33rd Street Grill

While on an outing with friends in Sacramento our plans for lunch were up in the air. We had planned on dining at Biba, but the restaurant does not serve lunch on Saturdays. Also on our short list was The Waterboy, a Southern French and Italian restaurant that intrigued me the one time I walked by it. They also did not serve lunch on Saturdays. We needed a Plan B in a hurry but none of us were familiar with other restaurants. Our outing was a shopping trip to Corti Brothers, an upscale market, so I looked around, found a stylish looking woman who confirmed that she lived in Sacramento. I asked for her suggestion, naming the other two restaurants as a point of reference. Without hesitation she suggested 33rd Street Grill on the corner of Folsom and 33rd and a block from the freeway for our return trip home. We were already on Folsom, so what could be easier for us? It turned out to be perfect for a casual lunch, not so upscale, but pleasant.

The starters ($5.95 - $8.95) were good portions and interesting combinations of ingredients. French fries came with creamy blue cheese, spicy peach ketchup, and malt vinegar. Fried artichoke hearts were regrettably made from frozen or canned, not fresh, artichokes and lacked the characteristic taste of the fresh vegetable; but they were nicely battered, perfectly crisp and the grated parmigiano was a nice addition along with the aioli. Frozen or not, we polished them off without much hesitation, difficulty or complaint.

We all agreed that the cannellini bean and artichoke spread with crostini was the best of the three items we ordered to start off our meal. I was amazed at the portion considering the $5.95 price. One could have easily eaten just that for lunch, it was so generous a portion of food with 5 baguette slices of large proportion. The beans and marinated artichoke hearts were obviously right out of the can and jar, but pulsed together and drizzled with a grassy live oil made them delicious as a crostini spread. Olive tapenade added even more dimension to the flavor. Reordering this would not be difficult to do maybe even worth another trip.

The Chop chop salad was a large portion and a big hit. We must have been in the throes a food frenzy by the time the pannini came, because I completely forgot to photograph the one made from Chipotle rubbed pork with Gorgonzola spread on Ciabatta and the one in the photograph below is a complete mystery at this point in time. What I do remember is the Jerk short rib with lime and creme fraiche which was not as spicy as I had expected, but tender.

Including passion fruit drinks with little to no passion fruit taste (several had to be ordered to make sure the first was not an aberration), we did have a few other problems. Mayo was added to sandwiches with no mention in the description, a sauce that was ordered on the side was spread inside another sandwich, the Creme Brulee was burnt to the bitter point and the Key Lime pie had way too much crust and cream, but too little filling. Of the 3 items on our dessert Trio, the Caramel Sea Salt cheesecake was the best in what amounted to a lackluster group, but it was very good. As you can see by the photo, we went at it prior to picking up the camera.