restaurant is vegetarian friendly. I was happy to do so. Well, here's vegetarian friendly for you -- an entire wine dinner at Evan's Kitchen in East Sacramento, featuring the work the talented Evan Elsberry.

If you want meatless dishes to be taken seriously in this town, you have to support the places that are taking them seriously already. This dinner looks impressive, and costs $67.50, including wine pairings. For what it's worth, I recommend taking a cab or arranging a ride to any wine dinner. If you drink the wine that's served, you will likely be over the legal limit by night's end. If you get a DUI, your life will be ruined for years (I have friends who have told me as much). And worrying about that will take the fun out of a wine dinner.

This dinner is called "Where's the Beef? You Won't Believe it's Vegetarian Wine Dinner."

I support folks who take risks. So I'm including the menu below:

Monday, May 16, 6 to 9pm
First Course:
Stuffed Sweet Onion with Potato Gratin
Served with 2009 River Ranch Chardonnay

Second Course:
Celery Root and Apple Salad with Almonds and Apple Butter
Served with 2009 Tamás Estates Pinot Grigio

Third Course:
Grilled Eggplant, Stuffed Baby Peppers and Tandori Tomato Sauce
Served with Murietta's Well - The Spur

Fourth Course:
Charbroiled Portabella Steak with Smokey Pearl Onion Ragout
Served with 2008 Wente Vineyards Sandstone Merlot

Dessert
Red Apple Cobbler
Served with 2008 Riverbank Riesling

$67.50 per person. Reservations Required. Call 916-452-3896.
Evan's Kitchen is located at 855 57th Street, Sacramento, CA. 95819
Suite C, In the 57th Street Antique Row

Since the James Beard Awards were announced last night, I thought I would share a story about the winner for "Outstanding Restaurant," Eleven Madison Park in New York City. It doesn't have anything to do with world-class talent, an extra-sophisticated dining community or huge operating budget. This story is about extra effort. And from what I have seen, the very best restaurants seem to try the hardest.

(Before I go on, we want to ask readers to tell us, in the comments box below, about their experiences with a restaurant that shows extra effort. Let us know what happened, and where.)

The food, of course, was outstanding during our visit in September. The design of the menu was compelling (you select a single ingredient for each course and you have no idea how it will be prepared) and the finished product on the plate was a work of art. That's not surprising for a world-class restaurant with a chef the caliber of Daniel Humm (who used to work in San Francisco).

But the story I am going to tell you has almost nothing to do with cooking. It's about doing the little things that connect with customers and have an impact that resonates.

There was so much good food at Maranello Restaurant in Fair Oaks that I didn't have room to address all of it in my review that ran Sunday. The scallops, for instance, were wrapped in sturgeon, and that nutty sweetness I tasted was actually rhubarb chutney. Quite a creative way to do scallops, I thought. I'm told this was the brainchild of the sous chef, Thomas Daily. Watch for that name because I hear he is quite a talent.

Michael Tuohy, executive chef at Grange, the widely respected restaurant at the Citizen Hotel downtown, is leaving the position to pursue new opportunities.

Tuohy, 49, has been a significant influence on the local food scene, both for his thoughtful approach to cooking and for the public outreach he performed in various ways, including leading tours of the farmers market to buy produce he would later prepare and serve at the restaurant for tour participants.

Tuohy enjoyed an excellent reputation for his cooking at Grange, but some diners, myself included, were occasionally frustrated that the service did not live up to the professionalism of the kitchen.

What's it like to live together, raise kids together and, when you go off to work, there you are: together again?

In recent weeks, I have reviewed a spate of restaurants run by husbands and wives or some kind of domestic partnership equivalent. Magpie. Bistro La Petite France, Café Marika, Chando's Tacos. I can think of plenty more, including superb ones such as Taste in Plymouth and Boulevard Bistro in Elk Grove. I've also heard of more than a few restaurant divorces (including at least a few where they get divorced but continue working at the same eatery).

The humble Frenchman at the top of Sacramento's food scene spent the day Friday slicing sandwiches and placing them on plates and ladling soup into bowls, then moving in his unhurried way to the cash register to make change for his customers - one after another, and for one final time.

"Today was a very sad day. My tears were very close to my eyes," said Daniel Pont, the owner and chef, not long after locking the front door.

I just got off the phone with chef and owner Daniel Pont, who confirmed that this is his final day. Yes, La Bonne Soupe is closing its doors.

The restaurant usually closes at 2:30, but there were still 10 people in line. The chef and I will chat after he locks up shortly. Check back for details.

For those not in the know, this small, one-man operation has become a legend in recent years, known for great soups and sandwiches, and notoriously long lines. Monsieur Pont is a beloved figure and a true gentleman. For many, the closing of this place will be devastating news. What's more, the other top soup place in town, Fog Mountain Cafe, just closed its doors a few weeks ago.

It wasn't that long ago. We were leaving Peet's Coffee on Fair Oaks Boulevard and, as we walked out, we held the door for a petite woman with short blond, spiky hair and a fake tan - and she proceeded to walk through without saying a word or touching the door. She's something special. Of course she is.

In that one moment, she had the chance to take the door, even symbolically, say something nice and make us feel good about this little exchange of kindnesses. Yet, we regretted holding the door and, later, talked about - fantasized about - letting the door go and making her spill her coffee all over her extra-tight gym attire. If I were the least bit spiritual, I might look inside and tell myself it is the simple act that matters, and that I cannot control what other people do. I'm glad I'm not that well adjusted.

There is something about that obliviousness at the door, seemingly so small, that really rubs people the wrong way, myself included. In honor of that loathsome, self-involved woman, I've compiled a short, non-scientific list of other rude behavior I see at restaurants (in no particular order):

My review of Bistro La Petite France focused on the food and the warm hospitality of the husband-and-wife owners, Christophe and Claudine Ehrhart. If you're wondering what it means to have a locally-owned business with a personal touch, this would be a good place to visit and take notes. The formula is very simple, but somehow it remains elusive at too many other restaurants.

During our visits, Christophe never failed to greet us or say farewell, and Claudine was always there to chat with customers.

One of the things you realize when you've been in journalism long enough is that a lot of smart people read the newspaper. Another thing you realize: an awful lot of other people don't really understand how journalism works.

I say this because of a well-meaning email I received recently from a reader. She was concerned that some of my more pointed critiques might hurt a restaurant's bottom line.

She writes (to protect the innocent and not so innocent, I will delete the names of the restaurants):

I had a new dining partner helping out with Sunday's review - Abbey, one of our dogs. When Monkey Cat noted on its website that it was "dog friendly," the journalist in me thought I needed to check it out and find the right companion for the job. Though Oscar, our big Rhodesian ridgeback-mix, is the pack leader, we left him behind because, well, having an alpha dog that close to plates of food is not always the best idea. When he gets really food-focused, Oscar starts to howl.

Being dog friendly is something that is important to a surprising number of folks who go out to eat, myself included. Years before I became The Bee's restaurant critic, I would look for places that allowed pets access on the patio. That eventually led me to Carmel, where dogs are treated like royalty and are allowed to roam off-leash on the spectacular public beach. There are several restaurants in Carmel that are dog friendly, but Monkey Cat is right up there with them.

Beyond canine companions, let's revisit one recurring issue with the food. In recent weeks, I have referred several times to dishes that were timid or bland or that seemed to play it too safe when it comes to flavors. That doesn't mean I only appreciate food that is big and bold, the culinary equivalent of a neon red and white striped shirt. I'm not suggesting that more is necessarily better. Food won't improve by simply dumping more herbs and spices into the pot. My concern is that sometimes kitchens seem to be preparing food and sending it out to the dining room without tasting it. The best dishes I encounter are well balanced, but they also have flavors that pop. There is a clarity of purpose that shines through in terms of flavors.

Though I enjoyed several dishes at Monkey Cat, the ones that were less intriguing made me wonder if the person cooking them actually tasted the recipe that day to see if it was hitting the mark.

This coming Sunday, I will be reviewing a restaurant that reminded me of this issue once again - because the flavors had great clarity and heft.

Fog Mountain Café, which opened three years ago on the corner of 10th and I streets downtown, has closed its doors for good.

The news is a blow to its many fans, myself included, who considered owner/chef Eric Harnish's soups to be the best in the city. Grilled asparagus with applewood smoked bacon. French onion soup. Mushroom with fresh thyme and shaved asiago. Split pea. He even nailed Muligatawny years ago when I requested it.

Harnish was an artist and improviser in the kitchen. He had over 100 soup recipes in his head and never wrote any of them down. He tried new things and wasn't afraid to fail.

I recently had the pleasure of joining Curtis Popp for lunch at La Bonne Soupe, the near-legendary soup and sandwich spot on 8th Street.

Over the years, I have found that journalism - and my career as a writer - is full of ups and downs. You get on a roll, bang out a few good stories in a row, then you look around, run into a few obstacles and false starts and, suddenly, you're stumped. Yes, it's a dry spell.

During my years as a features writer, specializing in profiles, there were times when I thought I would never come up with another compelling person to write about.

I am in one of those dry spells at the moment, though readers of the newspaper might not have any inkling. That's because I have visited several restaurants in recent weeks, tried the food, looked at what they're all about, judged the quality of the overall experience and then, unfortunately, pulled the plug.

The tally includes two Indian restaurants that don't give any indication they want to stay in business or are concerned about the fundamentals of good service and decent cooking; a Mexican restaurant that is like every cookie-cutter Mexican restaurant on earth and pretty much bored me from the moment the stale tortilla chips and watery salsa were plunked down on our table; and a marginally upscale restaurant specializing in American cuisine where the host led us to our table, put down the menus and walked away without saying a word. It would have been helpful if she had at least uttered something along the lines of, "Watch out, the food here is really boring, your server will act flustered even though the place is nearly empty, and, it will soon become apparent that we don't really know what we're doing." Oh, this "host" did acknowledge us when we left - with a smile and a "good night" -- but that's probably because she was standing next to the owner at the time. I'll leave it to readers to try and figure out who I'm talking about.

Monday postscript: Enotria and Magpie

I am returning from a two-week vacation, so today I will be playing a little bit of catch-up, beginning with a look back at my last two reviews.

Let's start with Enotria, the wine bar and restaurant that just spent over $1 million renovating its building on Del Paso Boulevard. Is that amount of money something a restaurant critic should consider when writing a review? That's a very tough question.

Here's the honest answer: yes and no.

No, it shouldn't count from a pure journalistic perspective. The only thing that really matters to customers is the experience - are they getting a superior experience and does the cost of that experience make sense? A restaurant critic's duty is to put himself in the shoes of the customer, gather information, and make judgments from that perspective. If the amount of the investment was supposed to be factored into this equation, there would be a small sign on every table that stated something to the effect of, "Hey, cut us some slack. We spent big bucks on this place."

That said, I could not help but think about the money when I looked closely at Enotria. This kind of investment is a tremendous boost for that part of town, it's great for the local restaurant industry, it suggests this place is serious about being a great restaurant and it's certainly a sign of confidence during very difficult economic times.

But the money also raises questions? Why hasn't Enotria sprung for an espresso machine? Espresso is on the menu. And why, when I called to make a reservation a week after Valentine's Day, did Enotria's voicemail greeting mention the upcoming Valentine's Day dinner? It doesn't cost anything to be organized and stay on top of things.

I wound up writing a mixed review of Enotria, though some readers found my pronouncements harsh in places. (I often have people mention what they see in the online comments, but I don't read online comments (except for this blog) because I don't find them sincere or, for the most part, constructive. It's pretty much the professional wrestling of intellectual discourse. But I do take calls, voicemails and emails seriously, since most of those folks are willing to put their names behind what they believe).

For a high-end restaurant, Enotria was struggling in a couple of areas. Some of the shortcomings that I noted are opinions and some are simply facts. Either way, when I make such pronouncements, it is my obligation to show my reasoning and to support my argument. For instance, when I noted that several of the entrees we tried were bland, that is an opinion that requires some supporting evidence. It also requires me to draw on a very broad benchmark established by visiting all other restaurants operating in the same category. But when I say the steak was riddled with gristle, that is not something that can be disputed - explained, perhaps, but not disputed.

When I noted that the presentation of the wines should be tweaked, that was something that combined fact with opinion. I was simply reporting the events as they happened when I noted that the wine flights, which come in three separate glasses all at once, are presented in a blur and that it is next to impossible to keep track of which winery produced which wine. If you like your wines paired with confusion and random pronunciations of obscure French or Italian wineries, then you will disagree with my suggestion that Enotria must make this experience more customer friendly by providing, say, a laminated note card with the wines, the order of tasting and a couple of observations by the sommelier. What's more, I would make these cards something customers can take home for future reference, since a big part of wine tasting is to get folks to know and understand new wines with the idea they may want to order them or buy them retail and take them home.

I occasionally watch the TV show "Undercover Boss." In addition to revealing that many CEOs are incredible klutzes, the show often illustrates that a strategy or system the boss thought was a good idea doesn't actually work in the real world. I would encourage all restaurant managers and owners to put themselves in the position of servers, cooks or hosts from time to time and see how things are working or not working. Even more importantly, they should sit in the customer's chair on occasion to see if their ideas make sense and can be executed properly.

Enotria is a fine restaurant and wine bar that should not have difficulty resolving its issues and moving toward the top tier in the Sacramento region. The money spent on the building, coupled with a talented staff capable of delivering an excellent overall experience, suggest to me that Enotria will rise up and thrive soon enough.

Magpie Café

What more can I say about this place? Magpie is running on all cylinders. I love the food and the way the business is run.

If I were to get picky, one question I might have is what happens on the sidewalk patio at Magpie - sometimes diners get wind of the smoke coming from adjacent Shady Lady Saloon.

Is this a problem? Not when you have two businesses of this caliber working side by side. Shady Lady is one the great places in town to enjoy a cocktail and its presence on R Street has been a real boon. So I'm not surprised how it is handling the matter.

I just got off the phone with Jason Boggs, one of the owners at Shady Lady. He told me he admires Magpie's food and realizes smoking can be an issue. He and the managers recently had a meeting to discuss this very issue. They hope to resolve it by making that side of Shady Lady's patio a non-smoking area.

It's a simple fix and a classy move.

A former Slocum House chef has stepped forward to honor gift certificates to the now shuttered Fair Oaks restaurant.

Chef Vincent Paul Alexander, of Alexander's Horseshoe Bar Grill in Loomis, told The Bee that he'll trade any Slocum House gift certificate for a promotional one to his restaurant. The offer likely will come as good news to disgruntled diners. Dozens of readers have been calling The Bee since news of Slocum House's closure broke last week, wondering how to redeem or get a refund on gift certificates.

"When a place like that goes out of business there are a lot of people left holding gift certificates," he said.

The gesture is "a nod to the customers of Slocum House and their impact on my career," Alexander wrote in an e-mail.

Alexander started his career at Slocum House in 1990 and was there for seven years before leaving to open Alexander's Meritage in Folsom.

By Niesha Lofing
nlofing@sacbee.com

Slocum House, one of the most lauded fine dining restaurants in the Sacramento region, is closed.

The restaurant served its last meal Sunday, financial consultant Jack Kandola confirmed today. Kandola and business partner Joe Wittren bought Slocum House in 2009, but Kandola sold his share of the business to Wittren last year.

Kandola said the restaurant lost its lease at the hilltop location in quaint Fair Oaks village.

"For the last couple of years, business has been going down because of the down economy," Kandola said.

Kandola said they had asked the landlord to extend their lease, but he refused. The landlord indicated another business may move in, but Kandola did not know who the possible tenants may be or whether that statement was true.

There are no plans to reopen Slocum House elsewhere in the region.

"It was a landmark restaurant, so we hate to see it go down," Kandola said. "Hopefully someone else will have better success (at the California Avenue location)."

Slocum House had consistently been one of the most highly regarded restaurants in the region. Bee dining critic Blair Anthony Robertson gave the dining room four stars in an October 2009 review. Click here to see a video interview with former Slocum House executive chef Gabriel Glasier by Bee photographer Jose Luis Villegas.

The restaurant also was rated best date night restaurant by Bee readers later that month.

What are your memories of Slocum House? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

*Bee researcher Sheila Kern contributed to this report

One of the great things about getting feedback from readers via email is that it reminds me that many of them are passionate about food and demanding about the issues related to food.

But how much politics do you want with your restaurant reviews? That is a question I think about often, and I have yet to come up with the right formula to please everyone.

Yes, I try to weigh in on the local/sustainable trend from time to time. I tend to emphasize the importance of where the food comes from and what happens on the way from the farm to your plate.

If you're into the local food and dining scene, you won't want to miss the latest installment of the excellent ongoing series called Sacramento Living Library. Chef and restaurateur Patrick Mulvaney and Shawn Harrison, executive director of Soil Born Farms, will talk about local agriculture, local restaurants and various issues tied to farm-to-table dining.

The free event is this Sunday (March 20) at 7 p.m. Time Tested Books is at 1114 21st Street, between K and L streets in midtown Sacramento.

Though farm-to-table cooking has become more and more common in the city's restaurants, Mulvaney is perhaps its most visible practitioner, if not its most devoted. His eponymous restaurant on 19th Street is well known for sourcing local ingredients and celebrating the area's farmers.

Soil Born Farms is a remarkable and enlightened undertaking that not only grows food, it has an educational mission for youths and adults that provides classes, workshops, tours and job training. The farm also targets under-served areas in the community with alternative food distribution and food donation programs.

The Living Library series, curated by Time Tested Books' owner Peter Keat and hosted by Tim Foster of Midtown Monthly, has been a big success. The talks are casual, wide-ranging and thought-provoking, all in the cozy setting of a well-stocked shop of used and rare books. Recent food-themed talks have featured chocolatier Ginger Elizabeth Hahn and grocer/wine expert Darrell Corti (interviewed by Elaine Corn).

Though the talk will begin at 7 p.m., this event will likely fill up quickly. For the talk in February, featuring Fred and Victoria Dalkey, we arrived 15 minutes early to find standing room only at the very back of the bookstore. The talks generally last an hour.

And if you're looking for a very good restaurant nearby before or after the event, you won't go wrong with Bombay Bar & Grill (1315 21st St.).

By Blair Anthony Robertson, Bee Restaurant Critic
brobertson@sacbee.com

What is Biba doing getting in on the St. Patrick's Day fun? For the second year running, the beloved Italian restaurant on Capitol Avenue in midtown is offering a special a la carte menu item for lunch and dinner to accommodate her many customers of Irish descent.

That would include Biba Caggiano's two sons-in-law.

The same restaurant that serves prosciutto di parma with caramelized pears, gnocchi del giorno and, yes, the famous lasagne verdi alla Bolognese, will be cooking up a special St. Patrick's Day stuffed pastal. As someone who is half Irish but feels like he should have been born in Northern Italy, I endorse this tradition wholeheartedly.

This hybrid, hyphenated and wholly unusual dish consists of spinach ravioli stuffed with corned beef, braised cabbage, carrots and potatoes, and finished with a sauce made of butter, braised cabbage and pancetta. No word on the green beer.

The dinner is $17.50 and lunch is $16.50.

Speaking of Biba, when I checked the restaurant website, I noticed an array of cooking classes taught by Biba herself. Each class costs 125 and is limited to 15 students. Classes cover such areas as fresh pasta, gnocchi and risotto. Clearly, they are very popular - they're all sold out through June 18.

OneSpeed, the always busy (and for good reason) restaurant and pizzeria in East Sacramento will hold a fundraiser Thursday, March 24 for the NorCal Aids Cycle, a charity bike ride that benefits local HIV/AIDS providers.

Owned by cyclist and cycling enthusiast Rick Mahan, OneSpeed (4818 Folsom Blvd., Sacramento) will donate a portion of its sales that day to this worthy charity. Chef Mahan is also the owner of Waterboy, one of the city's premier fine dining restaurants.

The Norcal AIDS Cycle is a four-day, 330 mile ride. It began as the brainchild of a group of cyclists that included Maggy Krell, a state prosecutor living in Sacramento. I wrote a story about Maggy and the ride back in 2007.

The original idea was to take the large and famous AIDS charity ride that travels from San Francisco to Los Angeles over seven days, shrink it down to four days, do one very large loop through the Central Valley, Wine Country and the Sierra foothills and, best of all, give the money raised to local AIDS-related charities.

Now in its seventh year, the charity ride is a major success story, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The OneSpeed component of this deal is easy: stop in on the 24th for some of the best pizza going or, as I did recently, try a delicious fish dish or excellent gnocchi. And you'll know some of the money you spend is headed to this charity.

For those who want to take it a step further and actually do the ride from May 12-15, learn more at http://norcalaidscycle.org/. Here's a description of the experience I lifted from the website:

You'll share the experience with your fellow participants, realize a goal that you made for yourself months before, build camaraderie, and find friends and family that will last long after the ride ends.

While the route is challenging, it's also invigorating. The road mixes with laughter, sweat, tears, and smiles. Your muscles will ache while your mind soars with the sense of accomplishment you are earning.

By Blair Anthony Robertson, Bee Restaurant Critic
brobertson@sacbee.com

As I was sitting in Café Marika one night, what came to mind were all those touristy towns I have visited over the years. You know the ones. You want to go out to dinner, you pick a spot, sit down and you find out soon enough by the time the plates hit the table that it's pretty much a tourist trap serving inferior food. And you wonder: where do the locals eat.

Café Marika is where locals eat. At least the ones who can cram their way into this tiny restaurant and its five tables.

The size is only part of the charm. It was the charm - and the consistently good old-fashioned food - that drew me to write about this place.

When I am in the process of sizing up a restaurant, one of the things I look at is personality. Yes, some restaurants have personality and some, just like people, have plenty of flash and not much depth to back it up. After many years writing human interest stories and profiles, I am also drawn to a good story. And eccentricity.

By Blair Anthony Robertson, Bee Restaurant Critic
brobertson@sacbee.com

Congratulations to Hot Italian on its very special recognition as a "Bicycle Friendly Business" by the League of American Bicyclists, the first California restaurant to be honored in this way.

If you've ever ridden to Hot Italian and locked your bike in its very stylish bike racks (they have space for 32 two-wheelers), you probably have a sense of how pro-bike the pizzeria is. Many times when I've ridden my bike to review a restaurant, I've had to lock it to a tree or post. Hot Italian also delivers pizza by bike, sponsors a bike club, produced the well-received Bicycle Film Festival in Sacramento, the Velo & Vintage bike-themed fashion show and recently hosted the "Savage Sprints" series of stationary bike races to raise money to build a local velodrome..

Hot Italian has been racking up recognition and leading the way on many fronts in the local restaurant industry. It recently received LEED certification by the U.S. Green Building Council for its environmentally friendly building. Being bike friendly goes hand in hand with that.

To celebrate the bike friendly business designation, Hot Italian (16th and Q in Midtown) is hosting an event tonight (Saturday) from 6-9 p.m. to unveil the "pop-up" bike shop selling PUBLIC Bikes and Rickshaw Bags. Attending will be PUBLIC Bikes owner and founder of Design Within Reach, Rob Forbes. I have seen the PUBLIC Bikes city-style bikes and am impressed. Simple clean lines, not a lot of extra parts, nice colors and, best of all, a really good pricepoint (around $500). That's much cheaper than the Le Corbusier chaise ($3,600) you can buy at Design Within Reach. Also on hand will be Rickshaw Bags' Mark Dwight.

By Blair Anthony Robertson
brobertson@sacbee.com

Officials announced Thursday the launch of Flavor! Napa Valley, the four-day food and wine festival that will celebrate the region's culinary and winemaking bounty while promoting the area as a major destination to much of the world.

Additionally, proceeds from the event will go toward scholarships for students attending the Culinary Institute of America's nearby Greystone campus.

Judging from who was in attendance, this event has some major star power behind it. Among those attending the announcement and luncheon at the Silverado Resort were Thomas Keller, the chef behind the French Laundry, Per Se, Bouchon and Ad Hoc. Keller, wearing a white chef's coat and shiny black clogs that looked like they haven't been near a prep table any time recently, mingled for a while beforehand, stood and listened during the brief announcement, then slipped out before lunch was served.

Bee reporter Carlos Alcala has a scary, amusing and sad story in today's paper about a restaurant, a dream and the lousy people who ruined it.

Kevin and Nancy Cairn opened their restaurant, Dante's on the River, seven years ago on a barren stretch of Highway 50 near Pollock Pines. Turns out, the story turns on the absence of a suitable rest stop for miles around. So folks would pull into the restaurant parking lot and do their business right there.

The Cairns put up with it at first, then began to confront the worst offenders and even got into a scuffle or two. Now Kevin Cairns is facing a felony trial, allegedly for assaulting a motorist in the parking lot with, of all things, a traffic cone.

When they opened, the Cairns thought it wouldn't be a problem to allow non-customers to use the restaurant restroom, but they changed that policy in a hurry when motorists abused the privilege.

The Cairns are fed up and are selling the place. From the looks of the photo, it's a nice spot.

So, if you've always wanted to open a restaurant -- and you have a darn good plan for how to deal with the parking lot potty problem -- then you just might be able to stake your claim on a stretch of Highway 50 sorely in need of a rest stop.

Another young chef is taking his shot, opening a new restaurant at 11th and H in the building formerly occupied by Sofia Restaurant.

According to Suzanne Hurt's Sacramento Press story, Jason Lockard left his position as chef at Brew It Up at 14th and H to stake a claim as a restaurateur.

Lockard is preparing to open Blue Prynt, a restaurant and bar whose curious spelling will allow the "y" in "Prynt" to be in the shape of a martini glass on the sign. Now there's an idea that really needed an intervention. Nevertheless, this restaurant isn't going to rise or fall on spelling or nomenclature.

One of the big questions is location.

I received an email from an avid reader and devoted restaurant enthusiast asking, "Are you grading on a curve?" He went on to pull quotes from my review showing that I was either underwhelmed by the food at Kupros Bistro or entirely unimpressed with six of the seven dishes mentioned. One exception was the poutine, a French-Canadian dish composed of French fries, gravy and cheese curds. Enjoyable poutine - especially in poutine-free California - is not enough to carry a restaurant.

He wasn't arguing with my review or my taste in restaurants. But he wondered if I had given too high of a star rating to Kupros, given my feelings about the food.

"You need to call this what it is: a truly poor, or at least very sub-par showing by Kupros. One-for-seven just doesn't cut it in any aspect of life, including spending our hard-earned dollars in restaurants. It almost seems as if you are giving Kupros a bit of partial credit based on past performance, something which is utterly irrelevant to someone dining there today," he wrote.

That's a very fair question. No, I was not giving partial credit for past performance (the chef who opened Kupros, John Gurnee, was doing excellent food). If anything, I was extra tough on Kupros because of Gurnee's style and daring with the menu. The restaurant said it wasn't ready for San Francisco-type fare in Sacramento and let Gurnee go. Of course, he promptly landed a job in San Francisco at a restaurant run by the Tyler Florence Group. More than a few sophisticated diners in Sacramento would find Kupros' conclusions a tad insulting.

Who says Fridays are slow news days? Things are blowing up here in the newsroom on 21st.

I just got a call from the campus president at Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts Sacramento, who informed me: The student-run restaurant once open to the public has shut its doors.

Not yesterday or last week. It closed a year ago, according to Rafael Castaneda, the president who has been at the helm at the Natomas campus the past four months.

OK, so they're a little slow letting us know. They're chefs, not public relations experts.

The prez says the school is taking a different approach by closing the restaurant. Instead of hands-on, pressure-filled training at the school with the cafe, students will land externships (remind me how that's different than internships) at area restaurants.

For the general public, that's too bad. As I wrote over a year ago, the public was able to visit the restaurant, eat for free or cheap and then give a written critique. During our visit, we got mixed results, but there was plenty of good food and it was enjoyable. You just had to roll with the idea of eating rack of lamb, say, at 8:30 a.m.

But from what I heard, some of the "guest" reviews made my Morton's review look like a Hallmark greeting card. Yes, people were mean, and students were angry and flustered. Some guests didn't understand the concept of constructive criticism. Nor did they get that these were students, not pros.

Those externships will give students a different view of kitchen life -- they'll be doing mostly the kind of work no one else wants to do. That means plenty of time with brooms, rags and bleach rubbed on countertops in a circular motion. Sauces? Sautees? Not yet.

And they're not going to get a lot of sympathy from executive chefs around here.

Want to know what it's going to be like at some of the best restaurants? In the kitchen at a certain top restaurant downtown, the executive chef has a sign on the wall that lets you know where you stand:

"Your (past-tense expletive deleted, but it begins with the letter before "G" and rhymes with a certain tasty waterfowl) life is not my problem."

I'm told the chef also doesn't do hugs when you get your feelings hurt.

By Blair Anthony Robertson
brobertson@sacbee.com

I just wrapped up the writing on this Sunday's review -- a look at Kupros Bistro on 21st Street.

This was a challenging restaurant to assess, mostly because, even though it is quite new, it has shifted its focus rather abruptly since opening last August.

For years, 21st Street has been either dead or where restaurants go to die. But that's changing. There is actually some life within blocks of The Bee that goes beyond I Heart Teriyaki. The most noteworthy addition in recent times has been Bombay Bar and Grill, which is really succeeding, as it should. The service is friendly, the room is lively and the food is superb.

Kupros? It took a run-down Craftsman-style house occupied for years by Cheap Thrills costume shop, spent $500,000 fixing it up and then opened with a flourish.

It has a beautiful, large bar and it appears that in recent months that shift I referred to means more focus on the bar. That's probably the way it should be.

To read the Kupros review, tune in Sunday. Even better, impress your friends and buy an actual Sunday paper, which has all kinds of re-use and re-purpose possibilities, from lining the proverbial bird cage and wrapping fish to protecting your floor during your house-painting project, or, as they did on J Street recently, papering over the windows the minute Plum Blossom went under.

By Blair Anthony Robertson
brobertson@sacbee.com

I heard plenty of positive things from readers - and a couple of negative things - after my reviews yesterday of two exciting places that serve beer, this being Beer Week.

Of course, there are plenty of other fine establishments with a Beer Week agenda, and I encourage you to drop by several and get a sense of their different approaches. In fact, if you're looking for a watering hole to call home, whether you're new to town or have simply made a new commitment to start drinking more often to balance out all that time you put in at work and in the gym, this is a good week for you to be making the rounds. Remember, it's all about balance.

By Debbie Arrington
darrington@sacbee.com

Auburn's Scott Pruett, arguably America's winningest road racer, has had plenty to celebrate, including his record fourth Rolex 24 at Daytona victory last month.

But at 6 p.m. Saturday night, the race-car driver-turned-vintner toasts something totally different: His first winemaker's dinner featuring his homegrown Pruett Vineyards wines.

A few seats remain for this special event at Carpe Vino restaurant in old town Auburn.

"There is absolutely no question that winning nine races in 2010 and my fourth Grand-Am Championship is a career-defining accomplishment," Pruett said. "But bottling the first vintage of Pruett Vineyard as a bonded winery with my wife, Judy, is as personally satisfying as any of my greatest moments in racing."

By Blair Anthony Robertson
brobertson@sacbee.com

On Sunday, I wrote a very favorable review of a modest little taco joint. I talked about the wonderful flavors of the meats, the commitment of the owner and his employees, and the excitement of having such a stellar place to enjoy the best of Tijuana street food right here in Sacramento.

So how did Chando's Tacos do on Sunday? I called Chando - Lisidro Madrigal - after closing time to ask. I already had a pretty good clue. At about 2 p.m., he called me while I was out on a bike ride. Chando explained they were slammed with customers from the moment they opened and that he was on his way to the store to get more supplies.

By the time I called him at 8:30 p.m., Chando and his employees were bleary-eyed, dead tired and more than a little overwhelmed.

By Blair Anthony Robertson
brobertson@sacbee.com

Elaine Baker, the highly regarded pastry chef at Grange Restaurant, is looking for work.

The position at Grange has been eliminated and Baker, whose many dessert creations distinguished the restaurant, isn't wasting any time looking for new challenges.

Freelance work? Baking classes? Catering? Writing?

Baker is getting the word out that she's open to those things and more.

"I'm just kind of seeing what opportunities come my way. I had one of the best pastry chef jobs in the city. It was fabulous," she told me Wednesday when we chatted by phone.

I didn't get into what happened. Instead, we talked about baking for a living and what she might do next. Just to give readers an insider's view of this line of work, I asked Baker about the demands, the long hours, the physical toll it takes, especially with discerning customers typical of a high-end restaurant like Grange.

"There is a lot of pressure. You need to stay on top of the trends. You need to do things that compliment the overall menu that the chef has. It's very exciting," Baker said.

While viewers of the Food Network might get the impression that it's a glamorous occupation, Baker says it's pretty much 12-hour days, you're on the feet all the time and the schedule you work can be tough on families and relationships.

Baker was an original employee at Grange, starting there two years and four months ago.

When I mentioned the popularity of baking classes in town, Baker said it's something she is considering as she plots her next career move.

"Some people make it sound so mysterious and difficult. It would be nice to show people how simple it can be," she said.

Baker graduated in 1999 from the Culinary Institute of America's baking and pastry arts program. Before Grange, she worked at Firehouse Restaurant.

Anyone interested in discussing opportunities with Baker can contact her via email, efrancetic@yahoo.com.

By Blair Anthony Robertson, Bee restaurant critic
brobertson@sacbee.com

I expected a lot of feedback regarding my review of Tower Café. My voicemail and e-mail did not disappoint.

This enduring restaurant has a loyal following and, if voluminous reader reaction is any indication, there are plenty of others who don't really get the appeal.

Is it possible both sides are correct? Of course. This is what I told folks on Facebook a couple of days before the publication of the review:

"One thing people who read my reviews should realize is that you don't have to agree with all of them. If I like a place you hate or hate a place you like, it doesn't mean you're wrong, and you shouldn't feel insulted. My primary obligation when I give my opinion is to convince the reader it is sincere, well reasoned and given in the spirit of context -- I compare similar places to one another.

"If I get careful readers to agree with 75 percent of my reviews and at least respect the rest, and perhaps be entertained along the way, then I'm doing OK."

So why the massive response this week? Many wrote to say I had validated their opinion, that their friends had considered them cranks and oddballs for not loving this restaurant. Some folks wrote or called to say I am an angry, bitter person. That's not fair. Comments like that make me angry and bitter.

But seriously, I never begin the review process thinking I am going to slam a restaurant. I always keep an open mind, am always on the lookout for things I had not considered, and I am always looking to be entertained. But I also know my role as a critic. I look for the good first - but I never ignore the bad.

Given the number of times I eat out each week, I take my mindset seriously. I never eat out if I am in a bad mood or feel as if it is some sort of obligation. I also make sure I am hungry. Sometimes, I will go for a run or a bike ride to stimulate my appetite because I don't know many people who go out to eat when they are full.

That is how I approached Tower Café - as a place I wanted to enjoy. It didn't work out that way. I didn't have room to elaborate in print, but it starts with attitude. The service tends to be too hurried, too businesslike, right down to those little handheld ordering devices that become the focal point of the server-customer exchange. There is very little banter, very few examples of extra effort and little to no warmth.

For a contrast of what I am getting at here, please visit Formoli's Bistro. It's a very busy little restaurant and the servers are working hard. But part of the hard work means taking the time to allow their charisma to shine through and to connect with the customers. It enhances the dining experience. It is no coincidence that Fromoli's has placed two different employees on my list of best servers the past two years.

As for the food at Tower, I argued in my review that the menu tries to do way too much with this idea of international cuisine. It's the kind of menu that seeks to make everyone happy. One rule of thumb regarding menus almost always holds true: If you encounter a giant menu at a restaurant - and the name Heston Blumenthal or Thomas Keller is not listed as executive chef - you're probably going to have a hit-or-miss experience. Big menus set the kitchen up for failure. You simply cannot bring your best cooking to so many different flavors and sauces and textures unless you are in a world-class kitchen with a talented chef devoted to each station in the cooking and plating process.

Just the week before, Chef David English, owner of the new and successful Press Bistro in midtown, touched on this topic. I asked him why he didn't have more options on the tapas menu. My contention was that after a third visit, I was a little less excited about adventurous eating and thought that the menu needed to change more often or have more options. I also wondered why he wasn't doing lunch, which would add to the liveliness of that midtown block during the day. English argued that trying to do too much too soon would have a dramatic impact on quality and he simply doesn't have the resources in the kitchen to do more just yet.

That made sense, even if I think Press Bistro really needs to offer lunch. I have been in several world-class kitchens through the years. At Corton in New York City, for example, I stood and watched one chef, tweezers in hand, carefully place a single strand of spaghetti (made, thanks to molecular gastronomy, out of charged liquid parmesan) on each plate. That was his role during dinner service. Around him, another chef handled the meat, another the fish, several others the different vegetable preparations and sauces. In the center of it all, the executive chef, Paul Liebrandt, sized up each plate with the eye of an art appraiser before allowing it to leave the kitchen.

I have worked as a cook and I could imagine what was going on in the kitchen at Tower Café - something along the lines of managed chaos and acknowledged concessions on quality. I don't think many would argue that a leaner menu would improve the quality and the focus of the cooking. Perhaps this menu, unchanged for so long, could reinvent itself as a seasonal selection of dishes. You could still embrace the theme of international cuisine while employing current progressive thinking about food that advocates local, seasonal and sustainable.

By Niesha Lofing
nlofing@sacbee.com

"I don't know whether to thank you or hate you."

If not for Dave Brochier's wide grin, the greeting might have been misconstrued.

Brochier, aka Pasta Dave, has been working at hyperdrive pace since a profile on the popular pasta chef ran in a recent Food & Wine section of The Bee.

Brochier is the man behind the pasta at Mulvaney's B&L and the numerous Mulvaney ventures, including the Crocker Cafe; Taylor's Kitchen; and Taylor's Market.

Brochier said orders for his pasta are flying out of the restaurants and market. Demand - and his workload - have quadrupled, he said.

One customer drove all the way from San Francisco.

"It's been going through the register a lot more since the article came out," Janet Caddel, a checker at Taylor's Market. "There's been a lot more questions about how to cook it, have we tried it."

Click here to read the story and see more photos of Pasta Dave.

PHOTO CREDIT: Randall Benton, The Sacramento Bee

By Blair Anthony Robertson, Bee Restaurant Critic
brobertson@sacbee.com

Here's a little inside information for "Appetizers" readers.

I have written a story on this month's one-woman Julia Child show sponsored by Slow Food Sacramento. All proceeds from the event will benefit Plates Cafe and Catering, which gives formerly homeless women a chance to work in a restaurant setting and develop skills to find jobs in the industry.

While most of us can be baffled by the homeless situation and the lack of ironclad solutions, this one is something we all can support - get women off the streets and away from potential danger, get them working, get them trained and send them out into the world to start a genuine career.

The "Julia Child Says: Bon Appetit" show, starring Linda Kenyon, is Feb. 17. Tickets are $45 - that includes appetizers, wine and the performance.

The story will be published Sunday in the newspaper. I am told that 93 of the 150 tickets have been sold. But once it's in the paper, those tickets are likely to be snapped up.

It should be a great evening for a great cause in a room packed with people who care about good food and a more stable, thriving community.

If you're interested in going, this is something you should jump on ASAP. Ticket information can be found at the Slow Food Sacramento website.

By Blair Anthony Robertson, Bee Restaurant Critic
brobertson@sacbee.com

Out with the dogs for a long walk on a chilly Tuesday night, I was startled to spot the first signs of life at Zen Sushi since well before Christmas. For weeks, the windows had been papered over and, eventually, many began to wonder what was up.

The good news: The paper has come down and the restaurant looks ready to reopen soon after a major remodel fraught with construction delays.

The restaurant's many fans will be happy about that. But even better, the new and vastly improved look is going to make quite a splash inside and out, and it is sure to spruce up the once-drab corner at 15th and I streets, across from Memorial Auditorium.

At first glance, the makeover looks stunning, taking a ho-hum interior and turning it into a showcase of modern style and dramatic lighting. There appears to be a completely new bar, a dining room that is much more open and all new furniture.

For passers-by, you simply won't be able to miss it, with large vertical blue lighting effects in the windows capturing your attention.

The food has always been good, but now Zen Sushi is really making a fashion statement with its bold new look.

As I strolled past, there were a few people inside going over final preparations. From the looks of things, it's ready to open. We will try to track down owner Jason Hom and get specifics on the reopening, along with more details on what promises to be one of the better-looking restaurants in town.

Gov. Jerry Brown's new neighborhood is going to get even better. I've been keeping my eye on the renovation of the historic but run-down Maydestone apartment building at 15th and J. According to Sacramento Press, that 10-month project is at the halfway mark and will have 32 units with rents in the $750 to $1,300 range.

New residents at the Maydestone won't have far to go for for good sushi -- Zen Sushi is a two-minute walk in one direction and Mikuni is three minutes in the other. Keep going on 16th for three or four minutes and there's Sapporo. Plenty of other restaurants, too, including Capitol Garage, P.F. Chang's, Lucca, Petra, California Pizza Kitchen, de Vere's Irish Pub and, for lunch, the Bread Store -- all a few minutes away on foot.

By Debbie Arrington
darrington@sacbee.com

A drop-dead bacon and egg cocktail? That could be an option during a special Dia de Los Muertos mixology class hosted by Tres Agaves Mexican Kitchen & Tequila Lounge in Roseville.

Ashley Miller, Tres Agaves' executive beverage director, will lead three sessions on Oct. 22, featuring Tequila Espolon. Each 90-minute hands-on class will explore the many options and unique ways that bartenders create new specialty drinks.

The class - which costs $25 to attend - also will feature a tasting of Tequila Espolon's collection.

Student mixologists will be encouraged to try combining unusual ingredients with tequila including bacon, eggs, fresh fruit, herbs and spices such as cinnamon, cloves and pepper.

Tequila Espolon is a product of Mexico's San Nicolas Distillery, based in Arandas, Jalisco. Introduced to the United States market in 2000, this brand recently got a makeover with new labeling featuring striking artwork inspired by Mexican folk tales and traditions such as Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead).

The classes will be held at 5:30, 7 and 8:30 p.m., Friday, Oct. 22 at Tres Agaves, 1182 Roseville Parkway, Roseville. For reservations, call (916) 782-4455 or click on www.tresagaves.com.

Call The Bee's Debbie Arrington, (916) 321-1075.

By Niesha Lofing
nlofing@sacbee.com

This is one appetizing history lesson.

A four-course dinner will be held at Sutter's Fort Historic Park on Sept. 25, where some of the Sacramento region's top chefs will prepare dishes reminiscent of meals enjoyed when John Sutter founded the fort in 1839.

"A Taste of History," hosted by Friends of Sutter's Fort and Slow Food Sacramento, is a fundraiser benefiting the historic site, according to a news release.

The meal will be preceded by tastings of local honey and olive oil. Local wine and beer also will be served during dinner, which will be served outdoors and accompanied by live acoustic music.

The menu is being developed by chefs from Grange, Mulvaney's B&L, Spataro and Cafe Vinoteca and dinner will be served by Plates Cafe; & Catering, a new business launched by St. John's Shelter Program for Women & Children.

The menu includes dishes such as wild rice cakes with smoked trout, oysters on the half with Chinese chili sauce, spit-roasted suckling pig with wild fennel and garlic, Santa Maria pinquito beans and cured pork belly cooked in the fireplace, and caramel apple bread pudding with vanilla bean custard sauce.

Hungry yet?

"A Taste of History" starts at 6:30 p.m. Sept. 25, with dinner served at 7:30 p.m. Guests will receive a keepsake program that includes historic recipes and the adapted ones featured during meal.

Tickets are $85 per person and available online through the Sutter's Fort website. Seating is limited. For more information, call (916) 323-7626.

*Sacramento Bee file photo by Hector Amezcua

By Niesha Lofing
nlofing@sacbee.com

At upwards of $16 per pound, halibut can be more of an investment than dinner.

So when it comes to preparing halibut, knowing what you're doing is key.

Enter local chef Pajo Bruich.

Bruich, of Pajo's Boutique Catering, is hosting a cooking class Aug. 31 dedicated to teaching home cooks about the delicious flatfish.

Participants will learn how to select halibut and other fresh fish, the differences in fish's fat content, flavor and texture, how to cook various fish, how to properly sear and roast halibut, and how to pair local wines with fish, Bruich said in an e-mail.

Brand Little, of Wild Little Fish Company, is sourcing the fish and will be one hand during the class.

Participants also will feast on a halibut dinner (the menu is posted below), paired with local wines following the class.

Cost is $59 per person. Gratuity is not included. Reservations are required and can be made by clicking here. The class is scheduled for 6 to 8 p.m. Aug. 31 at Steel Magnolia Kitchen in Sacramento.

Menu

Salad of Heirloom Tomato
Basil panna cotta, lemon verbena gelee, green zebra gazpacho, compressed cucumber, liquid buratta spheres, Lucero olive oil sorbet, marinated heirloom tomatoes, balsamic reduction.

Pan Seared Wild California Halibut
Local sweet corn, potato croquant, applewood bacon, red pepper relish, garlic pudding.

Chocolate and raspberry dark chocolate gateau, raspberry gelee, dark chocolate mousse, white chocolate sorbet.

By Niesha Lofing
nlofing@sacbee.com

One good thing resulting from the recession? Fine dining spots offering happy hour deals.

Ella Dining Room & Bar, Randall Selland's elegant restaurant at the heart of K Street, is the latest to jump on the bargain bandwagon. Starting Monday, the hot spot is offering a daily happy hour from 3 to 6 p.m. throughout August.

Drink deals include $5 glasses of wine and signature cocktails, such as the elderflower gimlet and Randall's margarita, for $4 to $7.

A new "bar bites" menu also is available. Among the offerings are a BLT Flatbread ($10), crispy confit chicken wings ($9) and house marinated olives ($4).

Josh Nelson, the restaurant's general manager, said the happy hour is hoped to "introduce people to a more casual side of Ella."

"We have been very successful in caring out our vision of the dining room and now want to introduce people to our vision of the bar and lounge," he wrote in an e-mail to The Bee. "The idea is to get people to understand that they can pop into Ella and have a quick bite and a drink in the bar and lounge, as well as have a great dining experience in the dining room."

*Sacramento Bee photo by Jose Luis Villegas

A Vacaville farm that provides noted San Francisco restaurants with chickens and eggs is adding Sacramento to its community supported agriculture program.

Sacramento is the newest addition to the CSA program at Soul Food Farm, a 55-acre ranch that produces chickens for meat and eggs on certified organic pasture.

The farm, which also has CSA pickup locations in the Bay Area, sources chickens and eggs for Chez Panisse, Coi and Quince restaurants.

The monthly pickup for Sacramento CSA members will be from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. the fourth Thursday of each month at the Epicurean Farmer, 4421 24th Street, a news release from the farm states.

A Loomis restaurant is holding a special dinner event next week to celebrate the recent release of a cookbook by Placer County locals Joanne Neft and Laura Kenny.

Cafe Zorro will be featuring a three-course menu based on recipes included in "Placer County Real Food" (In-Season Publishing, $28, 300 pages), according to an e-mail from the restaurant.

The cookbook will be for sale at the event and a book signing also will be held.

Diners may choose from a first course of either onion soup with creme fraiche and thyme or a pea shoot salad with citrus vinaigrette.

Main course choices are pan-seared halibut cheeks with an herb beurre blanc sauce, red quinoa with mushrooms and sauteed kale with mirin or barbecue leg of lambs, served with roasted sweet onions and fennel, sauteed summer squash and baby bok choy with crispy shallots.

Dessert is angel food cake with blackberry compote.

True to Neft's passion to eat locally-grown food in season, all of the food served, except for halibut, will be sourced locally.

The dinner will be held from 5 to 8:30 p.m. June 15 at Cafe Zorro, 5911 King Rd., Loomis. Cost is $35 per person.

Reservations are required and can be made by e-mailing matt@cafezorro.com.

Click here to read more about Neft, Kenny and their effort to help people connect with local food and farmers.

Following up on Rick Kushman's piece in The Bee today (and before that, Ann Martin Rolke's fine account at the excellent Sacramento-based blog "Sacatomato") on Chef Michael Tuohy's weekly guided tour of farmer's market across the street from his restaurant Grange.

It seems like an excellent idea in many ways. It's good PR for the restaurant. It's a good way for the chef to pass along ideas he believes in about cooking with local ingredients. And it's good for the city -- this kind of thing, on a larger scale, could be something of tourist attraction. Oh, and the farmers are happy, too, with the reminder that home cooks can actually save money by going the fresh and local route.

So, what else can chefs do to make it a win-win-win? Reading the recent issue of the magazine Food Arts, I noticed a brief item on a successful program in Houston that could work just as well here. It's called "Where the Chefs Eat," and it involves getting chefs to describe where they like to eat when they're not toiling in their own kitchens. What's more, the chefs then take groups of 16 or so on a tour of the restaurant, often a hole-in-the-wall joint or hidden-away ethnic eatery.

My round-up review last month on hamburgers revealed that more than a few chefs like to grab a good burger, usually late at night, when they don't feel like cooking? But where do they go for a little adventure or a little comfort? That's the idea behind the Houston program.

Since the farmers market tours show we have an eager audience for food and education, this seems like a great idea we can borrow for Sacramento. It would be good exposure for the chefs, their restaurants and this city.

By the way, I'm going to take the dining advice of the chefs over the nice fellow who sold me the magazine. What did he have for dinner? He had just returned from a break, where he dined at the nearby Old Spaghetti Factory. His meal? A plate of broccoli and a liter of beer.

The California Café at Arden Fair mall is no longer. Employees found out Tuesday, with phone calls breaking the news to them and giving them absolutely no notice.

Customers began learning the same thing about the popular upscale-casual restaurant today when they showed up for a meal and found the doors locked. Owned by parent company Tavistock Restaurants, California Café had a devoted following dating to its opening 20 years ago this July.

Jeff Carl, Tavistock's chief marketing officer, told me it had little to do with the restaurant's performance, that it was more about the expiring lease and terms of a future lease.

"We were satisfied with the performance of the restaurant given the current economic factors," said Carl, who is based in Emeryville.

But he didn't have much explanation for the way the 30 or so employees were told and how they will be compensated in their final paychecks, which they are supposed to pick up today.

Surprisingly, one longtime employee was sad but not bitter about the way it went down.

"In the restaurant business, that's fairly common practice," said Lori McManus, a server who started at the café 15 years ago. "This will be my second closure. I tend to stick around at a restaurant until they kick me out."

The pastry chef, she said, had worked there since Day 1 and was renowned for his apple tart, among other things.

"After being there 15 years, it was family," McManus added. "I have met so many wonderful people who worked there. It was a pleasure and an honor to work there. It's sad, but it's not often you can work at a place that long."

"I've been very thankful to work there and this is just one of the things that happens," she added.

That said, the reliable and hardworking McManus is suddenly out of work and looking.

She is focusing her search for now in the Roseville area where she lives.

As for Tavistock/California Café, there's an outside chance the restaurant will reopen in another Sacramento location - one with more attractive financial terms.

"We're always looking for better locations, better lease terms," Carl said.

Fans of the former Mason's restaurant take note: a culinary reunion is taking place in Land Park.

Neighborhood hot spot Taylor's Kitchen features two members of Mason's original opening crew - chef Robert Lind and pastry chef Jodie Chavious - and has added a third to its line.

John Gurnee, who served as Mason's executive chef, will be working as Lind's sous chef this week, a role Lind filled under Gurnee at Mason's.

"John is just part-timing it for now," owner Danny Johnson wrote in an e-mail to The Bee. Johnson declined to speak to the chef's future plans.

Customer feedback about Lind's work since he joined the Freeport Boulevard restaurant in February has been "overwhelmingly positive," Johnson said.

"The changes put in place have allowed us to achieve a much higher level in the quality and presentation of the food at Taylor's Kitchen," he said.

It also doesn't hurt that they nabbed Andrew Willsen, formerly of Mulvaney's B&L, to manage the front of the house.

Andy Ramsay, the floor manager at Roxy Restaurant on Fair Oaks Boulevard, is about to leave for what shapes up to be the culinary adventure of a lifetime.

He has been accepted into the masters program at the University of Gastronomic Sciences in the small town of Bra in northern, Italy, which happens to be home of the official headquarters of the Slow Food Movement. In fact, Carlo Petrini, founder of the Slow Food Movement, founded the university in 2004.

"I think the world of Andy," said Terri Gilliland, who co-owns Roxy with her husband Ron. "To me, he is one of those rarities of his generation in this business in that he is completely motivated by passion. He loves food and wine and is making the study of both a life pursuit

"His leaving is bittersweet in that I will miss him greatly but also couldn't be happier for him with this upcoming incredible opportunity to actually see, experience, taste and study the food of Italy."

The academic odyssey is a long way from the days when Ramsay was a student at UCLA - studying writing, of all things. Sometimes you go to school for one thing and figure out while you're there that it's another thing altogether.

"When I was doing my writing degree, I fell in love with food and hosting parties," he told me.

It didn't hurt that his mother is Italian.

"She kind of had the host gene. I think I got that from her. I just ran with it in college. It got to the point where I cared way more about the next party I was going to throw or recipe I was going to try," he said.

Between his junior and senior year, Ramsay landed a job at a Bay Area restaurant, knowing he wanted to do something with food but having very little on his resume to show for it.

"The only real plan was to work in a restaurant because I had never done that before. The chef took a chance on me. I felt like I was a very competent at-home cook, but very little of that translated into a commercial restaurant."

Ramsay finished his course work at UCLA in 2007. Prior to landing a job at Roxy, he went the corporate route to gain experience.

That may surprise some readers. But several successful restaurant employees have told me that working at a chain drilled into them all the fundamentals.

"On the advice of a family friend, he said the best thing for me to do would be to work for a corporate restaurant chain. Those corporate places have really strong systems in place; whereas mom and pop places rely on workers who don't need the systems because they have so much experience."

He worked for the Houston's Restaurant Group in Century City. It was during that stint that he got the idea to go to Italy and pursue a culinary education.

"It's something I want to pursue to the fullest. My goal is to have my own restaurant someday (in Los Angeles)," he said.

In 2008, Ramsay landed a job as floor manager at Roxy. In his spare time, he kept close tabs on what other places were doing. He focused on low-end places selling tacos and tamales and high-end places that prepare gourmet cuisine and have impeccable service. The middle? He doesn't think there's a lot there worth learning.

In late May, he will embark on a 12-month program in Italy, where courses are available in Italian or English. Ramsay knows some Italian and is pretty good with Spanish. The curriculum includes eight weeks of study while traveling.

Anyone interested in doing something similar should start saving up. Ramsay says tuition, travel and eight weeks of an internship will cost about $30,000.

A couple of years ago, The Bee published a story about how local restaurants were celebrating the locavore movement by identifying the names of farms where the meat and produce originated.

Then, more restaurants jumped on the bandwagon. Now, the inevitable saturation. Are we naming so many names on menus that it no longer means anything. I went to a high-end steakhouse recently where the server started to tell me about the ranch where the meat was raised, fumbled over the name, grabbed the menu for a look, then told me. I had never heard of it. As someone who sees lots and lots of menus, I still like to see the sources mentioned on occasion, and I do like to know if I am getting organic food and meat raised without steroids. But it should be done selectively or all those farms just becomes a blur.

At least one prominent chef in town is putting on the brakes, it seems. I spotted this little missive by owner/chef Rick Mahan of the Waterboy and the new and wildly successful OneSpeed. He does make an important observation -- more and more patrons want to know where the food comes from, and the servers need to be able to tell them.

Mahan writes: It's become pretty common to walk into a restaurant, look over a menu and read all about (in every dish!) farmers and ranchers supplying the great ingredients used by the restaurant to produce their food. This is a great, albeit over-done, practice. I know, I'm guilty of it, I've done it, I'm trying to do it less because I'm beginning to find it distracting and also think it's becoming cliche; I'm just leaning towards educating my staff as best I can so they'll be well equipped to answer all the questions you, our guests, may have pertaining to where, how and when the ingredients were brought to us.

So what do you serve culinary legend and award-winning food critic Ruth Reichl during a reception in her honor?

Garlic and sapphires of course.

Reichl's 2006 memoir "Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise" is the theme of her lecture tonight, part of the California Lectures series, so it was only fitting to carry the theme into the dishes served, said Michael Tuohy, chef at Grange Restaurant.

"There will be lots of garlic for sure, and Sapphire martinis," he said.

The menu will include a dizzying array of delectable dishes, from local lamb tartare with shallots, herbs and white truffle oil to lemongrass panna cotta with fresh grapefuit.

"Just the fact that it's Ruth Reichl means it's gotta be good," Tuohy said.

And now, for the answer "Iron Chef America" fans have been waiting for: just how does someone get to be a judge on the show?

I recently had the opportunity to ask Donatella Arpaia, a frequent judge of the Food Network show and judge on "The Next Iron Chef," that very question after interviewing her for a story on food presentation that will appear in Wednesday's Food & Wine section.

"They called me - I didn't call them," she said, laughing. "They're wonderful."

Arpaia, a corporate attorney turned successful Manhatten restauranteur, has several award-winning Manhatten and Miami restaurants, including Anthos, one of only two Greek restaurants in the world to have earned a Michelin star. Her first cookbook "Donatella Cooks: Simple Food Made Glamorous" hit stores next month (jacket cover at left courtesy of Rodale Books).

Food Network contacts a variety of people in the food industry to serve as judges for "Iron Chef America," and executives seem to seek out food authorities with strong culinary opinions and those very knowledgeable about food, she said.

Looks like some of us will be relegated to armchair judging. Oh well.

As for 'The Next Iron Chef," Arpaia confirmed rumors that another show may be in the work.

Will she be involved?

"Oh yes, I think so," she said.

For those who want to take their food and wine knowledge to a whole new level, you'll want to circle March 27 on your calendars - and prepare to dole out $170 for an evening that could last five hours or more.

That's the night you'll be able to rub elbows with Anani Lawson, the sommelier at the French Laundry, one of the world's great restaurants. Lawson is doing the event on his own and he is careful to note this is not a French Laundry-sponsored evening. Nevertheless, he's the wine expert at the restaurant and he will be holding court and talking about wines all night while tasting an apparently lavish multi-course dinner.

Lawson told me by phone that this could be the first of many such wine events he will conduct when he's not on duty at Thomas Keller's famous Yountville restaurant.

"I'm still finalizing the selection of wines. The plan is to have a forum where people can be exposed to wines that they don't instinctively think about and wines they see all the time but don't necessarily see the value of them," Lawson said. "Everyone wants to have the trophy wines, but they might not think about the everyday wines."

Affordable? The French Laundry fixed price dinners are $240 per person. So what does the sommelier consider affordable, everyday wine?

He says he is thinking of a pinot noir that retails for $48, for instance, and a Riesling or white Rhone blend that sells for as little as $15. Those wines and many more will be on site for tasting at the clubhouse at the Pavilions, a new residential development behind Loehman's Plaza off Fair Oaks Boulevard.

Part of the evening will involve pairing wines with food, but the rest will be open to participants to chat with Lawson about anything they choose. Thus, registration is limited to 18 people.

Speaking of pairings, the event itself involves an unusual pairing - the highly regarded Lawson with the unheralded and youthful Pajo Bruich, an ambitious cook who runs a part-time gourmet catering operation but is all but unknown even in the local food community.

Turns out, Bruich and Lawson hit it off when Bruich dined at the French Laundry months ago and eventually decided to join forces to showcase food and wine at a high level. Bruich says he plans to present several culinary surprises during the evening, employing a multitude of modern cooking techniques.

"We are planning to go all out. We are trying to bring the element of surprise to the meal," Bruich said.

If Bruich pulls it off, this could be the start of big things for him. His parents run a restaurant repair business in Lincoln and he says his catering business is not yet allowing him to devote his full-time efforts to it.

Lawson says he was impressed when he presided over Bruich's table at the French Laundry.

"Just like most people I meet, we exchanged business cards. I looked at his Web site and said, 'Hey, maybe we can do events together.' I was the sommelier for his dining table. He showcased to me some type of passion as we described the food to him. It lead to me believe he had a unique passion that I had a connection with."

Lawson added, "When I met him, I said, 'Wow, Sacramento. Why not Sacramento?'"

Those interested in a long, intense, inspiring, educational and more than likely delicious evening should act quickly to reserve a spot.

Here is information from Bruich's promotional mailer. The Web site at the end is the place to register for the event:

This is guaranteed to be our best event to date, with the most dramatic food ingredients and preparations experienced yet! Without giving away too much of the surprise, here is a snippet of the menu....
~ Ultra Grade Wagyu "Calotte" or Cap of Rib Eye
~ Royale De Foie Gras
~ Purebred Japanese Kurobuta
~ Brillat Savarin
~ Valrhona Chocolate and much more! It will definitely be an amazing night in food and wine. Anani has access to some of the rarest and hardest to get wines. He promises to deliver on some memorable wines to enhance the food and create a fabulous dinner!
Beth Daane, of Beth Daane Photography will be on site to capture the magic of the evening.
The evening will start with a cocktail and canape reception at 5:30, followed by a formal seating at 6:00pm.
• March 27th, 5:30 pm
• The Club At Pavilions
• 2430 Pavilions Place Lane
• Sacramento, Ca 95825
• $170 per person, inclusive of service
• http://epicureanddiscoveriesinwine.eventbrite.com/

The wait is almost over to see the rebirth of an upscale Sacramento restaurant that's being turned into an urban eats spot.

Cafeteria 15L, formerly Mason's, will hold its grand opening on April 6, with proceeds from the event benefiting a Hope Productions Foundation, a local nonprofit that provides fundraising and marketing resources for youth and children's charities.

The downtown restaurant is transforming itself due to the economy's toll on fine dining restaurants.

As Bee columnist Bob Shallit reported in January, the decor, menu and pricing all will shift to encompass the restaurant's "urban casual" feel.

The new menu will include dishes like buttermilk-battered fried chicken, meatloaf and sausage-filled corn dogs, Shallit wrote.

The Cafeteria 15L reception will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. and includes live music by "Utz! & the Shuttlecocks," hosted food and a no-host bar.

Tickets are $45 in advance and $55 at the door. For tickets, go to Hope Productions' Web site or call (916) 782-4673.

Turns out you don't have to be in Whistler to enjoy the pairing of gourmet dining and skiing.

Just head to Tahoe, where the Tahoe Cross Country Ski Area will be hosting its Gourmet Ski Tour Fundraiser from 1 to 3 p.m. March 14.

The on-snow gourmet tasting event is a chance for skiers and snowshoers to try out the ski area's gentlest trails and sample seafood, soup, breads, hors d'oeuvres and desserts from more than 15 of Tahoe's top restaurants, according to a news release.

The event concludes with margaritas and live music by Jo Mama on the Tahoe Cross Country lodge sundeck.

The fundraiser benefits the Tahoe Cross Country Ski Education Association, a non-profit group that helping young skier programs and school ski teams.

Tickets are $30 for adults and children 13 and older, which includes a half-day trail pass from 12:30 to 5 p.m. Children 12 and under are free.

Season passholders can purchase event tickets for $25.

For tickets and information, call (530) 583-5475.

The only female owner and operator of a Tequila distillery will lead a tequila tasting tonight at Tres Agaves Mexican Kitchen & Tequila Lounge in Roseville.

Carmen Villareal's Pueblo Viejo distillery produces hand-crafted tequilas, some of which are crafted especially for a woman's palate, said Heather Atherton, a spokeswoman for Tres Agaves.

Among the tequilas included in the tasting are Pueblo Viejo's Carmesi and San Matias Gran Reserva varieties. A bottle signing will also be part of the event.

Tequila Pueblo Viejo and all of the San Matias Tequila labels are being featured as Tres Agaves' distillery of the month, meaning bottles are 10 percent off this month at the store.

The tequila tasting and bottle signing will be held from 7 to 9 p.m. today at Tres Agaves, located at the Fountains at Roseville at the corner of Roseville Parkway and Galleria Boulevard in Roseville.

For more information about Tres Agaves, follow this link to its Web site.

It's the first of many highly-anticipated announcements in the food world: the James Beard Foundation has unveiled the semifinalists for its 2010 restaurant and chef awards.

Among the names unveiled today are several San Francisco and Napa area food industry stars, including Boulevard in San Francisco and Chef Timothy Hollingsworth of The French Laundry in Yountville.

Way to go Northern California!

The award semifinalists were culled from more than 21,000 online entries, which were narrowed by a panel of 400 judges comprised of food industry professionals, educators and journalists, according to a foundation news release.

Five finalists in each of the 19 restaurant and chef categories will be announced on March 22. The awards will be presented May 3 in New York City.

Click on the link below to see the list of semifinalists. Northern California contenders have been highlighted.

In recent years, with the growth of new restaurants in town and the explosion of bike riding as a form of transportation around midtown and downtown, food crawls (and pub crawls) have become a great and growing tradition.

Gather lots of folks, travel from restaurant to restaurant on foot or by bike, have fun, eat well, meet new people and, better still, raise money for a good cause.

The latest food crawl should be really good. It will be Sunday Feb. 28 from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Called the For Ben Food Crawl, proceeds will benefit 10-year-old Ben Fagan, who survived a brain tumor two years ago and is now trying to win the fight against a new cancer gripping his spine.

Here is a message from the Web site promoting the pub crawl: "It is our chance to purchase a ticket in support of Ben's challenge and have the opportunity to explore over 20 of Sacramento's restaurants wearing a "For Ben" T-shirt while believing, hoping, praying, and loving Ben.

See the list of restaurants at the For Ben Web site.

Tickets are $35 and may be purchased at Asha Yoga (1050 20th St., Sacramento), Bikram Yoga (9384 Elk Grove Florin Rd., Elk Grove), Horizon Community Church (446 Fairway Dr., Galt), and Starbucks at Laguna Blvd. and I-5 (2300 Longport Ct., Elk Grove).

This just in: Robert Lind, former sous chef at Mason's Restaurant, is heading about two miles south to lead Taylor's Kitchen starting Tuesday.

Lind brings a "tremendous amount of food knowledge and creativity" to the restaurant, which is committed to delivering an innovative menu made from locally grown and produced foods, Taylor's owner Danny Johnson wrote in an e-mail to The Bee.

"This change will insure Taylor's Kitchen is in step with the long standing tradition of freshness and quality brought forth by Taylor's Market," he said.

Taylor's previous chef, Jenevie Wiles, is leaving to pursue other endeavors.

Lind's start date also means he'll be at the helm when the restaurant hosts its 2nd annual Mardi Gras Celebration Tuesday.

Three seatings - 5, 6:30 and 8 p.m. - are available for the three-course, prix fixe dinner. The $25 per person meal includes crabcakes with Creole aiolo, chicken and andouille jambalaya and bananas foster. Cajun music and beads will be on hand; dancing is optional.

For reservations call (916) 443-5154.

A box of chocolates is a welcome Valentine's Day gift, but an afternoon filled with chocolate? Now THAT's a fun way to celebrate.

Old Town Auburn will be host to the fifth annual Taste of Chocolate from noon to 3 p.m. Sunday, according to an e-mail from event organizer Linda Robinson.

The event also includes entertainment by the "String A Longs" and the Sugar Plump Fairies, she wrote.

For $20, you'll get 10 tastes of chocolates at stores and restaurants. Some venues will be pairing the chocolates with dessert wines. Tickets can be purchased at Sun River Clothing Company, 1585 Lincoln Way, Auburn.

The event is a fundraiser for the Old Town Business Association and the American Association of University Women, which are its sponsors.

For more information, go to the business association's Web site or call (530) 888-1585.

This isn't your average cooking class.

While the new workshop at Taylor's Market does provide cooking tips, it's butchery that's the meat of the matter.

The store is offering a three hour Butchering 101 class later this month, led by owner and butcher Danny Johnson (or as his truck license plate states "BEEF DR").

"There's been a lot of buzz about being a butcher - it's the hot thing in the food world," Johnson said.

The first session, held last month, met overwhelming success.

Participants were taught how to communicate with their butcher, how to buy seafood, cut up a chicken and provided with insider tips on saving money when buying meat.

But butchering a lamb and hog stole the show.

"Everybody started flipping out," he said of their excitement.

The workshops also include a light breakfast and lunch.

The next session will be held from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Feb. 27 at Taylor's on Freeport Boulevard. Cost is $40 per person. Bring your knives too - there will be a knife sharpening contractor on site.

For reservations, call the store at (916) 443-6881.

This story has been updated from it's original version.

The California Office of Traffic Safety is holding a drinking contest.

Sort of.

The state department, which administers grant funding to reduce traffic deaths and injuries, is holding the final stage of its non-alcoholic "mocktail" drink contest today at Grange Restaurant in Sacramento.

The contest began in mid-December, when the department launched a Facebook site that included an interactive application soliciting mocktail recipes from Facebook fans statewide.

The recipes are hoped to provide designated drivers with interesting, delicious drinks that allow them to feel included in the party.

"Driving drunk is a problem, but at the same time we don't want people to not have a good time," said Chris Cochran, the department's spokesman. "We're not anti-alcohol, we're anti alcohol plus driving."

In less than a month, the Facebook site attracted more than 1,000 fans and officials received about 40 non-alcoholic drink recipes, he said.

Cochran, along with other staffers - including one that is a former bartender - was tasked with narrowing the list.

"We were looking for things that are new and different and had something unique about them that hadn't been seen before," he said.

Two entries emerged as finalists: Kimberly Beck's "Green Meenie Martini" and Erika Penzer Kerekes' "Minty Pink Sparkler."

Follow the link below to read more about the contest.

Ladies and gentlemen, Appetizers is about to get even more appealing.

We have added a new feature, an amuse-bouche if you will, that allows food writers here to share interesting content and food stories we find on the Web. The new links will publish under the heading "Recommended Links" on the right side of the page.

From links to quirky food blogs (check out the link at right to a food blog about the pursuit of "waffleizing" meals) to food and wine stories from other newspapers and publications, we aim to bring you what we find fascinating and hope you'll enjoy too.

If you happen across a story or Web site we haven't mentioned and think we should check out, send me an e-mail at nlofing@sacbee.com and you may spy your link included in the mix.

Bon Appetit!

Helping out has never tasted so good.

Taylor's Kitchen is hosting a dinner fundraiser from 4 to 8 p.m. Sunday to benefit Haiti earthquake relief efforts.

The $25 per person meal will feature several courses of Caribbean-inspired food and all proceeds will be donated to a Haitian relief fund, said Danny Johnson, owner of Taylor's Market and the restaurant. Beer and wine will be available at extra cost.

The idea for the fundraiser struck as Johnson and his wife, Kathaleen, were driving to the Fancy Food Show in San Francisco this weekend and listening to radio reports detailing the relief efforts.

"It's an unbelievably tragic story," Danny Johnson said. "That nation's already in a bad enough way."

Taylor's staff are donating their time for the fundraiser and at least one vendor has donated chicken for the event.

Johnson said he's hoping to raise about $5,000 to send to Haiti.

Reservations can be made by calling the restaurant at (916) 443-5154. Walk-ins also are welcome.

Taylor's Kitchen is located at 2924 Freeport Blvd., Sacramento.

I understand there are still a few $35 tickets left for what promises to be an enlightening, enjoyable and, if the host's pizza is involved, delicious event at Hot Italian. It's called "Sustainable Sacramento: Eat, Learn and Celebrate" and it's sponsored by Pesticide Watch and Slow Food Sacramento.

If you care about what you eat and where your food comes from, these are two groups you might get to know a little better. For more on the event this Thursday, click here or at the Slow Food Sacramento web site.

Hot Italian is at the corner of 16th and Q.

Every four weeks, I am trying to do a compilation review of dining bargains. This is instead of a review of a single place. My latest such review takes a look at everything from the breakfast sandwich to the long-running dinner for two at Danielle's Creperie.

If you know of other great bargains out there, please let me know. In the coming months, I will be looking at dessert places, the best hamburgers, great soups and various other ways to save money when you go out.

January is generally a pretty slow month in the restaurant business. People are recovering from the holiday rush. They're making New Year's resolutions that have something to do with eating less -- not more. And if they're like me, they're letting their livers recover after drinking their neighbor's Aquavit!

But the news is good about Dine Downtown, the promotion that is coming to a close this weekend. Restaurants are happy. Customers are happy. And the downtown streets are hopping. The idea was for restaurants to pool their resources and offer a multi-course set price meal.

Here's what we just received from Downtown Sacramento Partnership:

"We've seen the levels of business almost double what we usually expect this time of year," said Brent Larkin, director of food and beverage for Grange at The Citizen. "Considering these economic times, people are surprisingly coming out in droves. We hope many of our guests are
using this promotion to visit our restaurant for the first time and, in turn, become future
patrons."

Participating restaurants include 3 Fires Lounge & Restaurant at The Marriott, 4th Street Grille, 58 Degrees and Holding Co., Biba Restaurant, Bistro 33, Brew It Up!, The Broiler, Chops Steak, Seafood & Bar, Cosmo Café, Cyprus Grille at The Holiday Inn, Dawson's at The Hyatt, de Vere's Irish Pub, Ella Dining Room & Bar, Esquire Grill, Fat City Bar & Café, The Firehouse Restaurant, Frank Fat's, Grange Restaurant at The Citizen, Il Fornaio, L Wine Lounge & Urban Kitchen, Mason's New American, McCormick & Schmick's, The Melting Pot, Michelangelo's, Mikuni Midtown, Morgan's at The Sheraton, Mulvaney's B&L, Pilothouse at The Delta King, Rio City Café, River City Brewing Company, Sapporo Grill, Sofia on 11th, Spataro and Ten 22.

A few weeks back, I wrote a review of a new breakfast place called Orphan. Though the employees were pleasant enough and the service was decent, my thoughts overall were rather unkind. Not only was the food disappointing and exceptionally bland, but the conduct of Orphan owner Christopher Pendarvis seemed bizarre.

As readers know by now, I overheard -- scratch that, I couldn't help but hear -- Pendarvis interviewing a job candidate at a table in the middle of the restaurant. Not only was the interview location poor judgment, since I really don't feel like hearing where a 20-year-old sees himself in five years while I'm trying to eat French toast -- but the questions were ridiculous. The topper: "Are you having sex with your girlfriend?"

I recently wrote about the aftermath of a positive review, which often sees restaurants flooded with business. That isn't always enough. I can count three restaurants I reviewed in the past 12 months that have closed or changed hands.

Chanterelle, at the Sterling Hotel, is the latest. The managers who took over ownership last year, closed the restaurant last Wednesday and the managment team is in transition. Here is a rough draft of the story we are working on for Tuesday's Bee:

With rumors swirling and stunned employees at its restaurant scrambling to find work, the stately Sterling Hotel will remain open during a change in management.
But Chanterelle, the adjoining upscale restaurant, will close as the owners of the property put that portion of the building through a major renovation and look for a new concept.

"I've been trying to cash it every day, but so far it hasn't worked," he said.

I recently logged onto OpenTable.com to check on the area's restaurants, including the various rankings. Despite my position as The Bee's restaurant critic, I think people should seek out a variety of opinions when they are weighing their dining options. One advantage I may offer to readers is that my opinions will invariably be more consistent and my benchmarks more thorough, while online reviews will be more plentiful.

The reason I prefer OpenTable to Yelp is that diners can only write a review and give star ratings when they make a reservation through the Web site and then actually show up and eat there. With Yelp, you can pretty much write anything you want without ever visiting any establishment. Still, there are reliable and amusing reviews to be found on Yelp. "Sarah S." for instance, is actually Sarah Singleton, the author of the impressive and entertaining "Undercover Caterer" blog. One drawback of OpenTable, of course, is that it does not rank restaurants that don't take reservations. That means people who search the site might not know about the wonderful food at a casual but consistently excellent place like Magpie on R Street.

As for OpenTable, its lists seem quite credible, with a few surprises. Ambience Restaurant in Carmichael tops the list in the "Best Overall" category. That's not a surprise. I have been touting the wonderful, artistic cooking and fine service for months, and I recently ranked it as my favorite fine dining experience of 2009. Mulvaney's tops the list "Fit for Foodies," followed by Grange and, pleasant surprise here, A Chef's Table, the new little bistro in Rocklin owned by Chef David Hill.

Ambience also leads the way on OpenTable's "Best Food" and "Best Ambiance." As fond as I am of Ambience, its ambiance (or ambience, if you prefer the French spelling) is not its strong suit. It could use a tad more warmth, a touch or two with décor and accessories, including more and better art on the walls. But there is certainly plenty of art to be found on the plates.

I have dined several times at Ambience since I reviewed it months ago (and awarded it our highest rating with four stars). And Ambience was the way I decided to end 2009, attending the incredible New Year's Eve dinner, a seven-course set menu for $85.

After the salmon scallop mousse brioche that kicked off the meal, we were wowed by the three-part second course of lobster - lobster crème brulee, lobster bisque and finally seared lobster on diced Asian cucumber with wasabi coulis and fondue sauce. What a warm-up.

After the beautifully arranged and clean-tasting golden and rainbow beets with Muscovy duck pate, we moved on to what I considered the best course of the night, a perfectly cooked and wonderfully moist grilled sea bass on braised leeks and white corn Arborio rice, dill butter and vinaigrette radicchio.

There was so much more, all of it amazing - a fifth course of pan-seared squab breast cooked medium rare, along with housemade squab sausage, brushed with blackberry glaze.

The sixth course was the gorgonzola stuffed pork tenderloin on scalloped potatoes, along with Burgundy poached pears and one of my favorite Ambience treats, wild black rice. If you haven't had that, it's delicious when it comes out of Morgan Song's kitchen. We were so full we had to take our excellent desserts home. When I passed by the kitchen on the way out, I caught a glimpse of Song and his young, talented sous chef Olga Ponce, fully concentrating on cooking and plating the food. Their night was an absolute success, and no doubt an exhausting one.

It made me realize that there must be something to the OpenTable rankings. In the "best food" category, I cannot imagine a restaurant performing any better.

The question is simple: whose cuisine will reign supreme?

The task is not: constructing a three-course meal in just 45 minutes using five secret ingredients.

Six chefs will aim to do just that on April 30 as part of the Celebrity Chef Challenge, which will be held from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. at the California Automobile Museum in downtown Sacramento.

The event pits local chefs in whisk to whisk combat during the live cooking competition and food show.

Four chefs have signed on for battle thus far: Ryan O'Malley, executive chef at Piatti Ristorante; Chef Q, owner of Chef Q For Hire; Kristy DeVaney, caterer and food blogger; and Anthony Dimasuay, executive chef at 3 Fires Lounge at the Residence Inn Marriott Hotel.

Celebrity judges include News 10's Bryan May, Adam Pechal, owner of Tuli Bistro and a past Celebrity Chef Challenge winner, and Chef Dominique Crenn, of Food Network "The Next Iron Chef" fame.

Crenn is executive chef at San Francisco's Luce Restaurant and was named Esquire Magazine's "Chef of the Year 08."

On the second season of "The Next Iron Chef," Crenn, a delightfully spunky French gal whose accent could charm even the coldest soul, was sent packing mid-season when she served up an entree judges said lacked flavor and an undercooked churro.

About 100 food vendors, including local wineries and breweries, are expected to participate in the food show at the Celebrity Chef Challenge.

Guy Farris and Melissa Crowley of Sacramento & Co. will be the masters of ceremonies.

Tickets are $50 in advance and $60 at the door. All proceeds benefit InAlliance, a local nonprofit that provides life skills training and supported employment for people with developmental disabilities, said Jessica Bean, InAlliance's public relations coordinator.

For more event information or to get tickets, go to www.chefevent.com.

Don't be put off by those long, seemingly daunting recipes in today's Food & Wine section - braising a pork belly at home isn't as hard as it sounds.

Yes, it takes a while (about 48 hours to be exact), but the actual hands-on cooking is rather simple. And the meat that results, well, is simply fantastic.

When I interviewed food writer and cookbook author Michael Ruhlman for my story, he said he recently talked someone through the process of making a pork belly using Twitter.

Conveying how to cook a pork belly in 140 characters? Now that's impressive.

"It's one of those things when people first do it, it changes their lives," Ruhlman said. "It's so easy, so delicious."

The hardest part about making a pork belly is acquiring one, though we are blessed with several great butchers and grocers in the Sacramento region who can help with that.

I got my pork belly at Taylor's Market, but it also can be found at Vande Rose Farms Meat & Fish in Granite Bay, Reed's Gourmet Meat Co. in East Sacramento and Corti Brothers.

It's also a good idea to call and pre-order one ahead of time. Many butchers also will take the skin off for you.

For pork belly recipes, including recipes for what to serve with pork belly, check out sacbee.com/recipes.

I used Pajo Bruich's recipe for vanilla apple puree, which I served beneath my seared pork belly and topped it with his recipe for apple celery salad. Follow the link above for those recipes. (pictured is an onion-crusted sous vide Duroc pork belly with cocoa and strawberry paint and compressed melon salad prepared by Chef John Paul Khoury, corporate chef for Preferred Meats).

As regular readers of my reviews know, I am a fan of Mark Helms and his creative, precise and rigorous cooking at Ravenous Cafe. So I was alarmed to hear a caller recently who had a complaint: She tried to give Helms money, and he wouldn't take it.

Turns out, Lis Andersen is a member of an investment group and a fan of Ravenous, too. She wanted to get a friend a gift certificate at this little gem of a restaurant in the Pocket area. But when she inquired, she was told they don't do such a thing, that it causes confusion with bookkeeping.

"I was flabbergasted," she told me. "Why would a bookkeeper not want my money? They lost a $125 sale to Biba."

Turns out, the same thing happened to me six months ago. A friend at work was having a baby. When I reviewed Ravenous, he came along and raved about the food along with the rest of us. So I called Helms back then and said I wanted to buy a $50 gift certificate. He turned it down, with a similar explanation about bookkeeping.

I'm no business expert, but it seems to me that gift certificates and, especially, gift cards, are flourishing. Not hard to see why. For one thing, they are money that can only go to that business. For another, if they are not used right away, if they languish in a sock drawer somewhere for months, they amount to a nice little no-interest loan for the business.

So I called Helms back and asked what's going on. How can he keep leaving money on the table -- mine, Lis' and who knows how many others?

Helms is a food guy, but not a money guy.

"It's extremely hard to track," he explained.

Then I told him my free money layman's theory. He concurred.

"I'm going to start doing them anyway," he said. "I've had so many requests."

It may be too late to receive a Ravenous gift under your tree this Christmas, but if you're looking for a last-minute gift idea for a foodie, a restaurant gift certificate is an excellent way to go -- at Ravenous or any of other fine eateries around.

It's likely to be an elegant affair Thursday night at Next Door at the B&L, the event space just steps away from Patrick Mulvaney's namesake restaurant.

Food, entertaining and lifestyle expert B. Smith will be the featured guest at an event hosted by the Sacramento Chapter of The Links, Incorporated, an international women's public service organization.

Members of the nonprofit organization are committed to "enriching, sustaining and ensuring the identities, culture and economic survival of African Americans and persons of African descent," according to the local chapter's Web site.

The event includes a book signing, reception, chat and cooking demonstration with Smith, who is a respected restaurateur and cookbook author.

An autographed copy of her latest cookbook, "B. Smith Cooks Southern Style" (Scribner, $35, 336 pages), is included in the ticket price, which is $50 a person or $85 per couple.

"An Intimate Evening with B. Smith" will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday at Next Door at the B&L, 1215 19th St., Sacramento.

Valet parking will be available.

For tickets, go to the local Links chapter's Web site or call (916) 929-8552.

Smith also will be the keynote speaker at the National Coalition of 100 Black Women (NCBW), Inc. Sacramento Chapter's eighth annual Business and Community Awards Recognition Luncheon.

The luncheon will be held at noon Saturday, with a champagne reception at 11:15 a.m., at the DoubleTree Hotel, 2001 Point West Way, Sacramento.

Tickets are $60 per person, or $600 for a table that seats 10 guests. For tickets, call (888) 722-6229 or go to the NCBW's Web site.

It's too bad that blogs don't come with sound tracks, because if they did, you'd be hearing a round of applause right now for Michael Tuohy and Hank Shaw.

Tuohy, Grange's executive chef, and Shaw, a food writer and blogger, cooked themselves into a fowl frenzy this afternoon in a duck competition held at the downtown restaurant.

There were duck gizzards, duck heart, duck liver, duck breast. It was a duck love fest. And darn it, it was delicious.

The show stopper, for me was Tuohy's warm duck rillette, served alongside a persimmon and pomegranate salad. While rillette is usually served at room temperature, forming a pate-like paste, this one was served gloriously warm. It was all I could do not to like the crockery in which it was served.

Shaw's final dish, a duck breast served alongside perfectly cooked apples, also was a showstopper.

Who won? It remains a bit of a mystery. I voted for Tuohy, as did fellow judge and colleague Rick Kushman. Grocer Darrell Corti and California Waterfowl Association President Bob McLandress declared it a tie.

The winner will be announced on this evening's special prix-fixe menu at Grange, as well as in Kushman's Good Life column on Wednesday.

I'll update this posting when I learn the outcome.

In the meantime, congratulations Chef Tuohy and Hank - it was a beautiful, delicious meal.

Today is the big day for food writer Hank Shaw and Grange Executive Chef Michael Tuohy.

At 3 p.m., the two will compete in a Iron Chef America-style cooking competition, although both know the secret ingredient - wild duck.

Neither are divulging how they plan to prepare their dishes, but I do know one thing - I will taste superb cooking today.

I was asked to judge the competition, along with my colleague Rick Kushman, well-respected food and wine expert Darrell Corti and Bob McLandress of the California Waterfowl Association.

Check back later on this blog to learn who won and which were the favorite dishes.

Tuohy and Shaw also will be teaming up this evening to serve a five-course prix-fixe duck dinner at Grange. Cost is $65 per person, with 10 percent of the proceeds going to the California Waterfowl Association.

This is a book worth devouring.

It's "The Best Food Writing 2009" (Da Capo Press, $15.95, 348 pages) and by no means is the title a misnomer.

I was lucky enough to have obtained an advanced copy of the book, which hit store shelves this week, and consumed the delectable collection of prose in about two days, putting it down only for little things like work and care of children (although I did catch myself sneaking hits of it while my kids were watching PBS' "Dragon Tales").

The 10th anniversary edition of the book is edited by Holly Hughes and is an anthology of the best culinary writing found in newspapers, books, magazines, Web sites and newsletters from the past year.

Contributors include the likes of The New York Times' Kim Severson, Julia Moskin and Frank Bruni; Food & Wine's Lettie Teague; Gourmet's Ruth Reichl and Molly Wizenberg of the famed Orangette blog and "A Homemade Life" (Simon & Schuster, $25, 336 pages).

One of my personal favorites included in the book was a piece that Eric LeMay penned for Gastronomica about his love of French cheese and his quest to smuggle cheese back to the states.

Follow the link below to read an excerpt of LeMay's story.

Grange Executive Chef Michael Tuohy and local food writer Hank Shaw are going, well, beak to beak.

The two will be facing off in a duck cooking competition Nov. 12 at the downtown restaurant to raise money for the California Waterfowl Association (Shaw is shown at left in a 2007 photo by The Bee's Anne Chadwick Williams).

The winner will be named by a panel of judges during the afternoon competition.

The public is invited to partake in the fowl festivities that evening, when Grange's menu will include a five-course prix fixe menu ($65 plus tax and gratuity) inspired by the competition.

Ten percent of the proceeds will benefit the association, which works to preserve, protect and enhance the state's "waterfowl resources, wetlands and associated hunting heritage," the association's Web site states.

The special "duck off" menu includes such mouth-watering offerings as a duck charcuterie starter, house made tagliatelle with duck sugo and duck cassoulet.

Dessert? Try pear tart boasting a crust made with duck fat.

Oh duck fat, how I love thee.

Ahem, I digress.

Shaw, whose James Beard-nominated food blog, "Hunter, Angler, Gardener, Cook" recently led to a book deal, and Tuohy (shown at right) are keeping their competition recipes a secret from everyone, including each other, said Sarah Essary, a spokeswomen for Grange Restaurant & Bar and The Citizen Hotel.

Check back here next week to learn who served the winning dish.

Tuohy also is offering duck hunters a chance to have their own bounty star in a seasonally-inspired meal.

Hunters can bring the duck in 48 hours before their dinner reservations and Tuohy will meet with them to design a duck dinner for $75 per person. The offer runs through January.

For more information, check out Grange's Web site.

Here is Grange's Nov. 12 prix fixe duck menu: Grange_DuckOff_Menu.pdf

Zagat Survey, the company that publishes grassroots restaurant guides, just sent us the results of a dining survey that may answer a few questions we all have about how restaurants are doing in this down economy.

The survey is based on 145,000 local restaurant-goers in 45 U.S. markets. If you look at No. 5, you'll see why I often emphasize service in my restaurant reviews. Here's what we received from Zagat:

1) On the downside, due to the weak economy, 43% of people are eating out less; 41% are more price-conscious when reading menus; 36% are going to less expensive places; and 19% are cutting back on alcohol and 22% are skipping appetizers and/or dessert.

2) On the upside, 54% of diners report getting better deals; 40% feel their patronage is more appreciated; 31% enjoy easier access to top restaurants; and 20% say they are eating healthier, perhaps due to all those drinks and desserts they're skipping.

3) Over the past five years, the percent of lunches and dinners "eaten out or taken out" has declined markedly - from 53% to 48%; this is consistent with the fact that 44% of surveyors say that they're cooking at home more.

4) Only 26% report their dining habits being unaffected by the economy.

5) Service continues to be the main complaint of 68% of diners (with crowding, noise, prices, poor food, and traffic/parking cumulatively representing only 30% of complaints), however, surveyors report by a 22% to 6% margin, that service has improved of late.

6) Fortunately for staffers, tipping increased from 19% to 19.1% this year.

7) Prices showed an annual inflation of 3.96% since 2000; this year that dropped to 1.20%; among the most expensive restaurants, annual inflation had been 5.25% that dropped to 0.49% in 2008/9.

8) Use of the internet to reserve has jumped from 8% to 20% in just a few years.

9) As for taste preferences, Italian food with a 27% plurality beats out even American food at 16%; French and Japanese both at 11% and Mexican at 10% follow.

10) Forty percent of surveyors say they're more likely to dine at a top chef's restaurant.

11) When it comes to issues of health and greening, 69% consider it important to have low-carb, low fat, heart healthy menu items available at restaurants; 65% think trans fats should be banned; and 61% are willing to pay more for food that is "green" (i.e. locally grown, sustainably raised, or organic).

With much fanfare, including personal calls to chefs awarded a coveted star, the Michelin Guide for the Bay Area and Wine Country announced the launch of its fourth edition Monday. The $17.99 annual guide goes on sale today.

39 restaurants were awarded stars for the 2010 guide, up from 32 last year. There were two high-profile demotions from the select list of two-star eateries - Aqua lost both of its stars and Michael Mina was demoted to one star.

Michelin is by far the most influential guide in the world. Shifts in its ratings are closely watched - and hotly debated - within the restaurant industry and by dining aficionados.

Falling out of favor with Michelin can be costly. The loss of a star, for instance, is said to translate to a loss of up to 25 percent of a restaurant's business.

The French Laundry won't have to worry. Super chef Thomas Keller's $240-per-person (before the wine) prix fixe restaurant in Yountville remains the only Bay Area/Wine Country establishment to receive the highest rating of three stars. Such a rating means it is considered one of the finest restaurants in the world.

Keller's more casual bistro, Bouchon, also in Yountville, earned one star. His New York restaurant, Per Se, also received three stars.

Chez Panisse, Alice Waters' much-admired restaurant in Berkeley, earned one star, the same as it did in 2009. That rating is also controversial, as some critics consider it to be among the best restaurants in the area and, more so, a longtime leader in the farm-to-table movement that now seems commonplace throughout America.

How did Sacramento fair? Who? Where? Huh? The state's capital isn't even on Michelin's radar, at least not yet. The Bay Area guide has expanded its territory, but the "famously anonymous" inspectors who taste and tally throughout the year have yet to make the trip to Sacramento to size up the city's best restaurants.

In Wednesday's Bee, we will take a look at why Michelin doesn't rate the food in Sacramento, the impact it would have on the city if it did, and which restaurants just might hold up to the scrutiny.

That day of reckoning may come. Michelin is looking to expand its reach, and Sacramento's dining scene has evolved considerably in recent years.

Possible local contenders for a Michelin star? The Kitchen Restaurant, Grange, Kru, Firehouse, Ella, Slocum House, Waterboy, Biba, Hawks, Ambience, Carpe Vino in Auburn and Taste in Plymouth. Your list may be different.

It may surprise some readers to learn that the Michelin stars are awarded solely for the food - the quality of ingredients and how the food is prepared. As Jean-Luc Naret, the worldwide director of the Michelin Guide, told me Monday, "the personality of the chef on the plate, not on TV or in the books."

Though service, ambience and other factors are considered in most ratings - and they're noted in the Michelin Guide - they do not have any bearing on the stars.

With a nod to the worldwide recession, Michelin has also expanded its emphasis on value. It has a separate category called "Bib Gourmand," or an "inspector's favorites for good value." To qualify in this category, a restaurant must offer two courses of superb food with wine or dessert for $40 or less. Another category lists fine meals for under $25.

During a long lunch at The Slanted Door, a popular Vietnamese restaurant in the Ferry Building with a view of the Bay Bridge, Naret provided some details into the secretive Michelin rating system that holds so much sway over the restaurant industry in 23 countries. Turns out, the job of Michelin inspector is not as glamorous as it may seem.

In the United States, Michelin has a staff of 10 inspectors. They remain anonymous and their dinners are strictly business, meaning they do not include friends and family when they dine out, as do most restaurant reviewers who publish in newspapers and magazines.

"I know some inspectors who don't even tell their wives what they are doing," Naret told me. "It's much like working for the witness protection program, except the food is better, of course."

To qualify for the job, candidates should have a background in the culinary arts, though that doesn't mean being a chef, Naret said. Once hired, inspectors go through standardized training in the Michelin system to learn how to gather detailed information and make judgments based on vast benchmarks of the very best restaurants.

One star is considered "a very good restaurant in its category;" two stars signifies "excellent cuisine, worth a detour;" and three stars means "exceptional cuisine worth a special journey."

Naret said the cheapest three-star restaurant is Jean Georges in New York, where patrons can enjoy world-class cuisine at lunch for $29.

In the Bay Area/Wine Country, Naret suggested an upgrade may soon be afoot for one of the two-star establishments.

Here is the official list for 2010 starred restaurants:

Three Michelin stars *** One always eats here extremely well, sometimes superbly. Distinctive dishes are precisely executed, using superlative ingredients.
The French Laundry

Two Michelin stars ** Skillfully and carefully crafted dishes of outstanding quality
Coi, Cyrus, Manresa, The Restaurant at Meadowood

One Michelin star* A place offering cuisine prepared to a consistently high standard
Acquerello, Luce, Ame, Madrona Manor, Auberge du Soleil, Masa's, Aziza, Michael Mina, Bouchon, Murray Circle, Boulevard, One Market, Chez Panisse, Plumed Horse, Chez TJ, Quince, Commis. Range, The Dining Room at the Ritz Carlton, Redd, El Paseo, Sante, etoile, Solbar, Farmhouse Inn & Restaurant, Terra, Fifth Floor, Trevese, Fleur de Lys, Ubuntu, Gary Danko, The Village Pub, La Folie, and La Toque.

This afternoon, I made a quick call to La Bonne Soupe to ask chef/owner Daniel Pont how the second day back in business went. The restaurant had closed for two weeks on a health code issue, during which Pont fell ill and was hospitalized.

When I ate lunch there Wednesday, I sat outside at the one table on the sidewalk on 8th Street. I watched people walk by and do doubletakes when they realized La Bonne Soupe was open again. One man cursed and then said to his friend, "We could have eaten there today, I didn't know he was open again."

That was the first day, which saw Pont open his lunch-only eatery without fanfare, The line was quite short, the wait no more than 10 minutes, Then came the magic of word-of mouth. The line Thursday was very long and steady. Things are back to normal.

Daniel Pont looked as good as ever Wednesday as he ladled soup, sliced baguettes and braised pork loin.

After he was forced to close recently due to easily remedied violation cited by a health inspector, Pont, 70, collapsed at home and was taken by ambulance to hospital.

Why is this big news? Pont is a beloved figure among epicures and his tiny cafe on 8th Street sports the highest rating for food in the Sacramento Zagat.

Today, on his first day back, there was a line at close to noon, but it was uncharacteristically short. I ordered the smoked duck sandwich and the French onion soup, which many claim as the best they've ever tasted. With a small bottle of champagne, I sat at the lone table on the sidewalk on an otherwise seedy block between I and J streets.

We will have a story later for the newspaper and I hope to get a word with Pont about how he is feeling. Judging from appearances -- and from the food -- he's as a good as ever.

The question of where to find an inexpensive date-night dinner may just have been answered.

Selland's Market-Cafe is running a dinner special for $25 that features a meal for two and bottle of wine, pitcher of beer or sangria.

The specials are dine-in or carry out, and are creating quite a buzz at the east Sacramento spot, especially on Thursday and Friday nights.

The intent is to offer customers "a good deal in these tough times and to hopefully help show that Selland's can be a good deal for great quality anytime," said Gina Funk Nelson, a spokeswoman for The Selland Group.

This week's dinner for two special is Moroccan chicken tagine with couscous and a bottle of wine selected by Randall Selland, the market's executive chef. Selland and his family also own and operate The Kitchen Restaurant and Ella Dining Room and Bar.

Other dinners have features paella, mahi mahi sandwiches with slaw and Coq au Vin.

The second Wednesday of the month, when there also is a wine tasting at the cafe, the dinner for two special features pizza paired with red wine or a pitcher of beer.

Is it dinnertime yet?

As fans of the much-admired La Bonne Soupe know by now, the lunchtime legend in the making was recently shutdown by a health inspector on a minor violation that was supposed to be easy to fix.

But La Bonne Soupe's proprietor, Daniel Pont, didn't take it so easy. He fretted and fumed and, one might say, carried the weight of the world on his shoulders as he hustled to reopen.

La Bonne Soupe on 8th Street downtown is no ordinary eatery. It owns the highest rating in Sacramento's Zagat guide. Folks line up for an hour or more for the soup, salads and sandwiches.

It is a charming place, seemingly plucked from a French village and transported to Sacramento.

Pont, 70, collapsed over the weekend as he raced to clean the restaurant, address the concerns of the health inspector and be ready for a re-inspection on Monday. He didn't make it. He was rushed to hospital and, at last word, was undergoing tests.

His many admirers rose to his defense. Many offered to volunteer to help. Mop the floors, scrubs the walls, whatever it took to re-open.

The problem? Pont is stubbornly independent. He works alone. He handles the money, the ladle, the knife. He scrubs the pots. He turns out the lights at day's end.

His one-man act is part of his charm, but given the recent circumstances, it threatens to be part of his undoing.

This is not something Sacramento wants to lose. La Bonne Soupe is one of the things that distinguishes our city. It is a sandwich shop, but it's also a destination. It serves soup, but it also infuses its patrons with a special kind of warmth. Simply watching this quiet, calm and humble man at work is enough to make one smile.

It seems Pont will not be able to simply pick up where he left off. Sure, the inspector found a few roaches. What else is new? There are roaches in and around nearly every restaurant in the land, including the very best dining establishments.

After I wrote the story about the chef's collapse, readers flooded my email with offers to chip in. Perhaps our fine French chef will relent and allow these well-meaning folks to roll up their sleeves and work.

It could be a win-win. Why not set up a makeshift internship program for culinary students and avid foodies? They could work in the restaurant - collect the money, sweep the floors, peel the potatoes -- and allow Pont to focus his talent and energy on what really matters, making and serving excellent food.

Maybe it will take a village to reopen this fine little restaurant. For the good of the city, and for all the fans of La Bonne Soupe, let's hope that happens soon. For the chef, we wish him a speedy recovery.

The foodie world let out a collective gasp this morning.

Gourmet magazine is closing.

The culinary prose powerhouse is the latest casualty of the economy, and just one of several Conde Nast publications to fold.

The Associated Press' Food Editor J.M. Hirsch, penned the following obituary:

After nearly 70 years of fine eating, the lavish meal known as Gourmet magazine is over.

Conde Nast blamed the tough economic climate Monday when it told its staff it was closing the stalwart of the food media world, long considered the dean of culinary publishing.

"It's the center of gravity, a major planet that's just disappearing," said chef and author Anthony Bourdain, who said Gourmet was the first food publication to give him a chance as a writer. "There's been a lot of speculation about this happening, but I'm still stunned."

Conde Nast also said it was shuttering Modern Bride, Elegant Bride and Cookie, a parenting magazine. Earlier in the year it ceased publication of Portfolio, a business magazine, and Domino, a homes title. Sister Conde Nast publication Bon Appetit survived the cuts, and will likely absorb many of Gourmet's readers.

Click here to read the story.

There was nothing quite like curling up on the coach on a Saturday morning with a hot cup of coffee and poring through the magazine, dreaming about what dinner could be rather than would be.

I will miss Gourmet's writing and inspiration greatly. Best of luck to those writers, editors, designers and other staff who made eating that much more pleasurable for all of us.

Readers will often call or email and ask for a restaurant recommendation. Depending on the occasion, the price point or the expectations, I will usually suggest two or three places I think will work out.

A few days ago, a woman named Margaret Khan called and asked for a couple of suggestions. The occasion? She had mportant clients she wanted to impress. Margaret is in real estate.

This time, I gave her a rundown of five or six options, and she decided to go to Slocum House in Fair Oaks. The venerable restaurant recently went through a big change in the kitchen, hiring rising star Gabriel Glasier, formerly of Redbud Cafe in Cameron Park, the restaurant he owned until closing down several months ago.

Turns out, Margaret and Slocum House hit it off. With her permission, I thought I'd share a few excerpts from her email:

I went there ahead of time, previewed the menu and found out they had a rather good jazz singer and combo that night. Lindsey, the Receptionist (Maitre d'?) reserved the choice table next to the band for us, and brought out Chef Gabriel to describe the evening specials. How could we not reserve?

Dinner was exceptional! Gabriel very graciously came out to introduce himself and describe his creations and -- nice touch! -- a young man took the mic to propose to his girlfriend and then played an original composition on keyboard (rather good) to her. Good evidence for "Sacramento's Most Romantic Restaurant"?

...We had a memorable evening, our guests were exuberant, and I looked great to my clients. Really appreciate your recommendation.

Give Evan Elsberry credit. Not only is he a very good cook, he's a stubborn restaurateur. After promoting a full vegetarian wine dinner in May and then canceling it when interest was low, Evan's Kitchen on 57th Street is trying again

Vegetarian groups were apparently unaware of the big dinner and perhaps Elsberry didn't reach out to the right Web sites and blogs the first go round. Several folks said they would have made reservations had they known.

So now we'll see how many diners are out there willing to pay $60 for what looks to be a wonderful night of food and wine, absent the meat.

Here's the information Elsberry sent me:

First Course: Yellow Gazpacho and Ratatouille

$59.95 per person. Reservations Required. Call 916-452-3896.

That didn't take long. Ella Dining Room and Bar only recently embarked on a national search to replace Chef David English, who is departing for Italy in three weeks.

But the popular upscale restaurant on K Street looked no farther than Napa for someone to fill English's big shoes.

Kelly McCown, executive chef at Francis Ford Coppola's Rubicon Estate Winery in Napa, will start at Ella on July 6th.

A graduate of the California Culinary Institute, McCown is also a trained pastry chef.

He has held several prestigious posts, including chef de cuisine at Martini House, the Michelin-rated restaurant in St. Helena; sous chef at Greystone Restaurant at the Culinary Institute of America in Napa; and chef de cuisine at Flying Fish in Seattle.

A press release from The Selland Group, owner of Ella and its showcase The Kitchen Restaurant, calls the new hire "an amazing catch. We could not be more thrilled to be hiring this eminently qualified, talented, energetic, and charismatic new executive chef for Ella Dining Room and Bar."

Mark your calendars Southwest cooking fans - Grange Restaurant & Bar is hosting a book signing for super chef Mark Miller.

The Sacramento event on July 15 celebrates Miller's newest cookbook, "Tacos" (Ten Speed Press, $21.95, 176 pages).

Grange Executive Chef Michael Tuohy also will create a special menu for lunch and dinner, highlighting dishes from the Miller's cookbook, according to an e-mail from the restaurant officials.

Miller has created more than 13 restaurants, including Coyote Cafe in Santa Fe, where he now lives, and Fourth Street Grill in Berkeley.

The book signing will be held during lunch service, which begins at 11:30 a.m., and dinner service, which begins at 5:30 p.m.

For more information, visit Grange's Web site.

Have you ever heard of a 14-year-old who eats squab, much less knows how to cook it? My colleague, Carlos Alcala, has found a local teen who lives for cooking and chronicled his adventures for Wednesday's Food & Wine section.

Here's a sneak preview from Carlos to whet your appetite:

Some of us check, double-check and triple check our recipes as we cook. We don't make anything for guests that we haven't tested before. We measure ingredients carefully for every recipe. That's not Jeffrey Caves. The 14-year-old Carmichael cook is fearless in the kitchen. He's not afraid of knives, fire or failure. He knows enough about cooking that he can usually operate by the seat of his pants (or pans) and save any dish gone wrong from becoming a disaster. See what makes this teen kitchen whiz tick in Wednesday's Food & Wine section.

This is the beginning of a new era at Slocum House, the venerable upscale restaurant in Old Fair Oaks, and owner Kerry Kassis says he couldn't be more excited.

Kassis recently made a dramatic change in the kitchen, replacing his executive chef, Eric Sunquist, with Gabriel Glasier, who cooked at the highly regarded Redbud Café in Cameron Park until its closing in recent months, an apparent victim of the economic downturn. Sunquist tells me he is exploring his options. With his skill in the kitchen, he will know doubt land at a very good restaurant somewhere -- let's hope it's in the Sacramento area.

Unbeknownst to the former Redbud Café chef/owner, Kassis had been watching Glasier, marveling at the chef's skills and wondering if he would someday be able to get him to cook under the Slocum House roof.

"I happened to stop in there for dinner years ago and I couldn't believe they were putting out that kind of food," Kassis told me. "I started going up there more and more and thought, 'This isn't going to happen.'"

It happened by accident, as it turns out. Slocum House was interviewing a server who listed Redbud on his resume and Kassis learned the place had recently closed.

"It didn't take more than a second or two to ask where the chef was now," Kassis said.

Turns our, Glasier was exploring his options. Kassis and Glasier got together to talk and apparently hit it off. Glasier put together some mock menus and Kassis had visions of returning Slocum House to its glory years under James LaPerrierre, who left in 2004 after nine years.

"Even though our food has been good over the past three or four years, it wasn't the kind of food where people would walk outside the door and say, 'Wow,'" Kassis said.

Kassis sent me a preview of the restaurant's new menu, which will premiere Friday. Glancing at the menu, I notice jumbo gulf prawns stuffed with blue crab, American Kobe sirloin with black truffled mac and cheese, a lamb porterhouse with Israeli cous cous, a farmer's market summer vegetable pot pie with brie cream.

I must admit, my first reaction is, indeed, "Wow."

OneSpeed opened with a bang Wednesday night as East Sacramento neighbors and Waterboy aficionados alike converged on Folsom Boulevard and 48th Street. Tables were packed throughout the night and the attractive new neighborhood pizzeria with the artisan touch drew rave reviews from diners.

Rick Mahan, the owner and chef at the acclaimed Waterboy restaurant in midtown, has spent months - and lots of money - to get OneSpeed rolling. A bicycle devotee and the owner of 8 bikes (and counting), Mahan wants to celebrate cycling as a way of life at his new pizza place, thus the name.

The orders flew into the open kitchen at a frenzied pace, as servers and cooks and bussers zig-zagged each other all night. And there was Mahan, dressed in shorts and sporting the chiseled calves of a cyclist (I can talk about a chef's calves, can't I?), running the show and offering encouragement to his staff, which included four servers, two bartenders, two bussers, two managers and seven cooks. They didn't get out of there until 11 p.m. From the looks of the happy crowd, OneSpeed could have stayed open half the night.

"I was so pleased with my staff. It was easily the best opening I've ever been involved with," Mahan told me when I caught up with him by phone the next day.

It had to be overwhelming. Mahan and crew were expecting 100 diners. They got 200-plus, including yours truly, who thoroughly enjoyed the thin-crust pizza that comes out of the oven in about two minutes, the perfectly cooked salmon, and the buttery gnocchi. But I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the cherry tart, which was very simple but absolutely delicious.

In the spirit of OneSpeed and Mahan's celebration of the bike, we rode our one-speed bikes to the restaurant for opening night. Alas, the bike racks haven't arrived yet, so we locked our rigs to a signpost across Folsom Boulevard. Mahan's bike rack is going to consist of several reclaimed old bike frames welded together.

Referring to the big night, Mahan drew a deep breath and said with a laugh, "I'm pleased because I've never owed so much money in my life."

Talk about an important dinner service.

Grange Restaurant and Bar had a special guest for dinner Wednesday night ﷓ the mother of California cuisine, Chez Panisse co-owner and chef Alice Waters.

Waters was among a party of about 20 people dining at the J Street restaurant and also stayed at the Citizen Hotel Wednesday night, said Sarah Essary, a spokeswoman for Grange.

Waters was in town for the premier of Food Inc., a documentary that explores the corporate-controlled food industry being shown at The Crest Wednesday night.

She also is in town to help plant and dedicate a vegetable garden at Capitol Park this morning alongside California first lady Maria Shriver and celebrity chef Guy Fieri.

Waters and her party dined around 6:45 p.m. and chose items from Wednesday's dinner menu.

Waters had the local farm lettuce salad with sun dried tomatoes, North Valley Farms' chevre and a fig balsamic vinaigrette.

She also dined on grilled Bledsoe Farm lamb rack chops with olive oil crushed potatoes, minted fava beans and pancetta and a tapenade.

Specific compliments to Grange Chef Michael Tuohy were not overheard, but "I know that they enjoyed themselves," Essary said.

One ingredient that was specially procured for Waters' visit, however, wound up not being served.

A Grange staffer was spotted at the farmer's market at Cesar Chavez plaza Wednesday afternoon purchasing several pounds of cherries.

The chef was overheard eagerly remarking to the vendor that "Alice Waters is going to eat these."

The vendor looked at the chef with a blank stare.

"Who's that?"

No word on what became of the cherries.

People often complain that the Sacramento restaurant scene plays it a little too safe, that too many menus look and sound too much alike.

So what happens when someone goes out on a limb and does something different, even daring? In the case of Evan's Kitchen, it's met with a thud. Last week, I reported here that the very fine restaurant in East Sacramento was making its monthly wine dinner an entirely vegetarian affair. But not enough people bit, according to an email I received from Evan Elsberry, the owner and chef.

Evan writes: It was a risk and we had only a few reservations, so we are canceling the June 1 Vegetarian Wine dinner. More people like Vegan, but I'm not going to offer that.

Judging from the menu and the price, it was going to be quite an evening. Too bad.

I'm putting this in here because wine dinners are a popular feature at restaurants these days. But I haven't heard of a vegetarian wine dinner until now. I received the following notice from Evan' s Kitchen in East Sac. I admire his daring, since going meatless for such a big dinner is a risk.

Here's what Evan's sent me:

Evan's Kitchen Presents: I Can't Believe It's Meatless! Vegetarian Wine Dinner

Monday, June 1, 2009, 6 to 9 p.m.

First Course: Yellow Gazpacho and Ratatouille

Second Course: Tomato and Melon Salad with Tomato Sorbet and Basil Tempura

Third Course: Layered Grilled Tofu and Marinated Eggplant with Rice Noodles, Sea Beans, Crispy Ginger and Coconut Red Curry Emulsion

Fourth Course: Provencal Vegetables in Jicama ("Cannelloni") with Red Pepper Jus and Artichoke Sauté

Dessert: Almonds and Marjoram Mirliton with Citrus Fruits

Chef Evan will marry the wines to complement the varied flavors of the courses and dessert.

$59.95 per person. Reservations Required. Call 916-452-3896. Evan's Kitchen is located at 855 - 57th St, Sacramento CA, 95819, between H and J Sts. in the 57th Street Antique Row.

`

Not only do cyclists save on gas, they're saving when they eat and drink. After I mentioned the upcoming free-pizza deal at Hot Italian, I heard from Erik Johnson, public information coordinator for the Sacramento Area Council of Governments, better known as SACOG.

This being national "Bike Month," here are some other deals Erik knows about (for those not familiar with small-batch, boutique beers, PBR is short for Pabst Blue Ribbon! Better than Gatorade):

*Morgan's Bar & Grill, Bike Night, Sundays 6-11 pm, $1 PBR/$5 PBR Pitchers if you ride your bicycle.

*Nolan's Hilltop Tavern, $1 off every draft beer for everyone on a bicycle in May.

* Lucca Restaurant & Bar, Complimentary dessert with purchase of an entrée for anyone who rides his or her bike to the restaurant in May.

*Riverside Clubhouse, Bike Night, Every Wednesday, 5-8pm, if you ride your bike to Riverside Clubhouse, $1.00 tacos & $2.00 beers.

*Chipotle (Midtown), free burrito for everyone on a bike on Sunday, May 17, from noon to 4 p.m. They'll also have "best of" contests, raffle prizes, and more.

I can't think of another local business that is more supportive of the whole "May is Bike Month" than Hot Italian.

"Biking, walking or any two-wheel transportation fits into our 'new urbanist' principals at Hot Italian," Andrea Lepore, one of the restaurant's owners, told me.

First, the restaurant opened in haste before construction was complete so it could cater to fans attending the Amgen Tour of California in February.

When the building renovation is finally complete, it is expected to be Sacramento's first LEED certified green restaurant. Part of being green is forgoing the car on occasion for something more environmentally friendly. For pancake-flat Sacramento, the bike is a good bet.

Now the stylish new restaurant wants to see its designer bike racks filled, so it's giving away pizza on "Ride to Work Day" May 14 (Thursday). The one catch -- the bikes have to be Italian, the country with the rich cycling culture and where, any day now, the three-week Giro d'Italia stage race will start, featuring Lance Armstrong, Santa Rosa's Levi Leipheimer and sometime Sacramentan Chris Horner.

As the owner of more than one Italian bike, I'm a fan of this promotion, but I promise not to butt in on the free pizza.

Lepore says there will be 32 free pizzas for lunch (from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.) and 32 for dinner (5-8 p.m.). That 's how many bikes fit in those racks at the corner of 16th and Q streets.

OK, so I thought I got a pretty good cross section of the menu when I visited this Russian and Ukrainian eatery in North Highlands. Then the phone rang and the emails poured in. I didn't try the mushroom soup. You have to try the mushroom soup.

The first call came at 5 a.m. Sunday. More followed. No one wanted to argue about my thoughts on the food or my description of the young people swigging vodka 'til their heads exploded. They just wanted folks to know about the mushroom soup.

So if you go to Stolichniy, try the mushroom soup. As that early morning caller exclaimed, "It's the best soup I've ever had."

I received a lot of calls and e-mails after last week's review of Gonul's J Street Cafe, but only one call made me sit up extra straight and really pay attention.

It was a voice mail left by Sister Sheila Walsh, a nun for 53 years and counting. She was also the first nun in the United States to be a registered lobbyist, advocating on behalf of the economically disadvantaged (she will scold you if you call them poor).

I wrote a fairly long profile of Sister Sheila two years ago. What she never got around to telling me then was she is one of this city's most active diners. A resident of midtown, she knows all the hot -- and not so hot -- spots.

"Gonul's is absolutely my favorite restaurant. I've been going there a number of years. I usually order the mussels. She does a wonderful sauce and the mussels are always fresh. It's the best in town."

Sister Sheila said Gonul's was out of mussels one time she stopped in. The chef promptly dispatched someone to buy fresh mussels. The restaurant scored points with this city's most persuasive nun.

As the voice mail continued, Sister Sheila began to weigh in with her own conclusions.

"I would say it's excellent and not just good. To me, Gonul's is wonderful."

I so enjoyed hearing from her that I invited Sister Sheila to dinner on Friday, at a nice little restaurant she seemed to enjoy. She noted that two of her other favorite eateries are Aioli and Delta King (the latter is owned by her cousins).

I thought the place we visited Friday was good, and this time she agreed, thank goodness.

I stopped in at Sacramento's newest restaurant, Hot Italian, for a first look Sunday night. It's so new it's open but still not finished.

Though I walked several blocks along Sacramento streets to get there, I could have sworn I was somewhere else entirely when I stepped inside. I'm saying that so often these days that it seems Sacramento must be reinventing itself.

Hot Italian has style. It embraces modern design, with plenty of creative touches, from the stools crafted with bicycle wheel rims at the espresso/gelato bar to the pendant lights made of Illy coffee tins hanging from the ceiling. Even the bicycle racks outside are beautiful, functional, sculptural pieces.

Hot Italian, which is still working to finish the exterior and make a few nips and tucks inside, is Sacramento's first LEED certified restaurant. That's a rating you'll be hearing a lot about in the years to come. It stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design and comes from the U.S. Green Building Council.

But what about the food? The menu is limited (by design) at the moment until the grand opening in the weeks to come. I hope to do a full review down the road. But first impressions: very impressed.

This is a place whose reputation will rest on its pizzas. These are New York-style, which happen to be Naples-style -- thin crust baked at high heat for only a couple of minutes. That charring you may spot on portions of the crust is a sign of authenticity. Don't send it back.

Pizza aficionados who travel the globe in search of crust done right will enjoy what's coming out of the wood-fired oven at 16th and Q streets. It's just the right combinations of crisp exterior and chewy on the inside. It's thin and light, with the kind of flavor that takes several days to create (while the raw dough retards in the refrigerator).

What's more, our server could not have been better - experienced, attentive, knowledgeable and, well, charming.

When I moved here a decade ago, I was told Sacramento was a bad pizza town. Now there's pizza everywhere -- and it's the good stuff. Will Hot Italian lead the way? Will the new-ish Masullo? Chicago Fire and its deep dish? How about the quirky Zelda's? Luigi's? Paesano's? Uncle Vito's? Pieces Pizza by the Slice? Or will a chain like California Pizza Kitchen, opening in the spring in what appears to be a beautiful Zocolo-like renovation-in-the-making at 16th and L just blocks away from Hot Italian, find a downtown foothold with pizza lovers?

And don't forget One Speed, the pizzeria-to-be in East Sacramento. It's the creation of Rick Mahan, the chef at Waterboy, the midtown restaurant that has become the standard bearer in practically every category. Like Hot Italian, it will express it's love for cycling, which is practically a way of life in Italy.

One Speed is expected to open in the months ahead.

By then, Sacramentans, once pizza poor, might be able to brag about living in something of a pizza Mecca.

Back in the 1980s, frozen yogurt was the dessert du jour for fat-free food enthusiasts (remember the SnackWells desserts that advertisers hawked as diet food?). But then everyone got smarter about calories and anything sweet equated to bad once more.

Frozen yogurt is back again in a big way. All the stars seem to be eating the Southern California-based PinkBerry, lured by tart flavors, fresh-fruit toppings and promised benefits of live cultures in every swirly bite.

Here in the Sacramento area, we've got Big Spoon, whose serious draw is the choice of more than 75 toppings you put on yourself, with the cost of your yogurt determined by weight. There's also Yogurtagogo in Midtown that draws from the high-end PinkBerry concept of fresh fruit and active cultures, along with the make-it-yourself experience. And then there's mochii yogurt, also in Midtown, that sells its concept of handmade yogurt.

There's even a Red Mango, the legitimate South Korean yogurt company that seems like the long lost twin of Pinkberry, at the Roseville Galleria.

I recently popped into yet another shop, Swirls Frozen Yogurt, 3328 El Camino Ave., Sacramento, next to the Chipotle at Country Club Centre. At 39 cents per ounce, I went with two kinds of yogurt, a tart mango and the always-necessary chocolate, and topped it off with Cap'n Crunch, mini M&Ms, and chunks of Reese's peanut butter cups. OK, so maybe it wasn't the healthiest of lunches, but I'm sure the good bacteria will outweigh any bad that was involved.

While nearly every restaurant is trying to entice you to come out to eat on Valentine's Day, David Berkley, the popular wine boutique and delicatessen at the Pavilions, wants to send you home. It's offering a helping hand to those looking for an excellent dinner without having to arrange a babysitter or pay search for parking.

On Valentine's Day (that would be Feb. 14, a Saturday, for the romantically challenged) D.B. will be selling chef-prepared gourmet dinners for two for $79.99. The food can be ordered ahead and picked up on Friday or Saturday. The dinners include an appetizer, Caesar salad, choice of three entrees (filet mignon, stuffed chicken breast or salmon) two sides, dessert and a bottle of sparkling wine.

On this day, of all days, dinner should lead to something more interesting than scrubbing pots and pans.

I recently had the pleasure of dining with Jeffrey Callison, host of the afternoon interview show "Insight" on Capitol Public Radio. Jeffrey contacted me and wanted to see what it would be like to dine undercover as a critic. I told him he could tag along -- as long as he agreed to my terms. I stopped short of requiring him to dress as a woman. I'm saving that for if Armstrong & Getty ever call.

Jeffrey played along with good cheer, arriving at the restaurant and identifying me by the agreed upon code name. I wore my best toupe, so there's a good chance he will not recognize me again.

Jeffrey ordered what I suggested at a restaurant that was wonderfully alive, a small room but cozy and authentic. In no time, he was a critic himself, wondering where our server had disappeared to and, at the close of the evening, pointing out that his bread pudding lacked raisins. I'm not sure I would deduct points for missing raisins, but I appreciated his eye for detail. Being Scottish, Jeffrey has had plenty of bread pudding in his time.

Over dinner, I seemed to be asking most of the questions and we had a nice chat. I certainly enjoyed his company. The following day, I appeared on his show. Here is the link if you want to hear it (I come on after 10-15 minutes):

http://www.capradio.org/programs/insight/default.aspx?showid=5787

Oh Gina, did you just say Sacramento has no standards? That anything goes? I'm choking on my melba toast.

All I'm asking is that people aim a little higher.

I saw our new mayor at a press conference recently and he was looking pretty sharp. In fact, there was a recent gathering of mayors in Sacramento and one published photo of a certain Central Valley mayor showed he was wearing jeans while all the others, including Johnson, were in suits. That other mayor looked ridiculous.

There is a time and place for everything. It's always better to be the best-dressed person in the room rather than the worst.

There is a time to wear jeans -- walking my dog, doing groceries, blogging. There is even a time when nice jeans are appropriate -- at a night club (not at a country club), at more casual restaurants, on casual Fridays at some workplaces (The Bee, of course, has no sartorial standards, except one must be somewhat covered and it doesn't matter if one is covered with material that has ghastly palm trees or scenes of beaches on it).

Fashion choices are about being sensible and respectful and refined. Showing up in jeans at a very nice restaurant is simply tacky. The message I get from that person is, "I don't know any better." If the busboy isn't allowed to wear jeans, don't you think that's at least a tacit suggestion that jeans are the wrong choice at this place?

If someone showed up at a job interview wearing jeans and I was the employer, I would reply with one word, "Next." This person conveyed a message: I have poor judgment.

As for the hapless jeans-wearing hayseed at Slocum House, I would have lent him my sport coat, but I couldn't imagine anything I own going with orange and white stripes. It would have only made matters worse

It's an old axiom in the restaurant business: the customer is always right.

I'm not so sure.

As The Bee's (new) restaurant critic, I have been dining out more than ever in recent weeks. I've seen servers and chefs and hosts (yes, hosts) make their share of mistakes, mostly minor.

But I've also seen more than a few diners behaving in ways that make me shake my head and wonder: Who raised you?

Put aside poor manners for now - we'll get to that another time. Let's talk about clothes, dress codes, common sense and, well, class. Here, there also seems to be a gender divide. I've seen plenty of well-dressed women at some of the area's best dining establishments with husbands or boyfriends wearing jeans and golf shirts.

I wonder: if you're going on out to dinner at a very nice place, why are you in jeans? A golf shirt? Or even a dress shirt without a sport coat? Why is the woman across from you dressed up and you're not? Do you think she's thrilled with the plaid short-sleeve number you're in?

When I was a kid, my parents used to make me wear a suit and tie when we went to dinner at a nice restaurant. It was a treat, an event, an experience to cherish, and my dad insisted we all dress accordingly. At the time, with the big knot in my bad tie threatening to cut off the circulation around my neck, I felt put upon. I felt like I was the only kid in town in a coat and tie.

Well, it's come full circle. I'm feeling that way again. I look around me and see men in clothes I might wear when I'm sweeping out the garage.

For instance, I had a very nice dinner at Slocum House on Christmas night. The duck was wonderful, the braised chestnut soup a delightful antidote to the plummeting temperature outside.

I wore gray flannel trousers and a wool sport coat, a white shirt and plain necktie. In a different era, that would have been considered casual. I was certainly comfortable and felt my attire was in keeping with the ambience of one of the area's finest restaurants. Slocum House is elegant, refined, classy. The kitchen goes to great lengths to prepare consistently excellent dishes. The servers are friendly and polished (and well dressed).

Yet, the fidgety man at a nearby table was wearing an orange striped dress shirt and jeans. He was the one who complained - and complained - that his bread didn't arrive on time. If memory serves, they load you up with bread at Olive Garden. That's apparently where he thought he was going when he got dressed. In a way, he robbed us of the ambience that Slocum House takes pains to create. When I looked his way, I felt like the all-you-can-eat bread sticks would be arriving any minute.

This may sound terribly old-fashioned, but I cannot imagine any circumstance in which I would dine at Slocum House without a coat and tie. OK, if one of the roosting chickens on a branch overhead throws up on my jacket, maybe. But I would at least feel self-conscious, practically exposed. A dress shirt or golf shirt at Slocum House might as well be a tank top undershirt.

Where I grew up, there were plenty of restaurants that kept a stash of sport jackets and ties for the man who arrived without one or both. My mother worked at a law firm in which the lawyers were required to wear their suit coats when they stepped outside their offices.

Here's a benchmark for men that has served me well. I'm certain I'm not the only one who has used Cary Grant as a guide. If you're unsure about how to behave or dress when going someplace nice, watch a few old Cary Grant movies. He always looked like a million bucks. When in doubt, ask yourself: What would Cary Grant do? What would he wear?

Would Cary Grant wear an orange shirt and jeans to a place brimming with old-world elegance? Would he call the maitre d' over, complain about the bread, then point to the next table and say, "And they haven't got their bread yet either. Get them their bread?" I don't recall that movie.

Good grief. The customer isn't always right. Slocum House deserved better.

Am I the only one who feels this way?

In my introductory column as The Bee's restaurant critic, I mentioned the importance of service. I was pleased to receive dozens of e-mails and phone calls afterward - many of them about that very topic.

In that first column, I said that one local restaurant (in Fair Oaks) had such consistently poor service (and with attitude) that I took the number out of my cell phone. In other words, I really wanted to support this place, but they wouldn't let me.

So let's talk about great service. What is it? How do you find it?

I think we approached perfect service the other night during a visit to Ella Dining Room and Bar at the corner of 12th and K Streets downtown. (The food was also exceptional, by the way). Since he did such an excellent job and had such a pleasant, assured way about him, I'll tell you our server's name: Bannon Rudis. Bravo! I also counted seven other servers that came to our table - for bread, water, delivering hot dishes, etc. - all seamlessly.

The following day, I called the restaurant's general manager, Dan Sneed, to ask him about his approach to service. He was pleased to hear about my experience.

"It does start with hiring," Sneed said. "We are looking for people who, when you look in their eyes you see somebody home. When we hire for the front of the house, we are hiring more so for personalities."

"You want somebody with a little bit more of an ego so if they get batted in the nose they are not going to go cry in the corner. They realize it's a show. It's a performance every night. You need to have a little bit of ego so you can go to the tables and be welcoming. This is your territory. You can't wait for the guest to come up to you."

Sneed also dropped a pretty good hint for those who want to get hired at a premier restaurant: "That type of personality that is not afraid to come up to me and say, 'Are you looking for somebody? I'm looking for a job.' If they can approach me, then I'm pretty sure they can approach my guests. It's the same thing when they work here; if they come in the back door every day, I make sure they say hello to all the kitchen people. If they aren't going to say hello to the people they work with, I'm not going to trust them to go on the floor and say hello to my guests."

Like many fine restaurants, the staff at Ella has daily briefing sessions at 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. Issues and concerned are recorded in a red book and addressed at these meetings.

Though Sneed was happy to hear my praise, he said he's far from satisfied.

"I still feel we have a long way to go for Sacramento," he said. "Every night we have one or two things go wrong that we're going to work on."

I have a suggestion: If there is, indeed, room for improvement, new hires would do well to shadow Bannon Rudis for an evening and take note of his demeanor. He was friendly, knowledgeable, smooth and attentive. All that, and he felt no need to prove to us how smart he was. He didn't have to.

When reporter Blair Anthony Robertson wrote his introductory autobiography for colleagues as he joined The Bee nine years ago, he began:

"If I were going to the electric chair, my last meal would be a smoked barbecue sandwich from Country's in Opelika, Ala. Dessert would be chocolate cake and ice cream smushed together like I have been doing since I was 4. Then I would have a glass of 2% milk. I hear they put a $50 limit on the meals. If they didn't, I would also have six martinis from Morton's."

Robertson isn't going to the electric chair, but he soon will occupy another hot seat, as The Bee's new restaurant critic.

Cathie Anderson, The Bee's features editor, announced Robertson's appointment following a tryout dinner, sample review and interviews involving in-house candidates who had sought the position.

Robertson, a native of Ottawa, Canada, earned a degree in English at Augusta State College (now University) in Georgia before embarking on a career as a newspaper reporter in 1987.

He's an avid home cook, Frank Sinatra fan, book collector, cyclist and golfer whose preferred writing instrument is a fountain pen he fills from a bottle.

As The Bee's restaurant critic, he succeeds me, who has held the post from 1984 to 1989 and again from 1994 until today. I recently accepted The Bee's voluntary buyout offer and will leave the paper at the end of the week.

Officials of Morton's The Steakhouse, who last summer revealed plans to abandon their branch at Westfield Downtown Plaza, now are announcing that their new nearby Sacramento location will open Nov. 18.

The expanded and more visible restaurant will be in the lobby of the US Bank Building at 621 Capitol Mall. The new site is to include floor-to-ceiling windows, a Bar 12-21, a patio, and lunch weekdays.

Bar 12-21, which takes its name from Dec. 21, 1978, when the first Morton's opened in Chicago, is to feature a "bar bites" menu of such snacks as crab cakes, cheeseburgers and filet-mignon sandwiches.

Sacramento restaurateur Randy Paragary is something of a history buff. That's evident at his newest restaurant, Cosmo Cafe at 10th and K downtown. He not only has dressed up lounge and dining area with magnificent photos of the city's business core during an earlier heyday, he's hauled out of storage the collection of political memorabilia that once brightened his Capitol Grill at 28th and N, now Ink Eats & Drinks.

And now he's nearly nailed down a deal that would give him and longtime business partner Kurt Spataro half interest in one of Lake Tahoe's more historic and iconic dining and drinking destinations, Chambers' Landing at Tahoma on the lake's west shore. The two plan to team up with old Tahoe hand Rick Brown to lease the seasonal hot spot, which includes a bar on the end of a pier and a restaurant just above the beach. The bar dates from 1857 or 1858 and has seen duty as general store, schoolhouse and post office as well as tavern.

The three plan to lightly remodel both structures over the winter and have them ready for their next incarnation by Memorial Day, when the facility customarily reopens for the summer. Paragary says seating at the bar on the pier will be expanded and its traditional burger menu will be upgraded along the lines of Taylor's Automatic Refresher in Napa Valley and San Francisco.

The menu at the shoreside restaurant, meanwhile, will be rewritten to offer more casual dining than Chambers' Landing has been recognized for in the past. The culinary style will be California Cuisine, says Paragary.

The three are sure to retain, however, the restaurant's signature tropical cocktail, the Chambers' Punch, which Brown is credited with creating in the 1970s.

Graham Rock, who had been running Chambers' Landing for 18 years, says he gave up the facility because of his concern that consumers are cutting back in dining out while they're in the Tahoe Basin, because of homeowner-association restrictions on what he wanted to do with the site, and because he wants to concentrate on his other restaurant, Graham's in Squaw Valley.

For the first time, Sacramento is included in Zagat Survey's guide to "America's Top Restaurants" (Zagat, 348 pages, $15.95). The 2009 edition, just rolling out to book shops, covers 1,516 restaurants in 45 cities. The guide's evaluations are based on the experiences of more than 145,000 volunteer surveyors who eat out more than an average three times a week.

This past spring, Zagat officials invited Sacramentans to send in their comments concerning the food, decor, service and cost of area restaurants. From that database, Zagat's editors chose 20 restaurants as the Sacramento area's best.

They include many of the usual suspects - Biba, Ella, Firehouse, Lemon Grass, Mulvaney's, Paragary's and The Waterboy - but also a few surprises: Boulevard Bistro in Elk Grove, Frank Fat's in downtown Sacramento, Kru in midtown Sacramento, La Bonne Soupe Cafe in downtown Sacramento, Osteria Fasulo in Davis and Tower Cafe along Broadway in Sacramento.

The top five restaurants ranked for their food only are La Bonne Soupe, The Kitchen, The Waterboy, Mulvaney's and Biba.

The five most popular restaurants, which takes into consideration surveyor comments concerning service, decor and cost as well as food, are Mikuni, Biba, The Waterboy, Ella and Mulvaney's.

The survey also found that Sacramentans tip an average 18.6 percent compared to the national average of 19 percent; that two-thirds of Sacramentans are willing to pay more for food that is sustainably raised compared with 59 percent for the U.S. average; and that Sacramentans rank second only to San Franciscans in considering locally grown or locally raised foods "very important" or "somewhat important;" in both cities, 40 percent to 44 percent of the people who responded said such foods are either "very important" or "somewhat important," while on the national average just 26 percent of diners thought such foods were "very important," while 43 percent thought them "somewhat important."

Nationally, 65 percent of those surveyed feel trans fats should be banned in restaurants, compared with 62 percent of Sacramentans who feel the same way.

Both nationally and in Sacramento, diners' favorite cuisine is Italian, followed by "American." Sacramentans are keener on Japanese and Mexican food than the rest of the country, and are in line with national preferences for Thai, Chinese and Indian cuisines, but aren't nearly as enthusiastic for French dishes as the rest of the nation.

The narrative for each restaurant is compiled from comments submitted by surveyors. For example:

Frank Fat's: "The oldest continuously running restaurant in Sacramento, this 'beautiful' 70-year-old is a downtown Chinese 'institution' where 'ghosts of legendary legislators linger' and 'you're likely to bump into state politicians' 'doing their deals' while being 'served whip-crack fast.'"

La Bonne Soupe Cafe: "'Sweet' French chef-owner Daniel Pont serves 'love between two pieces of bread' and what's possibly 'the best onion soup in the universe,' all 'artistically mde' to order."

Mason's: "The 'diverse, hip crowd' is as 'nice to look at' as the 'friendly, prompt' servers, but the real eye candy is in the 'schocking' bathrooms, which you 'must see' to believe ('don't do anything funny' - 'you're being watched!')."

Zocalo: "When the bar crowd arrives, 'you'll need a megaphone to talk to your date.'"

Nicholas Sampogna, a spokesman for Zagat, says the Sacramento section of "America's Top Restaurants" is a prelude to a stand-alone pocket guide for the area to be published after the first of the year. That guide is to include around 120 restaurants.

Sampogna didn't know how many Sacramentans participated in the survey. "America's Top Restaurants" is just starting to arrive at bookstores, but also can be ordered online at www.zagat.com.

The 2009 edition of the Michelin Guide to San Francisco restaurants and hotels just arrived by FedEx, but if you have the 2008 book you may not need the new one. Though 55 new restaurants have been added to the directory, only five of the total 448 have been raised into the ranks of starred establishments.

Only one of the five, Coi, annointed with two stars, is in San Francisco. All the other new starred restaurants are outside San Francisco. They all got one star: Murray Circle in Sausalito, Plumed Horse in Saratoga, Trevese in Los Gatos, and The Village Pub in Woodside.

The French Laundry in Napa Valley's Yountville remains the only Northern California restaurant to receive Michelin's highest tribute, three stars.

In all, the guide lists 25 restaurants with one star, six with two.

Perhaps mindful of the nation's struggling economy, Michelin officials are playing down the starred restaurants, which also tend to be the more expensive, in favor of their "Bib Gourmand" category, which the company's inspectors have designated as their favorites for good value. This year, 55 qualified for the category on the basis that guests could expect to get two dishes and a glass of wine or dessert for $40 or less. The 55 include Aperto in San Francisco's Mission District, Betelnut Pejiu Wu in San Francisco's Marina District, Cook St. Helena at St. Helena in Napa Valley, Mirepoix at Windsor in Sonoma County, and South Park Cafe in San Francisco's SoMa District.

The guide, which sells for $16.95, doesn't include Sacramento.

Daron Rahlves, who in 13 years as a member of the U.S. Ski Team became one of the nation's more decorated skiers, is joinng a new team in a business with its own steep and tough terrain - restaurateuring.

Rahlves, who moved with his family to Lake Tahoe more than 20 years ago so he could hone his skiing, is teaming up with Mark Estee and JJ Morgan in their popular and acclaimed Truckee restaurant Moody's Bistro & Lounge.

"I wanted to become connected with something that is well-established," Rahlves says in a press release concerning the new partnership. He is to have a small but unspecified stake in the restaurant.

When he retired from competitive skiing in the spring of 2006, Rahlves, who during his career won seven national titles, including four in super-G, said he wanted to settle in Truckee to start a family with his wife Michelle, race dirt bikes, surf and appear in ski films. He and his wife have two children, and he continues to compete at X-Game and skiercross events.

Estee and Morgan could use the additional help, given their current expansion kick. In early December they are to open Baxter's Bistro & Lounge in The Village at Northstar. Also, Estee on his own recently opened a hamburger joint, Burger Me, next to Moody's.

After you break a leg and get laid up for three months, what are you going to do? If you're longtime Sacramento chef Mark Helms, who for the past three years has been executive chef at Tapa the World along J Street in midtown, you use your down time to plan your own restaurant.

And come late October or early November, with his right leg virtually healed, he'll open it. It will be called Ravenous Cafe, and it will occupy quarters currently occupied by Plan B Cafe at River Lake Village in the city's Pocket neighborhood. "I've had nothing but time on my hands," says Helms. His plans for Ravenous call for the space to continue to be a neighborhood restaurant with a New American menu - "what I like to eat myself," says Helms.

So where does that leave Lionel Lucas, who opened Plan B Cafe in April of 2007? He's delighted, given that the restaurant has been popular since it opened and he's been eager to move into larger quarters. He'll get that early next year at Arden Town Center, Fair Oaks and Watt. He's closing Plan B Cafe Oct. 18 to let Helms move in and to prepare to relocate the business. "It will be twice the size, with a patio four times the size," says Lucas of the new site. He hopes to open there in January or February. Given the larger size and what he expects to be an upgrade in ambience, he's dropping "cafe" from the name.

Masque Ristorante, the posh regional-Italian restaurant that opened at La Borgata shopping complex at El Dorado Hills in the spring of 2004, has closed. Friday was its last day, says publicist Nancy Mallory.

From the outset, Masque was expected to challenge midtown Sacramento's Biba as the premier Italian restaurant in the region, and during its first two years was both immensely popular and critically acclaimed. Restaurant writer John Mariani of Esquire magazine named Masque one of his 21 best new restaurants in the country for 2004.

But early in 2006 executive chef Angelo Auriana, who after 18 years had quit the highly acclaimed Italian restaurant Valentino in Santa Monica to move to El Dorado Hills, left Masque, and it struggled to regain its early esteem.

Developer Roger Hume, a principal partner in Masque, was not immediately available to comment, and Mallory said she wasn't authorized to speak to the reasons for the restaurant's closure. "I hate to be useless, but I'm useless," said Mallory.

Despite the soft economy, restaurants continue to open, though not at the pace of a few years ago. Nonetheless, before the end of the month two prominent Sacramento restaurant groups are to open new restaurants, though one won't be as easy to get to as the other:

- Cosmo Cafe, the latest concept to spring from the Paragary Restaurant Group, is to open to the public Sept. 30 in a former Woolworth's at 10th and K. The complex, called The Cosmopolitan, also is to house a cabaret run by California Musical Theatre, and the Social Nightclub. Inspired by traditional New York delis, Cosmo Cafe will feature lunch, dinner, takeout, cabaret and late-night service and menus. The opening dinner menu is to include such "small plates" as marinated hamachi with apple, ginger and radish ($12), duck-leg confit with endive, walnuts and raisins ($13), and house-cured salmon pastrami with rye toasts and deviled egg ($10), while entrees are to include a bread pudding of mushrooms and butternut squash ($16), corned beef and savoy cabbage with fingerling potatoes and a mustard sauce ($17), and a "Cosmo burger" with caramelized onions ($12). Scott Rose, a former Paragary chef who lately has been executive chef at Paul Martin's American Bistro in Roseville, returns to Sacramento to run the Cosmo kitchen.

- Just before Cosmo Cafe is to debut, Mikuni Japanese Restaurant & Sushi Bar is to open its seventh location, and its first outside California. This Mikuni will be part of the Park Meadows "retail resort" in Lone Tree on the southern outskirts of Denver. The "grand opening" is Sept. 27, though the restaurant could be operating earlier, says Derrick Fong, Mikuni's CEO. Other branches of Mikuni in the works are Davis next spring and Las Vegas in the fall of 2009. Company officials also are scouting Portland, Ore., for a prospective site.

Restaurant 55 Degrees, Ali Mackani's sleek and shiny effort to help transform Capitol Mall into Sacramento's Champs-Elysees, will close Friday after a nearly three-year run. Like a competitor in the Tour de France whose bike suffers a blowout on the last leg, Mackani is exhausted and frustrated by stalled efforts to enhance the broad and potentially vibrant boulevard leading up to the Capitol.

"I thought other projects would come, especially residential condos, but it didn't happen," said Mackani, referring specifically to a proposed nearby high-rise condominum project that faltered. "After that, and the downturn in the economy, I couldn't see investing any more into a project without a return any time soon. Luc is one of the best chefs in Sacramento, but the best food and the best service don't necessarily mean financial rewards. Enough is enough. It's unfortunate. It's not the scenario I wanted on this project, but it's the hand I've been dealt."

"Luc" is his executive chef from the start, Luc Dendievel, who he said plans to leave the Sacramento area. "This town is going to lose one of the best chefs it's seen. He's in a class by himself, but he will move out," said Mackani.

Mackani now will concentrate on another midtown restaurant, Lounge on 20, which he recently opened at 20th and K.

About 30 people have been working at Restaurant 55 Degrees, which will remain open for lunch only through Friday.

Rebecca Reichardt has moved to the back burner her hopes of opening a steakhouse to complement her popular Woodland restaurant Tazzina Bistro.

"I couldn't handle two projects financially," says Reichardt. So instead of the steak place, she's expanding Tazzina Bistro by adding a 600-square-foot lounge. She plans to start construction any day now and have the bar finished for the bistro's fourth anniversary Sept. 27.

In January, Reichardt was one of 10 winners in a national business contest sponsored by American Express. Her proposal for the steakhouse and its potential to morph into a chain won her a $10,000 credit line, $20,000 in improvements, and coaching from established business experts. Still, she figures she'd need $600,000 more to get the concept off the ground. Today's economy isn't conducive to raising that sort of capital, she says, so she's concentrating on improving Tazzina Bistro.

The restaurant's current bar will be retained as a wine bar, while the lounge will focus on "vintage cocktails" and other drinks made with the 15 assorted gins and 28 vodkas she's lined up in anticipation of its completion.

Tazzina Bistro is at 614 Main St., Woodland.

A couple of notes from the restaurant front:

- You know these are nervous times for the restaurant trade when a diner e-mails to ask whether the relatively new Greenhouse in Roseville is out of business. His concern was prompted by a sign taped to the door saying the restaurant was "closed for maintenance," a euphemism restaurateurs often use to shut the doors with no real intent to reopen. But not in this instance, says Greenhouse owner Cory Holbrook. A carpet cleaner put up the sign Sunday but forgot to take it down when he left, and there it remained until Monday morning, setting off an alarm for at least one prospective diner. The Greenhouse is Holbrook's locavore- and organic-oriented successor to the Town Lounge, which he originally opened on the site. He says he plans to stick around with Greenhouse, and currently is expanding the restaurant's line of organic beers and ales brewed on the premises.

- Just when I was starting to question whether any new restaurants ever again would debut in Sacramento along comes Ray Smith and Shalawn Smith, who will introduce their Table 260 at 6 p.m. Friday at 826 J St., on the ground floor of a high-rise loft development. It's to be a larger and more upscale version of the original Table 260 in Elk Grove, though the culinary concept, a "fusion of American and soul," will remain the same. In contrast to the Elk Grove site, the downtown Sacramento location will have a full liquor license. The hours also will be extended: 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m.-1 a.m. Fridays, 9 a.m.-1 a.m. Saturdays, 9 a.m.-9 p.m. Sundays.

Fans of Monticello Bistro in Winters have only August in which to savor the restaurant's seasonal Saturday-night dinners. After August, the place is history, reports Rhonda Gruska, who with her husband Tony has operated the bistro the past two years.

But get your chins off the floor, fans. The Gruskas are moving to a new venue that will allow them to extend their hours and expand their concept. They are teaming up with Aziz Fattahi, owner of Village Bakery in Davis to open Village Pizza and Grill in a converted house at 4th and G in downtown Davis.

In Winters, the Gruskas have been sharing space with the tapas cafe Ficelle, which has been operating weekdays. Now, however, Ficelle is to start serving dinners Saturday, which is when Monticello Bistro takes over the quarters.

At Village Pizza and Grill, the Gruskas and Fattahi at least initially will focus on pizzas to range in style from basic interpretations already available at Village Bakery to more contemporary versions that will emphasize the sorts of regional and seasonal ingredients the couple showcases at Monticello Bistro. The August menu at Monticello Bistro includes such dishes as grilled figs with goat cheese and honey, cold cucumber soup with wasabi, caprese salad with grilled bruschetta, a Yolo heirloom-tomato gazpacho, grilled Niman Ranch sirloin steak, and housemade pasta with cherry tomatoes, summer squash and parmesan.

Rhonda Gruska is uncertain when the new place will open. At best, it could debut in early fall, but six months or so also could be needed to get the place ready. "It's all up to the City of Davis," she says, noting that city officials are reviewing plans to remodel the house.

For more information on Monticello Bistro's schedule, call (530) 792-8066.

With my list of prospective restaurants to check out, I began to stroll about downtown Los Gatos last night. At the top, of course, was Manresa, the proud bearer of two Michelin stars, one of only four such recognized restaurants in the Bar Area. I sure would have liked to try that salad of soft-shell crab with "gold dust" peach and basil, or the Monterey Bay abalone with a roast crayfish nage, or the veal breast and sweetbreads with the house boudin noir in an onion stew, but I was underdressed and underfinanced (four courses, $95; tasting menu, $145), so I moved down the list.

Vittoria Ristorante Italiano, however, was "closed for remodel," according to a sign on the door, and Cafe Marcella had closed for good this spring, said the hostess of the restaurant that succeeded it about three months ago, Cin-Cin, which translates as an Italian toast along the lines of "to your health." By this time, I was ready to give up. On top of that, a blackboard special on the back wall caught my eye and prompted me to take a seat. It was a flight of three rieslings, hardly Italian, but not something you run across in a restaurant very often.

While the lineup of rieslings was exceptionally solid, a couple of other pleasant surprises prompts me to move Cin-Cin to the top of my list for my next visit to Los Gatos - the speedy, chipper and smart service and the marvelously conceived and executed food. The menu is New American, with Spanish, Californian, North African and southern American influences as well as Italian. The menu talks seriously about using line-caught seafood, meats free of antibiotics and hormones, and produce from local growers who follow sustainable farming practices.

The food, however, is all fun, much of it listed as "nibbles," "samplers" side dishes and small plates. In short, it's a menu that invites grazing and adventure. Tuna cloaked with a delicate tempura and accompanied by both a Vietnamese mango dipping sauce and feathery and crispy fried baby bok choy ($13), and smoky flatbread topped with Fiscalini cheddar, dried apricots, hazelnuts and arugula ($9) both were vivid in flavor but perfectly compabile with the mostly dry rieslings. Not so much the restaurant's signature sliders, three fat, rich and juicy burgers with grilled sweet onions, a chow-chow of pickled cabbage and cauliflower, and a chipotle chile pepper aioli ($11), but I really didn't expect the wines to stand up to all that power, anyway.

If you're heading to the South Bay this weekend, consider putting Cin-Cin on your own list of prospective restaurants. At 368 Village Lane, Los Gatos, it's open for lunch Tuesday through Friday, dinner Tuesday through Sunday; (408) 354-8006. Here's a link for its Web site.

As we wind up our visit to New Orleans, I'm wondering how editors for the Zagat guidebooks would distill our impressions of the two most memorable restaurants we visited:

- "Emeril Lagasse's noblest achievement" is the "rustic yet refined" former carriage house and root-beer plant he restyled into NOLA. Along "one of the more civilized streets in the French Quarter," NOLA combines "European flair with Southern hospitality" to an extent rarely found even in this earnestly friendly city. "Team service clicks with the rhythm and charm of a horse-drawn carriage at Jackson Square." "Expensive," but "portions must have been brought in on a Mississippi River barge." Take the "Parisian elevator" to the second floor and prepare to "shout like Mardi Gras revelers," given all the brick and wood. Follow "the smoothest Sazerac in New Orleans" with fried chicken with the "crunchiest buttermilk crust in Louisiana." "The kitchen struggles to accommodate vegetarians," but redeems itself with "cute butterballs," "the finest tomatoes in the South" and service that "doesn't make you feel like you're asking a favor." Shrimps and grits are "heady" with a chile-pepper butter sauce, apple-smoked bacon and tomato glaze, while the marbled pound cake salutes the building's heritage with a "refreshing" root-beer drizzle. NOLA has "a clear idea of what it wants to do and how it wants to do it." No wonder they call New Orleans "the city that knows chow."

- Two years after we visited one of the first restaurants to open in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, Donald Link's "bright and marvelous" Chocon, we checked out his original place, Herbsaint. "Amazingly, the very selective vegetarian member of our party ate the entire bowl of housemade spaghetti with summer tomatoes and spinach," while the rest of us savored "silken and smoky" duck prosciutto, gumbo with shredded pork and andouille sausage that came off as "thick as the humidity," and a poached and fried egg that broke "like sunrise" over more of that housemade spaghetti, this time with guanciale. "Avoid the back dining room," drab but for "the sexy mural" across the back wall. Prepare for service either "emotionally disengaged" or "severely professional" in contrast to quarters "sunny and humming with vitality." Just as the Sazerac here is "gripping," the rib-eye steak is "marvelously juicy and sweet." "Mother never made angel-food cake like this," nor did she top it with poached peaches. "Reservations strongly recommended."

I complain so often of the national food media ignoring the creativity of restaurateurs and chefs in and about Sacramento that it's only fair to draw attention to an exception. That would be the August issue of Food&Wine, which highlights a dish at the Granite Bay restaurant Hawks.

You have to flip through 120 of the magazine's 120 pages to find it, but there it is, a slice of the restaurant's homemade brioche topped with a cloud of lemon cream and scattered with shiny blackberries. Created by Molly Hawks and her husband Michael Fagnoni, co-owners and co-chefs of Hawks, the dessert is featured in the magazine's Last Bite feature. The recipe also is included. It takes three hours to make. If you time your drive astutely, you can get to Hawks in a little less than that.

Sacramento's Westfield Downtown Plaza may be about to get a splashy giant LED screen but it looks to be losing one of its brighter lights. Morton's The Steakhouse, a fixture of the mall for 15 years, is on the verge of relocating to the new U.S. Bank Tower at 621 Capitol Mall.

According to a succinct announcement this morning by Roger Drake, chief communications officer for Morton's The Steakhouse in Chicago, the chain's Sacramento branch is leaving Downtown Plaza to help make way for a proposed redevelopment of the mall.

"We have secured an alternate site...at 621 Capitol Mall," Drake said. "A more formal announcement will be made once plans are finalized with respect to the...mall," he added.

As Bee columnist Bob Shallit reported last month, Downtown Plaza is to undergo an ambitious update next year. Plans call for a large guitar outside the mall's Hard Rock Cafe at 7th and K to be relocated, a new indoor/outdoor dining area above the Hard Rock, a Target store, and a 20-foot-tall LED screen around the building housing the Hard Rock.

The U.S. Bank Tower where Morton's is to move also is big on LED displays. The 25-story office building is topped by one, called "Lumetric River," while the structure's atrium includes a second, called "The Rapids."

Officials of Downtown Plaza and David S. Taylor Interests, which developed U.S. Bank Tower, didn't immediately return phone calls for comment.

These may not be the best economic times to open a restaurant, but Bill Taylor is pushing ahead with plans for his steakhouse Hibachi One Three in quarters long occupied by Fuji's at 13th and Broadway. Though he's run into more work than anticipated in remodeling the kitchen of the 6400-square-foot building, Taylor is hoping for a September or October debut.

He's hired his executive chef, Eric Stimson, and the two are working up a menu representative of a "casual neighborhood American steakhouse," says Taylor. Teriyaki steak is expected to be a signature dish, not so much in keeping with the building's previous incarnation as a Japanese restaurant but in tribute to a restaurant Taylor frequented when he was living in Manhattan Beach. That place also was named Hibachi, but without the "One Three," Taylor's sly way to avoid becoming too closely associated with the number 13.

"I think it will be a surprise to people - fresher and more open," says Taylor of his redesign of the place.

When he does open Hibachi One Three he will in one small way compete with himself. The restaurant will have burgers on the lunch menu, even though Taylor owns two Willie's Burgers, one just three blocks from his new place.

I don't like being badgered by supermarket clerks who ask if I want to donate $1 or so to this or that earnest cause, usually something to do with cancer research, so why didn't I mind when the bill at a restaurant the other evening included an optional $1 surcharge to help preserve wildland?

I suppose I gladly went along with the pitch because it was privately rather than publicly delivered. Also, we'd just hiked along one of the watersheds that would benefit, however slightly, from our small donation, and fond memories of the inspiring scenery during that trek left us in an appreciative mood.

Not all diners welcome the charge, however, concedes Buzz Crouch, manager and co-owner of New Moon Cafe in Nevada City, which is where we'd stopped for dinner on the way back to Sacramento. "That's why we provide a pen, so they can scratch it out," says Crouch. A few do, but other guests put the pen to another use, such as adding a zero to the $1 to increase both the amount of their bill and the amount of their donation.

"At the risk of being presumptuous, we added $1 to your bill to protect the spacious lands and emerald rivers in the northern Sierra foothills. If you object, we'll cheerfully deduct the amount. Simply cross it out," says a note with the bill.

New Moon Cafe began to add the levy about eight months ago, Crouch says, and so far has been turning over between $100 and $150 a week to the three conservation groups that evenly share the proceeds. The program is called "Bucks for Healthy Rivers and Trails," and the funds go toward restoring habitat, expanding trails, reducing sediment and the like of the Yuba River, Deer Creek, and Wolf Creek watersheds, says a statement on the Web site of one of the beneficiary organizations, the South Yuba River Citizens League. So far, the program has raised $5,720, says Dan Murnane, watershed education specialist for the South Yuba River Citizens League.

I wondered whether New Moon Cafe and other participating restaurants considered any alternative way to encourage diners to donate without upsetting them, such as saying that $1 of whatever tip they leave their server would go to the cause. Nope, says Crouch, he didn't, before reminding me that the tip option couldn't seriously be considered because it's illegal for a restaurateur to in any way tamper with a server's tips. That said, we look forward to our next meal at New Moon Cafe, and to using the pen only to sign the credit-card receipt, with the donation.

After more than a decade of cooking at restaurants in Minnesota and North Carolina, Robert "Bobby" Masullo, a 1988 graduate of McClatchy High School, has returned to Sacramento to open his own place, Masullo.

There, he's specializing in individual-sized Neapolitan-style pizzas fired in an Italian oven burning oak and olive wood. His opening menu is concise, but the selection of pizzas will be updated to stay current with seasonal ingredients. The first choices include a traditional margherita of tomato, mozzarella and basil ($9), a "brigitta" of potato, fontina, oregano and Niman Ranch bacon ($12), and a "mustapha" of mozzarella, granna, prosciutto and arugula ($10).

Other than the imported pizza oven, the restaurant's most unusual architectural feature is the tables and counter made from a single walnut tree that stood at 10th and Richards on the north edge of downtown.

Masullo, a 1992 graduate of the Culinary Institute of America at Hyde Park, N.Y., visited Naples four times to study the city's famed way with pizza. "Fresh, regional flavor is an inborn quality there. People take a pride in their local cuisine," says Masullo in describing the sort of culinary awareness he intends to cultivate at his restaurant. As to the pizzas specifically, he says he will be baking them in the Neapolitan style - "at a much higher temperature than the average American pie is baked at."

Full disclosure: Masullo is the son of Bob and Eileen Masullo of Sacramento; Bob Masullo is a retired colleague from The Bee.

Masullo, 2711 Riverside Blvd., serves dinner only, 5-9:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 5-10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; (916) 443-8929. The restaurant opened a week ago without its beer-and-wine license, which Masullo hopes to get sometime this week.

Aside from the occasional baseball game or concert, I avoid crowds. Thus, I generally don't eat out on New Year's Eve, Mother's Day, Easter and the like. Yesterday was an exception. I've been hearing good things about South Pine Cafe in Nevada City, so a Father's Day excursion seemed in order. But then I remembered how much I'd paid to fuel up the car the day before. And then I remembered hearing that a branch of South Pine Cafe had opened recently in Auburn, not quite so far removed from Sacramento.

What we found was a bright cafe that might have been as busy even if it weren't Father's Day. The place was jammed with old bikers, young families, and the large Marc and Monica Deconinck party. (They own Le Bilig French Restaurant in Auburn, and it's almost always a good sign to find restaurateurs patronizing a neighbor.)

The South Pine Cafe's extensive menu takes advantage of a modern and global consciousness to bring new color and vigor to traditional breakfast and lunch dishes. Lobster and a hollandaise with jalapeno chile peppers muscle into the eggs Benedict, the chicken in a burrito is seasoned with a Thai peanut sauce, and chipotle chile peppers, grilled onions and bacon beef up the "smoldering pine burger."

But while there's a New Age vibe to South Pine Cafe - a tofu scramble is spiced with jerk sauce, a vegetarian burger is made with pecans and brown rice - there's also a streak of traditionalism, as represented by such dishes as old timey biscuits and gravy, buttermilk pancakes, and huevos rancheros.

Father's Day is no day to review a restaurant, other than to say we found the mimosa tangy and refreshing, the Southwestern corn cakes sweet and snappy, and we look forward to another visit. If we're lucky, maybe a Sacramento branch will open one of these days. In the meantime, the Nevada City original is at 110 South Pine St., a Grass Valley branch is at 102 Richardson St., and the Auburn outlet, which opened in May, is at 660 Auburn-Folsom Road. All are open 8 a.m.-3 p.m. daily.

Friday the 13th will live up to its notorious bum-luck reputation for fans of the Chinese cooking at the midtown Sacramento restaurant First Choice, 1313 21st St. Owner Kevin Zhang is closing the place tomorrow after a 15-year run.

The closure is to be short lived, however. The new owners, whose names Zhang didn't have at his fingertips when we chatted this afternoon, are to do some light remodeling in anticipation of a June 19 reopening, he said. He isn't sure what name the restaurant will use or what its concept will be, though he expected it to remain in the city's family of Asian restaurants.

Zhang says he's selling because he's tired of working seven-day weeks and because he wants to return to school, possibly to study acupuncture. First, however, could be a trip to China.

One of the more congested intersections during Sacramento's monthly Second Saturday art walk is likely to be even more crowded this Saturday evening. That's when Ali Mackani, owner of Restaurant 55 Degrees on Capitol Mall, expects to start introducing Sacramentans to his new project, Lounge on 20, at 20th and K in midtown.

While the wine bar and restaurant occupies spacious quarters on the southeast corner of the MARRS building (Midtown Art Retail Restaurant Scene), it won't be fully operational for another week or so, says Mackani. The menu still is being refined, but guests should be able to get a pretty fair idea of the design of the space and the restaurant's choice of wines by the glass, its cocktail selection, and its Champagnes and other sparkling wines. (Mackani and his wine director, Kassidy Harris, plan to have 30 available by the glass.)

One of their principal goals is to create a space that will become as well known for its convivialty as its food and beverages. That should be no problem Saturday night.

In case of turbulence, I'm not sure I'd want a bowl of the hot Vietnamese noodle soup pho in my lap while flying out of Sacramento International Airport, but a week from today travelers are to have that option.

That's when Mai Pham is scheduled to open a branch of her Lemon Grass Asian Grill & Noodle Bar in Terminal A. Easier to handle than the pho will be several other items on the takeout menu, including shrimp salad rolls, Thai beef salad, grilled Bangkok chicken, and jungle curry with tofu and vegetables.

The airport cafe marks the first time that Pham has agreed to a licensing partnership with a national company (HMSHost), and she sees the move as a possible step toward introducing the Lemon Grass concept to a much broader audience.

Pham, who has owned the Vietnamese and Thai restaurant Lemon Grass along Munroe Street for nearly 20 years, introduced Lemon Grass Asian Grill & Noodle Bar along Howe Avenue in 2006 as an outlet for more casual dishes representing Southeast Asian street food and market kitchens. Pho is her signature dish, but the Terminal A menu, an abbreviated version of her other menus, also includes the spicy Thai noodle soup kao soi, grilled lemon grass chicken and assorted curries and salads.

In addition, the menu includes breakfast paninis, oatmeal and pastries from La Bou Bakery and Cafe, the chain of croissant shops in which Pham also is a principal.

A few California restaurateurs and chefs won honors during this weekend's James Beard Awards in New York. Elisabeth Prueitt and Chad Robertson of Tartine Bakery in San Francisco share the award for outstanding pastry chef; the Napa Valley restaurant Terra of St. Helena got the award for outstanding service; Craig Stoll of the San Francisco restaurant Delfina was named outstanding chef for the Pacific region; San Francisco cookbook author Paul Wolfert had her book "Couscous and Other Good Food from Morocco" inducted into the Cookbook Hall of Fame; and San Francisco brewer Fritz Maytag of Anchor Brewing was given the organization's Lifetime Achievement Award.

Per usual, however, East Coast culinarians tended to dominate the awards, with Joe Bastianich and Mario Batali of Babbo Ristorante e Enoteca in New York being named outstanding restaurateurs, and Gramercy Tavern of New York designated the outstanding restaurant. Grant Achatz of the restaurant Alinea in Chicago was named outstanding chef.

Well, that was interesting. I've just come from the opening reception of the 2008 Los Angeles International Wine & Spirits Competition. As much of a mouthful as that is, it doesn't completely describe the competition that gets under way on the grounds of the Los Angeles County Fair in Pomona tomorrow. One of the world's larger olive-oil judgings also will commence at 8:30 a.m. The chairman of the olive-oil judging is Sacramento grocer Darrell Corti. During this evening's reception, he introduced me to Dr. Gino Celletti of Milan, one of the olive-oil judges. Dr. Celletti had arrived in Los Angeles from Beijing, where in another month or so he will open Olive Oil Restaurant Cafe.

An Italian restaurant in the capital of China, home to one of the world's other classic cuisines, raises a question or two. Like, why? Well, explained Dr. Celletti, Beijing also is home to a huge number of millionaires, many of whom seem infatuated with interntional cuisines and have the disposable income to pursue their interest. What's more, they are particularly keen on European foods and wines. And then, of course, there's the upcoming Olympics, which will attract all sorts of Europeans and Americans who likely will welcome an opportunity to eat foods with which they are more familiar than traditional Chinese dishes.

These are all practical business reasons for opening a restaurant in Beijing, but Dr. Celletti, who is involved in the making and marketing of olive oil when he isn't launching restaurants in unlikely locales, has an artistic impulse that he's applying to dishes in the Beijing restaurant. The menu he showed me is as long and detailed as some textbooks at UC Davis, with each of the individual chapters devoted to the olive oils and dishes of individual Italian provinces. From Liguria, for example, the indigenous olive Razzola is used in a pesto tossed with pasta and potatoes. From Emilia Romagna, the olive Brisighella is used with sliced beef served with a cake based on the cheese Parmigiano and a sauce based on the grape sangiovese. And so it goes.

We read and hear a lot these days about economic globalization. Dr. Celletti looks to have taken that concept to heart, and if the Chinese realize as much joy from Italian olive oil and the Italian culinary arts as the rest of the world, well, that would seem to be an encouraging development for a broadened international consciousness.

Just before leaving for Pomona and the 2008 Los Angeles International Wine & Spirits Competition this afternoon I had a brief chat with Kurt Spataro, executive chef of Paragary's Restaurant Group. I was trying to confirm speculation that his eponymous downtown restaurant may be about to change hands. When you write of restaurants in today's precarious economic environment that's what you do with a bit of your daily work time - chase down rumors about this acquisition and that closure.

In short, Spataro Restaurant & Bar still is a member of Paragary's Restaurant Group, said Spataro, with no change in ownership anticipated. About three or four months ago, however, representatives of OSI Restaurant Partners in Tampa approached Spataro and business partner Randy Paragary to talk about possibly taking over Spataro for a branch of Roy's, their Hawaiian fusion concept started 20 years ago in Honolulu by Roy Yamaguchi. OSI also owns Fleming's Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar, a branch of which is planned for the old Firestone building being renovated just up L Street from Spataro. Part of the OSI philosophy, said Spataro, is to put a branch of Roy's in the same general vicinity as a Fleming's, thus the company's interest in Spataro. "We listened, but it didn't work out for them," says Spataro. "They cooled on this market."

While no change looks to be imminent for Spataro, Spataro did remind me of a long-enduring principle of the restaurant business: For the right price, just about any place can change hands. "As owners, you listen to anything," says Spataro.

After vacillating for weeks over the future of his Gianni's Trattoria in midtown Sacramento, Peter Torza is closing down the business and putting it on the market. Last call is this coming weekend.

"I gave this my all, but it jut didn't work. It hurts," said Torza Monday afternoon after dispatching a media email to announce his decision. "Rewards were many, but at my age this place takes just too much of my time. And time is pretty precious," wrote Torza.

He opened the sleek Gianni's in April of 2007 as a successor to his Black Pearl Oyster Bar in the same quarters. The Black Pearl had become too much of a bar scene for his taste and he hoped Gianni's would strike a better balance between restaurant and lounge, but that equilibrium never materialized. The restaurant was doing fine, but the bar business had fallen off. "You need the two of them."

He also speculated that Gianni's may have been hurt by the larger and splashier G.V. Hurley's restaurant and bar that opened recently next door, and by high gas prices that could be discouraging suburban residents from driving into Sacramento for dinner, especially midweek.

The final straw came this weekend, when business was "horrible," said Torza. "I loved doing it, but I don't want to work this hard this late in my life."

His plans are uncertain, though he indicated he'd be giving more of his time to nearby Harlow's, in which he is a principal. He's also thinking of relocating to Italy for a few months. He's also thinking of being a restaurant consultant, helping design new places but not operating them. "I feel my job is done," said Torza. "At this point, I think I'd enjoy building them more than running them. But I am going to miss the food here. I love that calamari."

One pizza place closes (see below) and two open, isn't that the way it goes? In this instance, however, one may be enough. On Friday, what may be the region's largest pizza restaurant is to open in Roseville. Basic Urban Kitchen + Bar is the full and proper name, but it's such a pizza joint that that's all there is on the menu, other than a salad. But while the menu is concise, the place will be huge, seating 215 in a 6,000-square-foot former warehouse in Roseville's Old Town.

This will be the second location for Basic Urban Kitchen + Bar. The first, also in a converted warehouse, opened two years ago near San Diego's Petco Park, scoring $1.8 million in sales its first year, $3 million the next, according to a report in San Diego Business Journal.

Jon Magnini came up with the concept, inspired largely by the thin-crust, brick-oven pizzas he savored at Italian bistros as he was growing up in New Haven, Conn.

The concept is to keep everything simple, thus the barebones warehouse settings, the limited menu, and a wine list where every release is priced the same - $7 the glass and $26 the bottle for whites, $8 the glass and $30 the bottle for reds.

Magnini and his partners were drawn to Roseville by the size and naturalness of the building and its location in a redevloping industrial area of the city, says owner/operator Kenny Gowan.

Basic Urban Kitchen + Bar, 112 Pacific St., Roseville, is to be open 11:30 a.m.-2 a.m. Monday through Saturday, 5 p.m.-2 a.m. Sundays; (916) 749-4641.

Northern California's increasingly expensive and unsteady economy hasn't led to a shakeout of restaurants, but in another sign that restaurateurs are uneasy Peter Torza has closed his I Dragoni Pizzeria in midtown Sacramento and cut back the days that his adjoining Gianni's Trattoria is open.

I Dragoni, open only two months, just didn't catch on, and to cut losses and to focus on his primary restaurant Torza decided to quickly pull the plug. Over the weekend, he met with employees to discuss options for Gianni's. The group agreed to start closing Tuesdays effective tomorrow to reduce operating costs about 17 percent. While Gianni's has been busy at the end of the week and during weekends, business has slowed appreciably earlier in the week, said Torza. Gianni's already closed Mondays.

Torza also will be trimming some dishes from the Gianni's menu to reduce preparation time and to focus on dishes that already sell well.

"The staff is upbeat and we're trying to come up with better ideas to encourage business," said Torza.

Steve Zeigler is the latest restaurateur to recognize that location, location, location can be crucial in the dining business. Two years ago he moved his Zigatos Bar & Grille from the suburban Howe 'Bout Arden shopping center to the Canterbury Inn and Conference Center off Highway 160 near the Woodlake neighborhood.

Now he's moved Zigatos again, this time back to the suburbs, to the Clarion Hotel at Fulton Avenue and Auburn Boulevard.

"I was convinced we could make that place work," said Zeigler of the Canterbury Road site. "But I learned Canterbury Road is too far out for people who live downtown and too far in for people who live out."

He also said some anticipated improvements to the Canterbury Road site didn't materialize as he'd hoped, also prompting his decision to move.

He's more optimistic about the Clarion Hotel site, where he also has relocated his Capital City Catering. "We've been welcomed with open arms here," says Zeigler of his new landlord and members of the Arden Arcade business Council. "It's good to feel the love."

Colleague Ramon Coronado had a more comprehensive look at the Zigatos move and the revitalization of the restaurant's new neighborhood in an article in the regional Arden section of yesterday's Bee.