ShopEatSleep

I recently took a trip up north to Sacramento to visit my best friend, Crystal (the same friend for whom I planned the Napa Valley bachelorette party for back in June), and we embarked on a weekend of so much eating that I thought I might literally explode. Here are the highlights:

• Citizen Hotel‘s Grange restaurant: This downtown boutique hotel has lots of charm, its Grange restaurant included. We went here for pre-dinner drinks, and we weren’t disappointed. I had a Fig, with whiskey, Cointreau, muddled roasted figs, agave nectar, orange juice and lemon juice, at the suggestion of our server, who said it had more whiskey than anything. “Say no more,” I told her and promptly ordered it. She was right; it was heavy on the whiskey (which I love) yet refreshing with just a bit of sweetness from the muddled fig. Crystal had an Acai with Veev, St. Germain, Roederer sparkling wine, simple syrup, lemon juice and berries, which I found too sweet for my taste, and Conor had a mojito, which was very respectable. We also shared a tasty cheese plate ($12).

Acai (left), Fig (center), Mojito (right)

• de Vere’s Irish Pub: This Irish bar and restaurant in downtown has some really great lamb sliders, with a garlicy, minty spread. The grilled cheese is also good. And I had the stiffest Manhattan to date here. Stiff but really, really good.

Lamb sliders

Grilled cheese and a Manhattan

• Sellands Market-Cafe: This cute larder/restaurant in East Sacramento has killer meatloaf, possibly made better in sandwich form, as I had it (twice!). The pasta salads are good, too. My favorite is one with a creamy dill sauce. There are also some great-looking sweets, but the only one I had was a red velvet cupcake, which was pretty standard.

Meatloaf sandwich

Tuna pasta salad (front), dill pasta salad (rear)

• Ford’s Real Hamburgers: This hamburger stand in the Pocket neighborhood makes a pretty mean burger, complete with a special sauce a la In-n-Out. The burgers can get kind of pricey once you start adding toppings (burgers start around $5 or $6), but if you happen to be in this area, Ford’s will give you a pretty decent meal. An small order of fries is huge, by the way.

Not my actual burger. Do I even have a camera?? From Chef Austin (Flickr).

• Ginger Elizabeth Chocolates: This midtown sweet shop sells handcrafted chocolates, macaroons and frozen treats, including ice cream sandwiches made with big macaroon cookies. Unfortunately we had just had frozen yogurt so we didn’t have room for the ice cream sandwich, but it looked so good! They’re pricey at $5.50, but I saw one in person, and they’re pretty big. I also neglected to take photos, but here’s a shot from Ginger Elizabeth’s Web site:

• Mahoroba Japanese Bakery: This newish bakery sells all kinds of Japanese pastries, sweet and savory. There were some pretty tasty and interesting looking pastries, including a shu mai bread. I tried a hard-boiled egg bread with the two halves of one egg presented side by side in a savory pastry. It was GOOD. But I neglected to take pics here, too, because I was so hungry I just about inhaled my pastry. So here’s a pic of the bread case that someone else took:

From Gretchen S. (Yelp).