One of the best events I get invited to each year by Visit
Sacramento is the Tower Bridge Dinner menu tasting, which took
place August 6 this year. I’ve been lucky to attend the dinner
twice as a guest, and it’s as fabulous as you might imagine. To
think that the organizers convinced the cities of West Sacramento
and Sacramento in 2013 to shut down the golden Tower Bridge,
which 75,000 cars drive over daily, for one evening so 800
well-dressed people can dine! It is quite unusual — and fabulous.
This year’s dinner, which will be held Sunday, Sept. 6, has an
international flair, courtesy of the four chefs who created the
menu. Typically, each chef who designs a course explains to the
media how he or she came to prepare it. This was left out of the
program at the unveiling earlier this month held at The Central
Kitchen, which prepares 45,000 meals for students in the
Sacramento City Unified School District each day. But I asked the
chefs to explain their inspirations. Chef Joe Pruner, who told me
his new restaurant Bocce is about to open in East Sacramento, was
the spokesman for the group.
“The menu overall was inspired by two things. One is all the
farmer immigrants who came and worked the fields and made them
what they are today, and the second is the rivers running through
Sacramento — Sacramento and American. They kind of give life to
all of us, all the produce that we use in all of our
restaurants,” Pruner says.
Chef Giancarlo Zapata of Chicha Peruvian Kitchen designed a
course centered on an albacore tuna tataki. (Photo by Judy Farah)
The first course was designed by Chef Giancarlo Zapata of Chicha
Peruvian Kitchen and dubbed “Current of Origins,” hearkening back
to the river theme. It featured an albacore tuna tataki, lightly
seared around the edges and tasting like a miniature tuna steak.
The vegetable chips, which members of the media munched on during
the unveiling, paired nicely with the red pepper dipping sauce.
“We took inspiration in South America, Japan, Italy, Portugal,
Philippines, China, Vietnam, Mexico and South America,” Pruner
says. “We picked a couple cultures to highlight, and then we put
some things, some ingredients and techniques that we like to use
into that dish as well. So the goal is to create a nice cohesive
menu where we’re represented, and we’re representing everyone who
came before us and worked the fields and gave life to the
region.”
The mushroom and ricotta rotolo reminded the author of eggplant
rollatini. (Photo by Judy Farah)
The second course, prepared by Chef Francisco Rivera of Hawks
Public House, was called “Current of Heritage” and borrowed from
Portuguese and Italian traditions. The main component was a
mushroom and ricotta rotolo, or mushrooms fashioned into a roll
around ricotta cheese. It reminded me of the thinly sliced
eggplant rollups, or rollatini, that I used to eat at Italian
restaurants on the East Coast, accompanied by a tomato ragu
sauce. The Tower Bridge Dinner version was also paired with a
ragu sauce, this one made with Portuguese linguica sausage.
Chef Joe Pruner created a course featuring Filipino-inspired
adobo quail, crispy garlic rice, marinated tomatoes and cucumber
with lettuce and fresh herbs. (Photo by Judy Farah)
Pruner created the third course, “Current
of Community.” The chefs brought out platters of
Filipino-inspired adobo quail, crispy garlic rice, marinated
tomatoes and cucumber with lettuce and fresh herbs. I mistook the
wedges of orange peppers in the salad for fresh peaches at first
— the color was so vibrant.
Rounding out the menu with the fourth course, called “Current of
Legacy,” which leaned on Hispanic and Mexican traditions.
Created by Chef Kate Sutherland of Waterboy, it featured roasted
pork belly chile verde and braised heirloom beans. The crispy
pork belly was a fan favorite of the media crowd (while my
favorite was the tuna).
The pork belly chile verde was a favorite among the media crowd.
(Photo by Judy Farah)
Pruner explained that the chefs took the
lead on their assigned courses but helped each other with ideas.
They ate together at least once a month while preparing the menu
“just to kind of make sure everything’s cohesive, not jumbled,
and we’re able to execute things with these on the day of the
bridge day,” he said.
After the chefs described the dishes, the media was invited to
taste them. It was lovely to be enjoying gourmet food at 11 a.m.
on a Monday morning.
Folsom debuts Rainbow Bridge dinner
If there’s another bridge almost as iconic as the Tower Bridge in
the Sacramento region, it is Folsom’s Rainbow Bridge, so named
because the cement and steel structure built in 1919 arcs like a
rainbow. It crosses over Lake Natoma and acts like a sentry to
the entrance of Folsom Prison just down the shoreline. (Wire
fences block off Lake Natoma near the prison so kayakers and
paddlers can’t get near.)
The dinner is in honor of the City of Folsom celebrating its
80-year anniversary. Yes, that’s confusing, because Folsom has
been around since California’s Gold Rush in the 1850s, but it
didn’t incorporate until 1946. The multi-course dinner will be
held Sept. 13 and concludes with a 10-minute drone show with 250
drones to note America’s 250th birthday as the finale. The
tickets, sold in pairs for $700, went on sale in a lottery system
earlier this month, which is now closed.
Sky River celebrates its 4th anniversary by expanding
Sky River Casino celebrated its fourth anniversary by hosting a
six-course wine pairing at its SR Prime Steakhouse. Led by Mufeed
Ali, chef de cuisine, and Peter DiCorti, executive chef, the menu
included grilled lamb chop with a chimichurri sauce paired with a
2021 Justin Isosceles red blend; salmon tartare on a squid ink
cracker partnered with a 2022 Trefethen riesling; a tender wagyu
ribeye with crispy polenta accompanied by a 2021 Quilt cabernet
sauvignon, and more.
The casino recently broke ground on a hotel resort expansion that
will include a 300-room luxury hotel, a full-service day spa and
salon, an outdoor pool and about 30,000 square feet of meeting,
event and entertainment space.
AI boot camp
I signed up for an AI boot camp put on by the Carlsen Center for
Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Sac State. I want to be clear
Comstock’s does not allow writers to use AI to write their
stories, but I always want to keep up with technology and
trends.
The workshop was run by Averro, a staffings and solutions firm.
There were about 40 of us, broken up into teams or pairs, and we
were tasked with creating a unique food truck. Partner Chris and
I used Claude to create an affordable food truck for students —
and poof, the application produced The Hangry Hornet, complete
with a fun hornet logo.
We then used another AI tool, Gamma, to refine the image and
create a menu. From there, we used Lovable, which refined our
product further by building our website, giving us a business and
marketing plan plus photos for our menu, which included such
items as the hornet burrito, sting tacos and Delta breeze aqua
fresca.
CREW Women of Influence luncheon
Last Wednesday I attended the Women of Influence luncheon put on
by CREW Sacramento, Commercial Real Estate Women. They had a
panel discussion with five women who talked about how they got
into commercial real estate, their challenges and their advice
for other businesswomen. It was interesting to hear from women on
different career paths from mine and made me think conversations
like these might be interesting to Comstock’s readers.
If you have a story idea or a topic you’d like Comstock’s to
cover, or an event you’d like us to know about, please email me
at jfarah@comstocksmag.com.
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