Being a huge fan of food, the whole Dish Crawl concept is right up my alley. Several months back, a co-worker of mine mentioned that he was helping to put one on in Sacramento, and I decided to roll the dice and tag along. I say "roll the dice", because one of the interesting things about a Dish Crawl is that you have no idea where you're going until the day of the event.
First time around, things were awesome. You can read all about the places we visited and see pictures of the food we ate in one of my earlier posts but today I'll be recapping the event from this past Sunday. I'll be adding pictures too, as soon as I have a moment!
Stop #1: 3 Fires Lounge - Since this was the first stop, the Dish Crawlers were mingling here before things officially kicked off. I was a bit surprised by the amount of people here, for one thing. I'd say we had roughly 10-15 more folks than the last time around. As for the restaurant, I hadn't been here in the past, but I believe this is actually a restaurant/bar connected to a hotel. It looked nice, and there was a nice outdoor eating area, but it looked like the main focus was the bar. I don't think I would have realized that this was a restaurant if I was just walking by.
Once things got rolling, we were introduced to our first three foods. First off was an assortment of sliders. They had a standard one with caramelized onions (which I ate), a "western" style with BBQ sauce and an onion ring, and a Hawaiian-style deal with pineapple and a Sriracha sauce. Sadly, they only had enough for us to sample one a piece. Not being aware, I got in line fast and got the most basic choice. I wish I had an opportunity to try the others, because the basic slider was a little underwhelming. Not very seasoned. Next, we had a penne carbonara. Pretty good stuff, but relatively standard fare. Lastly, we had black garlic fries. I've never sampled anything with black garlic before, and I'm not even sure I'd heard of it before! The fries were different than I would have expected, but quite good. A little sweeter than I would have expected, and a bit more "dry", for lack of a better term. No big chunks of garlic, not saucy by any means, but more of a garlic-encrusted deal. By far, the stand-out dish here.
Stop #2: 58 Degrees and Holding - Again, this is a place I hadn't heard of. And again, if I just walked by or poked my head in, I would have had no idea that this was a restaurant. The front of the place looks like a wine shop with a bar attached, but delving a bit deeper, we were taken to a private room with several plates of food. To start, we had two types of bruschetta: one with sun-dried tomatoes, and another with a rich cheese (can't recall which) and a fig compote. The latter was bursting with flavor, and I'd have gone back for seconds if I had the chance! We finished off with a crispy pork belly "sushi" on top of sushi rice with a bit of lemon zest. This had something spicy to it, but I'm not sure what. Whatever it was, it contributed to create the dish of the night, in my opinion. I would go back and eat about a half dozen of those!
Stop #3: Cafeteria 15L - I had been to a neighboring/attached restaurant that serves Korean tacos, and I'd been meaning to try this place, so I was happy to have an opportunity to sample some food here. We started off with something that looked like an alcoholic beverage, so I was a bit worried I wouldn't get a chance to partake. However, it ended up being what I can best describe as a gazpacho "shot". I believe it had an orange squash base with peppers and onions. For those not familiar with gazpacho, this was served cold. It was a bit of an odd texture, and the portion was small, but it wasn't bad. I'm not sure how I'd feel about it with a larger sample-size though.
Next up was a small portion of macaroni and cheese. I was chatting with someone earlier who had been here before, and they predicted that this would be our dish of choice, so this must be a bit of a specialty for them. It was a basic mac & cheese with a mild, white cheese, and it has some bread crumbs toasted on top. It also fell into the "good-not-great" category, unfortunately. I wanted a bit more depth to the flavor, or maybe a bit more spice. I'm not sure what would have helped, but as a whole, I felt a bit underwhelmed at this stop on both flavor and portion size.
Stop #4: Capitol Garage - I'd always thought that this was just a coffee shop, so we're continuing the tread of "I had no idea this was a restaurant" with our final stop. Here, we had more to eat than at any other stop by a wide margain. We started with a nice salad with asparagus, mozzarella and some diced salami. The dressing was tasty too, but I don't recall exactly what it was. A tasty start, as I'm always a fan of mixing up salads with meats and cheeses. Next up was a crispy thin-crust pizza with pepperoni and fresh basil. This one fell a bit short with me. Again, it didn't seem to have a heck of a lot of spices going on in the sauce. I had two pieces, and the latter had a bit more basil, which helped. Still, not something I'd hurry back to try. We followed that with some pork loin with mushroom sauce. It was tough to really get a feel here since we literally only got one small piece, but it was okay. A little bland for my tastes, but I didn't get a ton of sauce on my piece either. Lastly, we finished our journey with desert. We had a variety of house-made truffles, ranging in flavor from blackberry to Bailey's Irish Cream to a soy chai. Much like the sliders at our first stop, we only got to sample one (sadly), but what I DID try was delicious. I had the blackberry truffle, and I loved it. I'd be curious to try more to see if they follow suit, but they're rich to the point where it probably was a good thing I only ate one.
All things considered, I have to say that I didn't dig this Crawl quite as much as the first. It was more crowded, and the restaurant selection was not my favorite. I did have a few stand-out items, but as a whole it felt like we were checking out bars that also happened to serve food. Also, I wasn't even completely full at the end of things. Last time around, I was about ready to burst by the time we finished things up, but the portions were a much smaller this time around.
That being said, I still had fun. I'll also be looking forward to the next Dish Crawl, but I hope that the food involved mixes things up a bit. I'd love to see more hole-in-the-wall types of places, or some larger portions. It will be interesting to see where things go from here!
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