Then there's the effort that the restaurateuring Fat family has made to provide tourists with a historic and dazzling setting in which to take their meals. In movement and feeling, the cafe suggests nothing so much as a bustling bistro, down to the small tables and bentwood chairs. The tables, in fact, tend to be much too small for the number of guests customarily assigned to them. Executive chef Lina Fat has put together a menu cautious and friendly enough to appeal to first-time visitors, diverse and inventive enough to still excite the teacher who is in town for his 17th educational conference of the year. Execution is uneven enough that visitors new to Old Sac's boardwalk might like a tour guide to point out the highs and lows.
Appetizers form the weakest part of the menu.
Entrees at the back of the book are the most substantial and ambitious. Each time, the airy and buttery crown of puff pastry gave way to a steaming hot and invigorating broth teeming with winter produce seasoned generously with tarragon. On one occasion the thigh and breast meat was chunky and generous, but on the other it was in rather skimpy supply. Though the windows facing out onto Front Street are small, they offer the best tables in the house, with views of the traffic on boardwalk and cobblestone, the rippling shiny steel of a locomotive parked across the way, and even glimpses of an occasional boat easing down the Sacramento River. Let us hear from you.