{"id":224387,"date":"2026-03-17T23:12:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T23:12:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/224387\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T23:12:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T23:12:14","slug":"affordable-food-at-sacramento-ca-restaurants-from-tacos-to-salad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/224387\/","title":{"rendered":"Affordable food at Sacramento, CA restaurants, from tacos to salad"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following is from City of Treats, a food and drink newsletter by Abridged Senior Food Editor Benjy Egel. Want it sent directly to your inbox?\u00a0Sign up here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Affordability, as the\u00a0Washington Post said last month<\/a>, is the political word of the moment. The price of basic needs such as food, housing and healthcare has shot up over the past decade, and wages haven\u2019t kept up. In the Sacramento dining scene, most people I talk to already know about the biggest names serving prix-fixe dinners; they want to know how to eat well while keeping a little padding in their wallets.<\/p>\n

They can ask Abridged contributor Keyla Vasconcellos.\u00a0Her story published Tuesday morning<\/a>\u00a0recommends 11 spots in and around Sacramento to find stellar meals for $10 or less. From breakfast burritos in Roseville to late-night tacos at a Midtown bar, she has deals worth checking out.<\/p>\n

One inexpensive option that\u2019s not on Keyla\u2019s list: Jimmy\u2019s Soul Food & Hmong Cuisine, a market and deli that\u2019s fed Del Paso Heights for more than 40 years. I stopped by to try chitterlings but walked away with herbaceous sausage, sticky rice and Lao-style papaya salad.<\/p>\n

That meal came just before a splurge at home for my sister\u2019s birthday. If you\u2019re feeling celebratory this weekend, check out a cherry blossom festival in Elk Grove or an Eid al-Fitr buffet at a Rancho Cordova restaurant. Otherwise, stop by a new Korean fried chicken restaurant in Roseville, or one of five top carnitas spots around Sacramento.<\/p>\n

Mangia!<\/p>\n

\t\tSign Up for the City of Treats Newsletter<\/p>\n

Get the latest Sacramento food news from Benjy Egel in City of Treats \u2014 delivered every Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Benjy\u2019s Bites<\/p>\n

Jimmy\u2019s Soul Food & Hmong Cuisine | 1201 Grand Ave., Sacramento | 916-922-7501<\/p>\n

\"Jimmy'sJimmy\u2019s Soul Food and Hmong Cuisine, also known as Jimmy\u2019s Market. (Benjy Egel)<\/p>\n

Sacramento has one of the United States\u2019 largest Hmong populations, but only one restaurant expressly dedicated to serving the Asian ethnic group\u2019s food. Jimmy\u2019s Soul Food & Hmong Cuisine, a market and deli across from Grant Union High School, has served Del Paso Heights for more than 40 years \u2014 boxes of Creole gravy mix on one shelf, laab namtok seasoning powder across the aisle. With no dining on-site and signs asking customers not to eat in their cars, it\u2019s best enjoyed as a grab-and-go lunch.<\/p>\n

Jimmy\u2019s is the only Sacramento restaurant I\u2019ve known to serve\u00a0chitterlings\u00a0($14\/half-pound, $20\/pound), a pig intestine dish with roots in the Deep South. They were out on my visit, so I pivoted to the\u00a0ultra combo\u00a0($20): two whole chicken wings, salty pork belly squares, galangal-forward Hmong sausage slices, sticky rice and a fiery pepper sauce.\u00a0Jimmy\u2019s Hmong papaya salad\u00a0($10) came in a plastic bag with vermicelli on the side; made in the Lao style with padaek, a fermented fish sauce, it was darker and more pungent than its Thai cousin.<\/p>\n

Egel\u2019s Nest<\/p>\n

I live, play and cook in this community just like you. This recurring section is a window into my life outside of restaurants and bars, always with a food and\/or drink angle.<\/p>\n

My family used to celebrate the night before Thanksgiving or Christmas Eve with a Dungeness crab feed, but shortened and delayed seasons have scuttled those plans in recent years. We had another celebration last week, though: my sister came out from Georgia to spend her birthday back home. And with crab still in season (and limited suitcase space), I made her birthday present an \u201cexperience gift\u201d this year.<\/p>\n

My dad picked up pre-cooked crab at\u00a0Nugget Markets<\/a>, then got to work making his famous Caesar salad while I broke off legs and cracked bodies. The Pacific Northwest\u2019s flagship crab is sweet enough to love on its own \u2014 I prefer it to lobster, honestly \u2014 but sides of lemon, aioli and melted butter were there for those who wanted. Dessert, per usual, was\u00a0Freeport Bakery\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0rich Seville Marnier, a chocolate-poppyseed cake doused in Grand Marnier orange liqueur.<\/p>\n

In the news<\/p>\n

\"food\"Carnitas tacos from Ricas Carnitas. (Becky Grunewald)<\/p>\n

Carnitas, the best-known dish from the Mexican state of Michoac\u00e1n, are on nearly every taqueria menu in Sacramento. But not all carnitas are created equal. Contributor Becky Grunewald ID\u2019d five to love around the city<\/a>, from roadside stands to a Downtown newcomer.<\/p>\n

\"trashRoundhouse Deli\u2019s trash burrito. (Keyla Vasconcellos)<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no way around it: eating out costs more than it used to. But you can still find quality meals for $10 or less around Sacramento, as contributor Keyla Vasconcellos wrote.<\/a> Her list includes Tijuana-style tacos, a veggie burger and a couple of fan-favorite sandwiches.<\/p>\n

\"ManRandy Stannard at Root 64 farm. (Root 64) <\/p>\n

Urban farms can supply top Sacramento restaurants, beautify city corners and give growers lifelines \u2014 if they can withstand a series of challenges, contributor Sena Christian wrote<\/a>. A former tree nursery at Mangan Park in South Sacramento, for example, will soon offer jobs and workforce training for people who were formerly incarcerated \u2014 after sitting vacant for the past 18 years.<\/p>\n

Happening this week<\/p>\n

Eid al-Fitr, the celebration marking the end of Ramadan, falls Friday-Sunday this year. One notable place to celebrate: Al-Maidah Restaurant<\/a> at 11354 White Rock Road in Rancho Cordova, which is arranging a halal Pakistani and Afghan buffet for the occasion Friday and Saturday. Adults are $25 and kids are $15.<\/p>\n

Elk Grove\u2019s fifth annual Cherry Blossom Festival<\/a> will take over Old Town Plaza from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Sunday. Expect taiko drumming, aikido demonstrations and Japanese food available for purchase at the otherwise free event.<\/p>\n

Dak Good<\/a> is in the midst of its soft opening at 6706 Stanford Ranch Road, Suite 4 in Roseville. Korean fried chicken is the focus, accompanied by dishes such as tteokbokki and bibimbap, at this location as well as the preexisting two in Michigan.<\/p>\n

Benjy Egel\u00a0is the senior food editor at Abridged. Born and raised in the Sacramento region, he has covered its local restaurants and bars since 2018. He also writes and edits Abridged\u2019s weekly\u00a0food and drink newsletter,\u00a0City of Treats.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The following is from City of Treats, a food and drink newsletter by Abridged Senior Food Editor Benjy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":224388,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[121,123,122,65250],"class_list":["post-224387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news","tag-secondary-highlight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}