I'm going to be giving some training in Sacramento the week of Sept. 19th and wonder if anyone could recommend someplaces to eat. Since I am traveling on the Government's dime (CA government this time)and will have my boss and some of my staff traveling with me, I don't know if I will be bringing much wine with me, but I'd love some suggestions as to where to have dinner. We will be staying near the Capital Mall as far as I know.

HEY!!! Enotria is the place to eat! Let me know when you will be in town and we'll treat you to a fine feast!

Definitely Enotria!! But if you need to know some places downtown near the capitol, I can recommendThe Waterboy , Kru Sushi , Tapa the World , Biba , andThe Firehouse .

If you can't a real treat, travel down to Stockton to my cousin's restaurant, CoCoRo's, for some awesome Japanese food. Oops ....... is that a plug?

Downtown: The Waterboy my personal favorite, Tapa the World for casual Tapas with a good priced great list, Spataro 'The new hot spot', If you are single and want to meet people then go to Zocalo, Next to Zocalo is Dragonfly 'Asian fusion'. Those are my Downtown hits for all different reasons.

If you are purely looking for a big wine list then you only have 3 choices within 10 miles of downtown and that is: The Firehouse 1200+ choices, Tapa the World about 400+ choices, and Enotria as of today 862 choices.

I guess I'm looking for two things. Great food and corkage and great food and a decent and well priced list. I'm not single so the "hook up scene" is not my thing. Tapas sounds interesting and I guess I should go look up where WineBrat works. I'll know more about my schedule later. Considering that we are training 35 folks or so, I will probably be having dinner with some of them one night.

Here is where WineBrat works:ENOTRIA

I had dinner last night for the 2nd time at Masque in El Dorado Hills and honestly after being somewhat underwhelmed a year ago or so, last night was amazing.
We started with a 2003 Tocai Friulano, a varietal I had never had before paired with a goat cheese flan, layered eggplant and heirloom tomatoes, tomato caramel glaze and an order of seared spiced ahi tuna, riviera olives, hot&sweet peppers, romano beans micro-greens salad. Both were delicious, but the eggplant and tomatoes was superb and I don't like eggplant. I could have eaten this all night.
With the main course we had the 2000 Damilano Barolo which was excellent. Delicate, evolving, balanced, once in a while even a Italian novice like me hits the right spot on the dartboard when ordering Italian wine! My date had neapolitan pasta tossed in three-meat ragu and pecorino romano which was very good (though not what I come to a restaurant of this supposed caliber for) and I had a triple rabbit course, breast of rabbit on spinach, deboned leg of rabbit on onion, and ground rabbit suspended in butter and cream sauce. The whole course was to die for. I hate onion, I ate every bit...the ground rabbit portion was like foie gras of rabbit, it was so rich and flavorful you could just put a gram of it on a single fork tine and it would just coat your mouth in explosive flavor.
Desert courses were wonderful as well served with a late harvest viognier from Ojai.
This place has a tremendous Thursday night, high brow, singles bar crowd as well. The bar is around a corner from the dining area so you don't even know it's there while dining. Trophies galore.
Highly recommended and one of my 2 favorite dinners of the year (Babbo, being the other).

Well the September trip got cancelled due to all the work we had because of Katrina and Rita. But now I'll be going in December. Keep the suggestions coming.

Well, now my trip is scheduled for the week of December 11th. Unfortunately the folks I'm traveling with are 1) not into wine at all, and 2) cheap so they won't want to go somewhere "expensive" that costs more than the per diem for dinner. I, however, will be looking for at least one great meal with great wine. I might bring something with me, but more likely will buy something off a list if I can find something wonderful and not too expensive.

We (or at least I) would be available on Dec. 13th (which is Tues.) to dine at Enotria. Let me know what your decide.

Brrrrent,

Just FYI... We havn't forgotten.

You owe us a dinner at Enotria.

We haven't forgotten. Let us know when.

I'd love to get together for dinner on Tuesday at Enotria. I assume that I can cab it there and back since I certainly won't want to be driving back in a rental (paid for on a gov. card) in a city I am not familiar with.

Yes, you can cab it.

Bump. Is this still a go? Are we meeting at Enotria on 12/13?

Weeeeelllllll ...

I may be going to Sacramento the week of March 12. If so, I'm planning on flying in early - Saturday, March 10th, to be exact.

Anyone interested in offlining if that's the case?

I hear Enotria is the place to go.