{"id":268320,"date":"2026-04-15T02:12:21","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T02:12:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/268320\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T02:12:21","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T02:12:21","slug":"city-of-treats-a-sacramento-chili-cook-off-like-youve-never-seen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/268320\/","title":{"rendered":"City of Treats: A Sacramento chili cook-off like you’ve never seen"},"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

As we journalists (us journalists?) have been getting Abridged up and running over the past year, our PBS KVIE colleagues and board members have been setting up a first-of-its-kind local food festival.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The inaugural\u00a0PBS KVIE Chili Cook-Off<\/a>\u00a0will be held from 2-4 p.m. on Sunday, April 26. It\u2019s a showdown not between home cooks, but by top restaurant chefs from Davis to Elk Grove to Fair Oaks.<\/p>\n

Participating restaurants include:\u00a0Binchoyaki<\/a>,\u00a0Brasserie du Monde<\/a>,\u00a0Canon<\/a>,\u00a0charQterie<\/a>,\u00a0Kodaiko Ramen & Bar<\/a>,\u00a0MacQue\u2019s BBQ<\/a>,\u00a0Magpie Cafe<\/a>,\u00a0Meristem Cafe<\/a>,\u00a0Mulvaney\u2019s B&L<\/a>,\u00a0Riverside Clubhouse<\/a>,\u00a0Show Izakaya<\/a>,\u00a0The 7th Street Standard<\/a>,\u00a0Willow<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Zelda\u2019s<\/a>.<\/p>\n

You may notice that none of those restaurants have chili on their regular menus. That\u2019s part of the fun: we\u2019re asking chefs to come up with something different from their normal focus, and they\u2019re coming back with different definitions of what chili can be.<\/p>\n

MacQue\u2019s will have house-smoked beef sausage and brisket, The 7th Street Standard\u2019s is a chicken chili verde and Show Izakaya plans to serve sashimi-grade bluefin akami with sesame chili oil in a kombu-katsuobushi dashi. Winner gets hefty bragging rights \u2014 and a WWE-style championship belt made for the event.<\/p>\n

This chili cook-off is sliding into the role of PBS KVIE\u2019s annual spring fundraiser, hence the $100 ticket price, which helps fund the work we do here at Abridged and around the building. That Benjamin gets you two-ounce cups from all participating restaurants as well as wine and tequila tastings from\u00a0Teneral Cellars<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Enelalma Tequila<\/a>, two drink tickets (beer, wine or NA beverages) and one year of access to\u00a0Passport<\/a>, the PBS streaming service normally available to donors who give $60 or more.<\/p>\n

This Benjamin will be emceeing the event. In the meantime, I\u2019m recommending a family-friendly Mexican staple in Orangevale, a sheet-pan weeknight dinner and a trio of other events this coming Saturday.<\/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

Here\u2019s my favorite item or two from a local restaurant this week. Send me yours at begel@kvie.org.<\/p>\n

La Placita<\/a>\u00a0| 9272 Greenback Lane, Orangevale | 916-988-2940<\/p>\n

\"AThe Patrick burrito at La Placita in Orangevale. (Benjy Egel)<\/p>\n

For 38 years, La Placita has been an Orangevale cornerstone at the end of a strip mall. The Hernandez family has built arguably the city\u2019s most popular restaurant, a snug temple of faux brick and sloped archways with a packed dining room even on Monday nights.<\/p>\n

A friend of the family\u2019s, Patrick, helped out in the kitchen in the 1990s. He\u2019d end his shifts with a giant burrito stuffed and topped with carne asada, green bell peppers, beans, rice and cheese, all stewed in a red chili sauce. Thus was born the\u00a0Patrick burrito\u00a0($17.75), available today in XL and chimichanga forms as well. It might be enough for two meals, particularly if one starts with\u00a0Colombian chicharr\u00f3nes\u00a0($13.75), a plateful of deep-fried pork belly pieces. Covered with a salt mix and served with a limey red sauce, they\u2019re denser with more meat than their puffy Mexican cousins.<\/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

Ever since I started cooking for myself in college, I\u2019ve fallen back on a simple sheet pan dinner: roast vegetables with sausage. It\u2019s been deployed for sweet potatoes and turnips, imitation meat logs and Cajun-spiced pork, and it came to me again last week as I stared at a head of cauliflower sitting in the crisper drawer.<\/p>\n

As the oven heated to 425\u00baF, I roughly chopped the cauliflower and covered it with a mixture of olive oil and\u00a0Oaktown Spice Shop\u2019s Carlito\u2019s Rojito Yucat\u00e1n<\/a>\u00a0rub (achiote powder, cumin, coriander, garlic, cinnamon and more). After letting that roast for about 10 minutes, I split pre-cooked chicken apple sausages and slid them onto a corner of the tray. They came out with a slight char after about 15 minutes, just as the spiced cauliflower was ready to go as well.<\/p>\n

In the news<\/p>\n

\"Chef\"Chris Barnum-Dann at Localis on Jan. 9, 2026. (PBS KVIE)<\/p>\n

In interviews with Abridged<\/a>, multiple former Localis and Betty Wine Bar + Bistro employees accused chef\/owner Chris Barnum-Dann of sexual harassment, withholding tips and using racial slurs. Many of the allegations are from 2018-2020, and Barnum-Dann said the environments in his kitchens are now different.<\/p>\n

\"EBTEBT sign inside Shams Market in Sacramento on April 7, 2026. (Tyler Bastine)<\/p>\n

Refugees, asylees and other legal immigrants lost CalFresh benefits on April 1<\/a> as a result of the \u201cBig Beautiful Bill\u201d passed into law last year, eliminating hundreds of dollars in food-purchasing dollars from their wallets. Grocery stores such as Shams Market, which largely serves Afghan residents in Arden Arcade, are now turning customers away.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"ButterscotchThe Butterscotch Den\u2019s freezer martini. (Benjy Egel)<\/p>\n

Three Sacramento bars \u2014 The Snug, The Butterscotch Den and Kru Contemporary Japanese Cuisine \u2014 were named among the best in the western U.S.<\/a> in Tales of the Cocktail\u2019s 2026 Spirited Awards last week. Winners will be announced July 23 in New Orleans.<\/p>\n

Happening this week<\/p>\n

The 16th\u00a0annual\u00a0Taste of East Sacramento<\/a>\u00a0will be held Saturday night at Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church. Tickets are $95 until Thursday, then jump to $125 at the door; they include tastes from more than 50 surrounding restaurants, breweries and wineries.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Taste of Elk Grove<\/a>\u00a0falls that same night at the Sacramento Asian Sports Foundation, with tickets going for $70 or $75 at the door. Participating vendors include\u00a0La Fiesta Meat Market<\/a>,\u00a0Maharani India Restaurant<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Barsetti Vineyards<\/a>, along with more than 40 others.<\/p>\n

Sacramento\u2019s Turn Verein expects thousands of beer lovers Saturday afternoon for\u00a0Bockbierfest<\/a>, a celebration of the German dark lager. Expect traditional Bavarian food, music and dancing with your $25 ticket ($5 for kids).<\/p>\n

Benjy Egel is 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 food and drink newsletter, City of Treats.\u00a0<\/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":268321,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[121,123,122],"class_list":["post-268320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268320","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=268320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}