Welcome to Snackramento!
From the Kings Herald team comes the first Sacramento food podcast. Kevin, Will, and Richard will be taking you on an audio journey through the culinary delights of California’s capital city.
We will review our favorite restaurants, chase down the most popular food trucks, pin down the best pop ups. We will debate pie versus cake, pit burgers against chicken sandwiches, and fight to the death over pineapples on pizza.
For now we are basing our episodes around individual food items. Burgers, pizza, burritos, sushi, etc. We would like to eventually focus more on individual restaurants, but with the current stay-at-home orders, it might be a while until we get there.Thankfully a lot of great options are still available though delivery and takeout. If you are looking for local spots to support during the shutdown, we hope you will try a few of our favorites.
In episode one, the hungry boys talk about everything burger related. We draft burger toppings, rank the best kinds of fries, and list our favorite Sacramento burger spots. Make sure to tune in as Kevin makes better picks than any Kings GM in history. Seriously, he crushes Will and Rich.
Willie’s gets a lot of love in the debut, and might be the favorite of all three co-hosts. We also share our In-N-Out preferences and collectively dump on Burger King, declaring it the worst burger money can buy. How do other chains stack up? Give us a listen to find out. For now, we wrote about a few of our burger recs.
Kevin – Pangea Bier Cafe & Willie’s
I think we’re all huge fans of Willie’s and if I had one wish for you in these uncertain times, it’s that you’d certainly get to eat a Willie’s Hammer 2 this week. Willie’s is fast, easy, hyper-local, open late, and as a McClatchy kid, it has the nostalgia factor¦ but sometimes you just want something a bit more sophisticated. If that’s the case you’ve got a ton of good options In Sacramento, but I can’t recommend Pangea Bier Cafe in Curtis Park enough.
Pangea’s entire menu is basically bangers from top to bottom but their burger has to be in the running for the best in the region. We all love trying adventurous new takes on this American staple but Pangea succeeds where others fail by flawlessly executing a simple burger formula. They start with a thick grilled angus patty cooked exactly the way you want, and don’t try to do too much from there: Cheddar cheese, applewood bacon, lettuce, onions, tomato, pickles and special sauce on a brioche bun. Not only is the burger absolute fire but it’s a great place to try a new beer and you can head on over to Gunthers when you’re done. Please try this burger today.
Will – Jim’s Good Food (Wienerburger)
If I’m dropping a recommendation just on the first few places I’ve had the pleasure of eating at these last few weeks, it would absolutely be to try the pop-up drive thru Wienerburger in midtown. Sure you have to be on instagram, follow michael_thiemann or and then wait for their announcement and yes, you’re ordering your food a few days out, but I’m telling you – the burger and fries are worth the weight. Great portion sizes, juicy burgers and some of the best crinkle-cut fries that I’ve ever had. This is one of those situations where it was so good, I regret having it a bit, because now I know just how correctly hyped this burger was and now I have to dwell on the cold hard fact that I won’t be having it again for a while. Support their parent restaurant, Jim’s Good Food, by getting yourself one of the best burgers in Sacramento.
Richard – Willie’s & Patch Burger
It’s always going to be Willie’s for me. Never found anything that came close for the price point. And while this episode is about burgers, I have to praise other parts of their menu too. Please, please, please do yourself a favor and order the chili slaw dog. Willie’s calls this the best dog ever and they aren’t lying.
And for the vegans out there, Burger Patch deserves some love. Vegan cheese is never quite right, if you ask me, but the patties and buns are high quality. If you don’t eat meat, I think this place is pretty hard to beat. Try the Beyond (Harrison) Barnes: 2 beyond patties, 2 slices of cheddar, 2 strips Bac’n, BBQ sauce, pickles, organic lettuce, tomato and grilled onion on sourdough.
We’ve got a double decker for you today, as we also just dropped episode two, a deep dive into the Sacramento pizza scene. Once again we did a toppings draft, which Richard won by the smallest of margins. Depending on who you ask, he may or may not have put his thumb on the scale.
Will regaled us with the story of how he convinced a pizza restaurant to add mango to their menu. Richard told a sketchy story about Oroville, the site of the last Shakey’s Pizza in Northern California. Luigi’s and Roma’s battled for Sacramento pizza supremacy. Also Richard poisoned his body with longtime Sacramento Kings sponsor Pizza Guys. Here are our personal favorites:
Kevin – Roma’s & Luigi’s
Maybe I have a blind spot for the Sacramento Pizza scene but I’m shocked by how little the area has to offer in this category. It’s not that there isn’t good pizza here, there simply isn’t enough of it. There are surely some hidden gems out there, and I’d love to hear about them from you all, but you’d think every part of the region would have a couple heavy hitting neighborhood favorites that aren’t called Round Table or Mountain Mikes. It’s Pizza for god’s sake! And yeah there are a lot of hip up-and-comers like Pizza Supreme Being and Masullo – I was really into Neighborhood Pizzeria in East Sac before it closed – but I think it’s always going to come down to Roma’s and Luigi’s in a battle for your heart. Or South Sac vs. Oak Park if you will.
I’ve been hitting up Luigi’s a lot of late because It’s a great place to take the family, my mom ate there when she was a kid, and I like the idea of supporting the divey little pizzeria in Oak Park that’s been around since the 50’s (albeit under new ownership). Now having said that, if I had to pick a winner in a two pizza race, my money is on Romas every time because it’s so damn consistent. I could get the same pizza 7 days in a row at Luigis and I’m probably going to like it to varying degrees but it would be a totally different adventure every night of the week. Maybe that rollercoaster ride sounds fun to you but I sort of want to know what i’m in for. Roma’s is fire every time and they just don’t waste a single ingredient. Really rich and flavorful sauce, I love the consistency of the dough, great combinations of ingredients. Roma’s is the best. There I said it. Fight me.
Will – Roma’s
For pizza, I’m 100% recommending Roma’s! They give you a massive pizza for the size and they aren’t skimping on their toppings. I went with their chicken pizza which was good, but if I had it to do over again I might get something closer to a combo where I can let them do what they do best.
Richard – Pizza Rock
I have sadly never eaten at either aforementioned legendary Sacramento pizzaria. However, a picture Kevin sent me of his combo slice at Luigi’s and it looks as good as any pizza I’ve ever seen. Will’s slice from Roma looked a lot less appealing, but as we now know he frequently fumbles the bad when ordering.
For my own two cents, I have to give a shout out to Pizza Rock. Maybe it is just the positive association with Kings games, but it makes for a great pre-game meal. My recommendation is the Ol’ Smokey: BBQ sauce, cheddar, bacon, ground beef, and fried onion strings. It’s different, but it’s great. Add serrano peppers for some kick.
Let us know your favorite burger and pizza spots in the comments, make sure to subscribe to the Snackramento Podcast wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a review, it really helps.
Best burger in Sacramento is still the bacon cheeseburger at de Vere’s. I actively search for better ones, and have found plenty of favorites at other places, but still none better than that one.
Also, I just found out the other day that the to-go cocktails they’re doing right now are mix-it-yourself kits, which I’m now obsessed with, for some reason.
SKIPs in Carmichael?
Will actually went there and reviewed his experience in episode 1.
Being that I’m Chinese, whenever I would come back to Sacramento for the holidays, my family would always go to dinner or lunch with my grandparents at several local Chinese/Japanese/Korean restaurants in Land Park on Freeport. Many of these places have been here since I was a little kid (and probably before that), and some have opened up only in the past few years. Places like Jade Fountain, Sushi Cafe, a Korean BBQ that I can’t remember the name of, are always on our to-go-to list. We used to go to a place called Hong Kong Wok alot on Freeport next door to Jade Fountain because my grandpa loved it, but I think we went there so much that he eventually got tired of it. Alot of their food is good, but they prices have kept going up over the years, and sometimes the service is inconsistent.
One local takeout Chinese eatery I am sad I don’t go to anymore is a place called Chopsticks Express in Greenhaven/Pocket (it’s actually nearby my high school, JFK). When the old owner ran the place, our special request we always used to get was Tomato Chicken Chow Mein. The thing is, usually when you order Tomato Chow Mein at Chinese restaurants the only option they have is beef, and at this place chicken was not on the menu. When my Dad started going there in the late 80s, since he didn’t really like their beef, he simply just asked if he could substitute it for chicken, and ever since then that’s what he ordered. And let me tell you, it really was the best looking and best tasting Tomato Chow Mein ever. The color was just right, the chicken was excellent, and it wasn’t too runny/dry. For many years that was always what I wanted from there.
Sadly, in the mid or late 2000s the owner sold the restaurant, and overtime, the quality of their food went down. The Tomato Chow Mein eventually lost its flavor, and when they messed up our order a few times, my Dad stopped buying food from there. To this day I wish I could’ve gotten the recipe because I do miss their Tomato Chow Mein. 🙁
I just tried Sushi Cafe for the first time the other day, and I was super impressed. Apparently my wife would get food there all the time when we were all working outside the house, and never told me about it.
Haha, maybe she just wanted all the food to herself!
Macau Cafe isn’t on Freeport but that’s really good, too. (Sutterville and Land Park. )
If you like to cook it might be fun to try to recreate that tomato chow mein at home. Start from a recipe you find and tweak it until it’s to your liking. Could take multiple tries, but it’s worth it when you finally get it right. Of course, this is coming from someone who is passionate about cooking so it’s entirely possible that this sounds like your worst nightmare.
Man we used to have a Willie’s in Folsom back in the day. I remember watching Jordan in the Finals against the Jazz there. It’s been 20 years and I still wish it’d come back.
That’s because Folsom sucks donkey balls. That’s why you don’t have cool shit.
As an ex-Sacamentan, I’m out of the know. Does Nationwide Freezer Meats still exist? I know Trails is long gone.
I looked on Google and it says it is permanently closed. I never knew about that place. Did you like it?
It was mostly known for simply having HUGE burgers. But yeah, it was pretty derned good.
I’m looking at the photos of the place and it looks so awesome….cozy and nostalgic. I wish I could’ve experienced eating there.
The last location I knew of was maybe on 19th or 20th and H. Which was kinda just a bare bones diner feel. But before that they were on 22nd-ish and J-ish in an older 1960’s style small butcher with a big walk-in freezer and a cold case in front. There was zero seating but the vibe was perfect.
Yeah, they’re gone, unfortunately.
Damn. I snoozed and losed.
Oh, the other place I used to go to alot as a kid was Letherby’s. I remember always ordering their grilled cheese with fries plate, and then I’d have a strawberry sundae without nuts (because I was picky). I haven’t been back in a long time so hopefully I can remember the next time I’m in Sac and this whole fiasco dies down.
That sounds really good right now…..grilled cheese and fries plate, and a strawberry sundae. The only cherry on top would be eating that while watching a Kings win.
If only you could sneak your Leatherby’s plate into the Golden 1 Center… 😛
Heck, I’d settle for Jimboys!
Let me on the podcast, dammit!
They’ll let you on for Episode 3: Girafferamento – best place to get leaves and twigs of acacia, mimosa, and wild apricot trees, since that’s what your diet consists of.
Just pressed play and will listen while I’m working. I love the idea, I love the name “Snackramento”, and I love the intro music!
Will there be future episodes that cover breakfast, mexican, italian, soul food, ethiopian, indian, desserts, etc…….?
I would also love to hear suggestions for other Sacramento spots like:
Hackramento – best place for pickup basketball
Skateramento – best rollerskating rink
Shackupramento – best place for a first date
Zapramento – best video game arcade
Shakennotstirredramento – best place for drinks
Satelliteramento – best place to watch a Kings game outside of G1C
Sinatramentro – best karaoke
Twerkramento – best dance club
Mise-en-scene-ramento – best independent movie theater
Shaqramento – best place to practice free throws
OK, now we’ve broken the new site in properly, like a nice mimosa at breakf….
We’re 100% going to cover all the foods listed. Some in greater detail than you’ve listed. Example: we’re recording a podcast this week on burrito joints in Sac.
Awesome! It’s a pleasure to hear your voices and feel connected to y’all in a time like this.
All good choices so far. A few I would add that are personal preference….
Flaming Grill has some of the best burgers in town. Now they aren’t simple or normal, but they are phenomenal and you can get pretty darn exotic if you want with your meat choice. Also a solid beer selection, mostly local or localish options!
Roma’s is top for pizza, no argument there. I had OneSpeed last week and was thoroughly impressed. Pizza Supreme Being is on the short list of places to try again too.
Looking forward to future episodes and discussions!
Holy hell. (just finished listening)
Fans at next Kings game: “Where is Slamson?”
Fippin: (munching on his Flame Grill King of Beasts Burger) “……yeah (munch munch) where…….(sips on shake) is Slamson?”
Speaking of that crazy menu…that probably is why they didn’t invite BabyGiraffe to be on this podcast.
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As someone who despises Sweet Potato Fries, but loves Greta Gerwig, I must say that Will has very different tastes.
Richard, I don’t eat meat but I do miss Chick Fil-A’s chicken sandwich, so I’d take that over a burger if was still a meatatarian. I don’t even eat fast food anymore, but damn that was a revelation when I first bit into one as a kid.
One of you had a crazy laugh in there at one point that made me laugh. I think it was Richard.
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