Rio Linda adventure

 If you are friends with Charles, you know he sends you a lot of Instagram videos and clips. He sent me a Tik Tok-style clip from @deznorcaleats that had me shook. This young man named his top 5 Mexican spots and I had not been to any of them!! Is my grasp slipping??? He seemed to have a focus on pretty cheesy stuff, including a lot of birria, but still how have I missed all these. I took screengrabs of all 5 and vowed to hit them up.

An opportunity arose yesterday, on Sunday, around lunchtime. I decided to try Birriera Chipres first, because it was about 20 minutes away from my house and closes at 2. That means it's mostly a breakfast/brunch spot so I knew I might be pushing it to go there at lunchtime. 

Driving out there, I got off 80 at Marconi and I was in absolute heaven not knowing where the heck I was. I have lived in Sacramento so long and I get so sick of it sometimes, the same drives, the same bike rides, the same walks, that I fucking love it when I can feel like I stumble on a pocket that's new to me. Looking now, I see that Birriera Chipres is in Robla, which is a neighborhood that is north of North Sac and south of Rio Linda. It was somewhat of an urban/rural interface with a lot of industrial-type spaces. I passed 2 intriguing places to follow up on: Bust Down burgers and BBQ and Connie's Drive-In. Connie's is closed on Sundays but until I looked it up I would have sworn it had been closed for years. But no, looks open. 

I reach Birriera Chipres at like 1230, down the end of a dead end road. It's contained within a gated compound of a house. The woman says Se acabo (it's over). I've missed it! A guy I chat with said he arrived at ten to a big line. I'm wondering if he's been hanging there for over 2 hours. This spot is only open Sat-Sun so this will be a challenge. I need to go at like 830 when it opens maybe.

So then I look at which of the 4 other spots is still open and not too far. I settle on El Rinconsito De Jalisco, which is in Rio Linda. I have more of a thrilling drive through rural areas, and I pass a taco stall called Chicharones Frescos and think about stopping but keep going. El Rinconsito is small and looks crowded. There's a tent for patrons outside. I parallel park in the small lot. I'm a little flustered when I walk in and end up ordering at the counter to dine-in even though they have servers from dine-in. The dude at the counter asks a table if I can sit with them. The guys I'm sitting with have a small parrot which is fun to watch. The crowd is super lively and diverse. Being flustered when I walked up I ordered kind of the first thing that I saw, which was a torta ahogada, a signature dish of Guadalajara and which I got there a few times when had a brief visit a few years back. Very cool city! Would recommend to anyone for a long weekend trip, and has non-stop flights from Sac.

Here it is. They specified on the menu that it's Jalisco-style, which means the bread is fried. It is carnitas filled and they said it's a homemade tomato sauce. They also brought me a bottle of hotter sauce. This sandwich was good but the carnitas were just ok, I'm pretty picky these days. I saw that Rinconsito has birria de chivo on weekends so I should have gotten that. I also saw they had a special of Carne in Su Jugo, which is a rich bean stew from Guadalajara.

Here it is. It's so cute! I love it. I'm excited to try the other places mentioned by this influencer, and to try to get some birria at Chipres.

Mi Quang journey and Quan Nem's big move!

 Google reveals to me that mi quang is a central Vietnamese dish with yellow, flat noodles, shrimp, pork, herbs, peanuts and a crispy rice cracker. It says it's also known for minimal broth.

Co Do Deli is maybe the first place I ever had this dish? I have loved it there for many years, even as Co Do seems to have lost popularity. Yesterday (Sunday) at noon, it was sparsely populated, as other pockets of Little Saigon were hopping.

Co Do serves the broth on the side, which you pour over. The most notable herb they use is mint, and shredded lettuce gets nicely cooked. Cooked lettuce is underused I think. I don't remember what area of Japan, maybe Fukuoaka area? but there was an area where the meat skewers would often be wrapped in hot, juicy lettuce and it was brilliant!

Anyway, Co Do also serves the bowl with a shell-on shrimp, yummy ground pork, and peanuts. I have always loved it there. Co Do used to have a neon sign in the window that said "bun bo hue" so that's also a specialty and I'm sure I've had it there. The sign must have broken.

 (I'm going ot get to more about Mi Quang trust) Years ago, a Quan Nem Ninh Hoa sign went up where Yang's used to be on Stockton, but the old Quan Nem continued to do gangbuster business and I eventually assumed the move was off. But they have indeed finally moved. On Saturday at 2, they were packed. The dining room has a lot of chairs and communal tables in it, and a few booths. Some pillars in the room can make it hard to for customers and the servers to navigate. It's cramped feeling. I'm not sure how many additional tables they have due to the move, but they probably could have used even more space. They parking lot was full and I had to park on the side street.

The inside is colorful and bright, and there are murals that looks like Hanoi colonial houses. When Quan Nem posted on IG about their move, showing the dragon dancers, etc., they showed a bowl of Mi Quang, which got me thinking about ordering it there. 

Everyone knows what you get at Quan Nem: the nem nuong rolls, usually the ones you roll yourself unless it's to-go. I would say the banh beo and banh bot loc appetizers are also on many tables. But I was by myself so I didn't want to roll the rolls and plus I was fixated on this mi quang.

I also got a salty plum drink because I was dehydrated from gardening and it was the saltiest one I've ever had. It had a thick layer of salt in the bottom. I probably needed that.

When the soup came out, it was indeed a brothy soup, not a noodle dish with scant broth I could pour over. That was the first difference. Then, it had some chunks and I thought, potato? Oh god, pineapple??? WTF. OK, I guess this is not an unknown ingredient but it's unwelcome to me. The broth was bland. The pork was a tasteless chunk on a bone. There were slices of pork cake that seemed like each one was the hard butt end of the cake, like they saved it for this soup like you would the heel of the bread for breadcrumbs. Even the shrimp cracker was stale!! Truly sad.

Quan Nem I'm sure is still the best but you gotta stick to their specialties. Has anyone ever gotten their pho? I wonder what it's like.

So the next day I wanted to get carnitas. So I tried to go to Carnitas Marquez, but all evidence of it was gone. Then I started to trip that my article in Abridged got it shut down! It had been there a long time. I don't think I'm powerful or anything, just I have no idea how many people read Abridged. I guess I stupidly thought that Marquez was legit. I'm not going to panic just yet, I want to check back and also see if the one on Franklin is still there. I mean, Marquez had a spot on Google maps and reviews and stuff! Augh.

So then I needed something to eat and I thought I would try to erase the bad mi quang from my mind by eating good mi quang. So I went to Co Do. The bowl was wayyyy better than the other one but not as good as it used to be. The broth was not as deep and savory. All the other elements were there. When I finally want to try mi quang again I will try somewhere else. I got a recommendation to try Buon Cuon Tay Ho for it.

Oh yeah, and Co Do still has my review behind the counter.

BPNA monthly meeting report

So even though I live a teeny bit outside of Boulevard Park, I attended the monthly meeting with my neighbor Ashley. I have been curious before. It meets at Washington School, at 18th and E. There were a lot of people there, maybe 40? It was inspiring that there was a mix of ages, and the board president is young (compared to me). The board president of the midtown neighborhood association also spoke, and she looked to be in her 20s.

The meeting was the same day as the city council met, so Pluckebaum and McCarty sent spokespeople (also young!). A cop who is in charge of a big swath of downtown also reported on policing strategies to lower violent crime and subtract cops from mental health calls.

Slow Down Sacramento creator Isaac Gonzalez came to talk about how we have wayyyy too many traffic deaths here. I agree! He expressed frustration that the city has budgeted for several positions (championed by Caity Maple) almost  a year ago to help create slower street and that still no hiring has occurred. 

Cutest of all, a guy who created Rewild Sacramento came to talk about planting trees and needing volunteers. His group has planted over a hundred treees.

I marveled that people find the time to do these kinds of things. I have been letting my community garden plot languish for months, but I guess my extra time often goes to freelance writing. I wish I had time to do more. 

I had an idea that I could create a program where people could adopt a block of protected bike lane to clean up during fall/leaf season. It's been driving me crazy how many of the lanes are filled with leaf piles, or even worse, sticks and other plant stuff that are under leaves and could make you slip or crash. To get that off the ground I would have to focus just on that probably for like a year. 

People care about their communities and are doing cool things! 

My Iconic 11

 I thought I'd do a lil check-in post. I don't really have time for a real post. I'd like to do a series about Japan so that it could serve as my external memory bank and mayhaps entertain you a smidge. But I just don't have the time.

I'm reading about (cringe) AI erotica in a NYT op-ed and I just can't believe that I'm actually alive in a time when folks are being driven to madness by their imaginary friends. I use chatgpt to ask travel planning questions and it occasionally has a good tip and I recently used it to get me started on a bat safety fact sheet for work. It will never life coach me etc. etc.

I watched Pyscho 2 last night because I heard that Quentin T. prefers it to Psycho and that is a truly contrarian and silly opinion but it is pretty fun. Meg Tilly is so pretty and Anthony Perkins is so method twitchy and sweaty. 

Benjy's take on the iconic 11 Sac restaurants is a take for sure. I have eaten everywhere except Localis. I'm not sure why limit it at 11 and I would have taken out Freeport (bakery, no savory food except quiche), Corti (deli, not restaurant) and Gunther's (sort of a restaurant but not really about the sandwiches). I just can't count Jimboy's as a restaurant either. If it was my piece I would have set out restaurant parameters and then worked within that. But lists are fun and fun to argue about. I started trying to quickly toss out some names and I got stymied, so it's not easy. I even have to go to "iconic" definition, representative symbol or worthy of veneration

Waterboy
Kru
Pho Bac (not the best, I'm working within the "iconic" vein but it's fallen off so hard. I want to put Quan Nem instead, also Duc Huong (Benjy's pick) is not bad or Huong Lan even though the banh mi aren't quite as good but it's more a full restaurant with decent bun as well)
Ugh, Tower I guess he's right would never eat there
Frank Fat's
Zelda's
Tres Hermanas
Urban Roots (representative of our place on the national beer scene and a popular gathering place for all)
It's crazy to not include dim sum but I really miss New Canton and dim sum cart places have fallen off while dumpling-focused places have surged
Southside Super
Majka (these latter 2 encapsulate Sac dining as it is now)

There's my quick 11. It hurts me not to include Masullo which I find to be by far the best pizza in Sac. But I have my reasons. Or maybe I take out Tower and put in Masullo? But that's 3 pizzas, but Sac really is all about pizza which is a curse and a blessing. 

Guantonio's!!!

It was smiller's birthday so I let him choose the restaurant (I let him choose once a year). He chose Guantonio's. I'm just going to assume you've been, if not go directly outside, get in your car and go there. Oh, who am I kidding, it's only open a few hours a week! Seriously, it has some of the most limited hours around, 14 hours open per week. We got there on a Wednesday at 545 and got a table right away. I have waited more than an hour in the past but have gotten lucky the last couple of times. You can either try to get lucky or if you don't mind eating later, I think going at 7 you'd almost always get a seat. Or also if you don't mind sitting at the teeny seats by the pizza oven.

The nice thing about waiting is you can drink some beer or wine while you wait, and you end up chatting with folks.

Above is a meat salad. I almost didn't get it but I was like anchovy? rice powder? Sounds up my alley. OMG it was the best thing I've maybe eaten all year. It was so creative, so bright, fun textural elements. Every time I go I saw that Nick should write a cook book. The meat was room temp, chewy spare ribs. The anchovy added a fish sauce element. It had pluot, mint and Italian parsley, Armenian cukes. It was firing on all cylinders!! Oh yeah, and fennel.

Watermelon and tomato salad why is this underlined sigh blogger. This had another interesting use of Italian parsley where you would expect mint or basil. Pickled red onions too it was bomb.

Nardellos!!!!!!!!!!! They had some parm or pecorino shaved on top and a very savory sauce that I think had tomatillo? And something crunchy like breadcrumbs. I was licking up the sauce.

Then the pizza, again Scott's choice as he was the birthday boy. Corn and green tomatoes. Although I prefer a tomato sauce pie, the green tomatoes almost counted.

The only disappointment for me was I didn't want to get wine by the glass because it was almost all Lodi or surrounding area wine, and I want to drink Euro wine but I mean, look where it's located. They have really good beer too but they had nothing at all on draft at the moment. But that's ok cuz I was driving. I love Guantonio's!!!

 

Insight/Japanese Buddhist Bazaar

I feel that I should blog because I was on Insight yesterday (you can listen here) and Vicki mentioned Heckasac as if it's a going concern so I must make it one. We talked about the Buddhist Bazaar (this Saturday!!!) and I had a whole litany of foods I wanted to mention but the only one I did mention was the big dog below.

The teriyaki chicken. Damn, look at it, so good. Huh, I said it came with rice and that was my memory but this picture is making me a liar. It is so fucking hard to be factual I understand why most of the world have just given up. I am saying this out of anxiety because my Corti Brother rav article just dropped and I'm sure (even though I did fact check) that I got SOMETHING wrong and after re-reading it I realized that I said "poultry" and then was unsure if the current version of the holiday flavor contains chicken or turkey (it used to be turkey) but then I was like well poultry, while not precise, is correct but if Darrell reads it.....

=More after the jump. People don't really write that anymore because endless scroll is the norm

New Birrieria Just Dropped

 I've been eyeing this spot as it prepared to open. It's on Franklin, right next to El Gallo Giro. El Gallo Giro used to be Mariscos Mazatlan, and I liked it. Not sure about El Gallo.

Anyway, I've been watching this spot because Guadalajara is known for goat birria, and I had the best of my life there. So yay, it's open and they said they opened in April.

Here's the cute interior, some murals of old-timey Guadalajara. Paper towels on the table (good sign), menu that ONLY offers goat and beef birria (great sign!)

Picture of Pedro Infante, even though I know from having spent time in Mazatlan that he is from Mazatlan. But I guess everyone can claim him,

Serious-looking chili oil on the table.

After a wee bit of a wait, my two tacos of birria de chivo arrived. I was there around 130, a sign in the restaurant said that there were tortillas hecho a mano from 7 am (!) to noon on the weekends, with a little portable grill set up but not on. From the look of these tortillas, on weekends they probably make a big stack and then reheat throughout the day. So not fresh off the grill, but not packaged either. I am looking forward to coming back and getting the caldo de chivo.

Goat on the way out the door telling me to come bbbaaaaa-ck and I will.

New York City review

 Best city in the world?!?!? Just might be.

Other than that, went to see double feature of The Queen/Funeral Parade of Roses last night for the Dreamland takeover of The Crest. 

The Queen is just a classic, classic top documentary. Gorgeous to look at I could just eat up all the clothes and interesting faces and accents. It's only an hour and it's set in a 1967 drag competition. Do yourself a favor and watch it. Crystal Labeija going off about the competition winner is a must-see

I will admit that I was quite tired by the time Funeral Parade of Roses started. It was the late late hour of 845. For one, I woke up at 530 am as I often do. For two, I had  had 2 Reality Czech pilsners from Moonlight Brewing from Empress ($12 each! am I at the fair?) For 3 full disclosure I had also eaten: 3 birriera tacos one small popcorn (light butter), and a piece of banana bread sold by the nice Bread by Beth lady who was holding a pop-up inside Empress.

Also, the Crest seemed to be *lightly* airconditioned if at all by this point in the eve. And I was developing a headache, probably due to all the aforementioned factors. So the deck was stacked against me on enjoying this movie. But I was oh-so-brave and persevered, mostly because I did not want the Dreamland peeps to see me puss out and leave this movie that I know is very near and dear to them and therefore dear to me as well.

Funeral Parade of Roses is an absolutely bonkers artifact of a Japanese art film. It's transgressive if it was made today: reader, it came out in 1969!!!! I don't want to ruin any twist in case you want to watch it but let's just say it reminds one of a certain film whose name rhymes with moldtoy. 

Don't laugh when I say that I  kept my old ass out until past 11 to see this movie because I was inspired in New York to celebrate Art and Beauty when I can find it and nothing about this miserable crummy world can keep me from doing that. As smiller will point out from the song that he hates "these streets will inspire you"

Food post, not Halloween Show

The Halloween Show 2025: as Kate Bush would say, "WOWWOWWOWWOWWOWWOWWOW"

Can't be captured in words so I won't even try. I'm a bit stunned and trying to crawl back into my old brain. It was a carnival(e), it was a juggernaut, it was a bacchanal, it was a riddle wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a flesh-colored bodysuit.

On the Memorial Day holiday, smiller and I tried to go to Quan Nem Ninh Hoa, knowing, that we should have a plan B due to crowding and indeed, although there were a couple tables left, they informed us they were to-go only at the moment because a table of 48 was about to roll up. I don't think the entire restaurant could fit 48 folks, and I don't like to get the special rolls to go. I like to roll my own and get the little fermented sausage with the chili embedded in it (you know the one).

As we were figuring this all out at Quan Nem I was seeing several tables with banh xeo and suddenly that was the number one thing I wanted in the whole world!

Plan B: My Tho restaurant (by Pho City). I like the hu tieu there. So I ordered that, and got it in the style where you pour the broth over rather than the soup (more concentrated flavor 

Here it is, I get it with rice noodles rather than clear. Look at that awesome shrimp-embedded cracker. There is also pork slices (chashu-like), peppery fish cake, chicharrone-type bits and quail eggs. Also celery and Chinese chives. These are all the names I know these things by. Crunchy onion bits too. 

Here's the broth you pour over. This soup is so savory

So I had to order banh xeo because I had it in my mind. Here are the herbs that come with. I get real stoked when I get herbs that you don't see that often, like here is perilla/shiso/tia to (purple) and rau ram/Vietnamese coriander

But the one I was really excited about was sorrel (ew my nail looks dirty)

That said, the banh xeo was way overstuffed with bean sprouts (hate 'em) and just ok. But the soup is always a lock go to MY THO!!!!!!

Last Summer

 It's that weird time between Xmas and New Years where every day can be termed Blursday. This is a classic time for a Heckasac post, and old school readers will remember that sometimes Smiller would take the wheel because he would be so bored at his job at PacCorp. I had many years where I got this time off, paid, and didn't have to use official vacation but those days are long gone.

This last week or so has been a social whirlwind. Fun but I'm feeling a bit run down and haven't been sleeping well. But feeling oh so grateful for friends, loved ones (lots of overlap there), cool presents, etc. Things finally finally finally seem back to normal from COVID to me, or as much as they will ever be with that memory of COVID that will linger forever.

I finally got through with reading the 600 pages of Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann and I HIGHLY recommend it although I'm haunted by the thought that maybe I should have read a newer translation. 

Now I'm reading a short Cynthia Ozick book called the Puttermesser Papers and it's so Jewish. It even has a golem! Great to read for Hanukah. She also mentions Middlemarch a lot.

I noticed that Criterion has a director's picks for John Waters now, so on his recommendation I watched the newest Catherine Breillat movie, Last Summer, which I don't think ever came to Sac.  

Seeing Breillat's Fat Girl in the theater was an indelible and devastating experience in a way that only a few movies have been. Last Summer is very good. The characters are complicated and not what you think. Recommend!

Melaka, Malaysia or: Heckasac does mukbang

My last post has gotten over 900 hits, thanks to Bill Burg posting it on Reddit. How cool to feel like this ol' blog has some life in 'er yet. Plus that put a nice end on the mildly painful saga of writing a piece and having it get killed.

I just returned from a two week solo trip to Singapore and Malaysia, and if you follow me on Insta, you know I posted pretty frequently. I do that more when I'm by myself so I don't get lonely and I feel like I'm communicating with friends while I'm traveling. I enjoyed seeing everyone's Halloween costumes, although it was cool to be in a country that was way more stoked on Diwali than Halloween. (Shout out in Sac to the Majka chef being Carmie, he really looks like him)

Rather than do an epic post on a two week trip, I thought I'd capture one night in the city of Melaka, south of Kuala Lumpur (once you've been to Malaysia it's fun to call it KL instead of Kuala Lumpur, everyone calls it KL). Melaka is one of the older cities in Malaysia, and was occupied by the Portuguese in the 1500s, and then the Dutch, starting in the 1600s. Then for a bit it was occupied by the British, and finally the Japanese from 1942-1945, which sounds like a chaotic 3 years in which the Japanese canceled school and then made the teachers learn Japanese and teach in Japanese. Then it was British again for a while and then in the 60s when modern Malaysia was formed it was Malaysia. I'm not great at history so I'm sure some of this is wrong.

Which is all to say it has many folks there who descended from Portuguese and Dutch, and I found out while reading about stuff to do that there was an area on the bay/coast that's called the Portuguese settlement and has seafood restaurants. That sounded like a nice sunset/nighttime activity. I saw it was about 35 minute walk from where I was staying. Most of the trip was very hot and humid, where I would be soaked in sweat over and over again throughout the day, and then rest and cool off in air conditioned places. I smelled and looked great, needless to say! But, around sunset, that length walk seemed doable although have no doubt, constantly bathed in sweat, never ceasing. Also, the area I was staying in was so tourist-choked, that catching a Lyft there (it's called Grab in a lot of Asia), would take so long, and driving once the car arrived would take so long that walking would take an equal amount of time even though it was only a couple of kilometers.

So, a walk! The walk took me out of the tourist area for the first time in my stay in Melaka, which although not as picturesque, was also not as tourist-choked and I got to see some non-tourist restaurants and areas. I was about 20 minutes into the walk when I came to a 6 lane road that I had to cross. I guess to call it a freeway would be dramatic but it felt more like a freeway than not a freeway and I did not want to cross it even though I was now within 15 minutes of my destination. Then I had a frustrating 20 minutes while I waited for a Grab, while I watched hotel guests staying in the big hotel across the freeway, leisurely cross the freeway, pausing in the middle for the other direction of traffic. Coulda crossed oh well.

So I get in the Grab and then in about 10 minutes we get to the Portuguese settlement. Wiki tells me that in 1933, some land was purchased for the Kristang people, which are the mixed Portuguese/Malaysian folks. They have a couple of festas in June, and a few buildings, and then a bunch of seafood restaurants.

When you roll up first thing you see is this Christ the Redeemer statue. 

I had to choose a spot to eat so I randomly picked one that looked crowded, I think I was in De Costa's, but the boundary between places felt fluid (while it probably totally is not)

This was a def big group dining spot. So as usual, I was the weirdo dining alone but no one cared and they were very helpful when I ordered

It was crowded and fast-paced. It was a Friday night and everyone was getting tons of dishes on big lazy susans. The ordering looked family style so I knew if I ordered more than one dish it would be too much food but ya gotta try more than one thing. I hadn't had crab on my trip so I decided on chili crab, sweet potato leaves and then the server asked about what I think he said was "pan" like bread and did I want three pieces I said ok not knowing what was up. Nothing on the menu sounded particularly Portuguese except you could get what they termed Portuguese baked crab or squid or fish. That sounded boring so chili crab it was.

The food took a while so I just people-watched and drank beer and then the sweet potato greens came first and I was really hungry and they tasted really good. 

Then came these little breads which were so hot, I think from being grill toasted and they were so yeasty and sweet I could have def eaten more of those. There are no other restaurants outside of the Portuguese settlement that I saw with this type of bread so this may be a Portuguese influence thing although I'm definitely no expert. 

Then came the chili crab and I was so wowed by the size and nervous about how I was going to eat it that I didn't even get a damn centered picture. Steamed crab can really retain the heat for a long time, so I kept trying to eat it while the shell was still burning hot. I love to eat crab, but I don't love to get messy so this was like a nightmare of being the only lone diner plunging my entire hands into this saucy saucy dish, and also fully dropping my crab cracker in the sauce and then trying to use it and having it be too slippery. Oh also, still sweating like a pig and they barely have napkins in Malaysia, sometimes not at all, but here, they had a box of tiny thin Kleenexes on the wall that I could reach. The sauce was on my face, it was running down my arms to my elbows (did not get it on my dress!) I really felt like I was doing a middle-aged white lady mukbang, which none of these poor patrons had asked for. There was a table of teenagers near me, innocently toasting pitchers of watermelon juice and my nightmare is someone would film me and I would go viral. About halfway through a server was like, oh we have gloves and I said too late! I'm all in. Since it's crab there isn't actually as much meat as you think, there was no body meat, just legs and claws, so it was not the insane amount of food I thought at first. It was all 98 ringgit, including beer, so that's about 25 bucks, which is expensive for Malaysia.

Before I ate I took some pictures of the shoreline, pretty dystopian, with like, this semi-crumbling and almost aquatic apartment houses against the sunset.

Before I ate I had a beer at this tiny bar at the end of a pier. It was a unique setting to have  a brew

 Glad to be home and I hope you liked this trip slice!

L'Amour Shoppe: yes it is owned by a man named Steven Weiner

 I wrote a piece on L'amour Shoppe that got killed by the publication. It makes sense, it is a conservative publication and the article is frank about sex. 

My favorite part of writing this was my time interviewing the very charismatic worker, Anthony. This piece would have been different (more freewheeling, dirtier) if I hadn't been writing it for this pub, but nevertheless I feel like it should see the light of day. I feel bad about the 2 employees taking time to talk to me  and then not knowing why they never heard anything else about it.

Also, I did not include that two workers were murdered in robberies in L'Amour Shoppe in separate incidents in the 80s. Well, one was actually the friend of a worker who filled in while his friend took a break and was murdered by a robber. Very sad.

L’Amour for Sale

Forbidding on the outside, with blacked out windows on which the extensive hours (9am-1am every day) are scrawled, the interior of L’Amour Shoppe is a cheerful, well-stocked oasis of sex positivity.

On the day this reporter visits, that vibe is emanating from salesclerk Anthony Chiaramonte, who has worked for the L’Amour Shoppe for seven months, after a long career in retail working for other adult shops –but also selling everything from marijuana to solar panels. With the long, straight hair of a rocker and elegantly tapered nails, Chiaramonte explains that selling sex toys is not that different from selling anything else, except that the goal is not a new pair of sneakers, but “orgasmic pleasure”.

As for why in this era of one-day Amazon Prime deliveries, folks still come in to purchase an item that might cause some a bit of embarrassment, he enthuses, “It’s all about that old school touch and feel and to put it in my hands really familiarize myself with what I’m getting…the people who come in here for the first time, they’re walking on eggshells and ready to ask a ton of questions but don’t know where to start. I’m definitely that person to ask…this is sex it should be FUN, and it should be pleasurable, and it should bring a smile to your face so let’s talk about it and see what’s out there and let’s talk about the possibilities.”

One such couple, seemingly in their early 40s, enters while he’s being interviewed, with the female in the couple sending the man in first to scout out whether it’s safe inside. She says, “The front is so 1980s, I was like, ‘I don’t think they have anything in there honey. And he said, ‘I’m just going to go look.’ Then he comes out and he says, "It's just normal: normal people, normal stuff.” Within moments, Chiaramonte has them relaxed and laughing giddily, as he says, “I’m like a marriage counselor and a sex therapist and your best friend all in one” as they browse.

It may be the personal touch (and free batteries, for toys that require them, although most these days are USB rechargable) bringing folks in to L’Amour Shoppe, and the market for sex toys is only growing. According to a market research firm, US sex toys sales (the US accounts for 33% of all sales globally) reached 12.6 billion dollars in 2021, and are projected to grow over 7% by the year 2026. Further, this firm concluded that the association of masturbation with wellness and self-care, the lessening of stigma around male-focused sex toys, and the increasing acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community are some factors behind this increase in sales.

As he gives a tour of the merchandise, Chiaramonte’s observations back up this research. He said some of the top sellers for women are brightly-hued, silicon-coated clitoral suction toys that are a variation on the rose-shaped toy that went viral on TikTok in 2022. Sex toys have gone so mainstream that this shape of toy was reviewed on the NY Times Wirecutter product review page; a suction-type toy is also sold on Gwyneth Paltrow’s trendsetting wellness website Goop.com.

Blunt, but never vulgar, Chiaramonte says from his time working in similar shops since 2004, he has seen the most increase in one genre of toys, “Butt. Twenty years ago it was so taboo, you were part of the butt club or you were not…That’s where I’ve seen the most growth in terms of technology and interest, especially hetero couples."

Chiaramonte shares staff theories about the history of the building, including the thought that it was a Chinese restaurant at one point, but a search of newspaper archives reveals that the building was built in the 1930s and was initially Hewitt’s Grocery Store. After that it was Fancy Shirt Laundry, which became Fancy’s Adult Books and Things in 1978. The first record of L’Amour Book Shoppe is in 1986 (a year in which the city shut down their peep-show booth, as well as four others in Sacramento). 

L’Amour Shoppe is more accurately termed L’amour Shoppe #7: the owner, Steven Weiner,  owns 6 others throughout the state from Santa Clara to Modesto, and other sex shops as far-flung as Texas. He declined to be interviewed for this article.

Winona Fulgencio manages L’amour, as well as Weiner-owned Intimates and Adult Bookstore in Lodi. She left the medical field, saying she needed a “mental break”, and started working at the Lodi store early in the COVID-19 pandemic. Within 3 months she was a manager there and then became the manager at L’amour in late 2021.

She does research to find the hottest new toys and also relies on friend’s recommendations, she says the job is “rewarding…it’s a good company to work for.”  

As to the forbidding exterior, she said that COVID stalled a planned facelift, “Corporate is trying to figure out a way to revamp…make it a little nicer.”

Asked to sum up her message for new customers who may be wary, Fulgencio echoes Chiaramonte in saying that there are benefits to seeing a toy in person, “A lot of people complain that when they order a toy off of Amazon it’s not what they like. They throw it away and come see us. They can test out the toys and see what they like. Or they come for lube or lingerie, and remember that we helped them…we’re trying to instill that we’ve changed management and we can provide customer service.”

Kru

 I'm almost embarrassed to admit how long it's been since I've been to Kru. I think 2019 yikes. I mean, there was a whole ass pandemic. But also, I put it into the category of places that are hard to get into and I forget about those places. But with Sac only having a double handful or so of date night restaurants I need to go more often.

We started with one bite of a warm scallop with teeny shrimp chips and a sauce made with roe of some kind. Then I got various nigiri, including uni and ikura, two faves. I hadn't realized that their cocktail list is so extensive, with multiple pages. I had what they were billing as a Japanese negroni but I just don't like negronis. It had a shiso leaf, and Japanese gin, and I fell for it because they said it had Japanese vermouth but it was still too syrupy for me. Then I ended the eve with pluot sorbet and a classic highball. Very nice night with some little luxurious extras sent out.

Being alive

 

Went with CH to see my first live Sondheim last night. I really enjoyed it although I don't know why Broadway shows are all so loonnnnnggg. I won tickets through my work. 

I knew a lot of the songs and I wasn't sure why, except for Being Alive being sung by Adam Driver in the Scenes from a Marriage remake (which I did not like). But then I realized that the thrilling DA Pennebaker Sondheim doc is on the making of the cast album from Company.

You should watch this doc! It's on Criterion. It's less than an hour and it's a fun glimpse into the creative process. The best part is Elaine Stritch struggling with Ladies Who Lunch.

I think I kind of got the Sondheim thing last night, the lightness and depth. It's very old-fashioned feeling, though. Company came out in 1970, so it is literally old. This new productions does a gender swap, where the protagonist is a woman. That gives it a bit of modernity. It's about whether to marry or not, and in 1970 probably no woman would even think of it as a question. 

Onibaba: Demon Hag

 

Well hello. Blogspot was a total fail as a way to announce the Halloween show and let people call bands. Oh well, I was looking forward to a Heckasacassance that did not happen.

That's fine, let's just blow the dust off and hawk tuah this thing amiright?

Let's see, Zelda's went under. I had already pre-grieved as they said on Succession. Going back to five years ago when Zelda's son, who had a Trumpy vibe, talked about wanting to sell and move to Reno I thought it was not long for this world. RIP Zelda's. You ruled!

I just turned in a thing I wrote about German food and beer and culture for Comstock's. This one was a slow burner. I first pitched it in June, but the editor said it would be ok closer to Oktoberfest so I dilly dallied. I got to tour secret parts of Turn Verein and nerd out on German food and beer so that was very fun.

I also just turned in a thing I wrote on Onibaba for the Dreamland zine, I'm very excited about that. It was a joy to write something where I could let my mind roam free. As much as I appreciate the business mag work, it's very constrained. I got to do research for Onibaba too. And then I watched another Shindo movie last night, Naked Island, which was a silent movie (music, no dialogue) about a family with a very hard life and one of them dies. Grim!

What about that Halloween show huh? Still on kind of  a high from it TBH. Shoot it right into my veins. Glad we are having another one in spring. 

Gotta go to Corti Bros now, nice checking in! Leave a comment but I know blogspot makes you do some BS stuff like pick out pictures of traffic lights or answer the Sphynx's riddle or something.

It's Baaaaaaaack!!

Kanye in Sac

 My experiment to link Heckasac to Instagram did not work at all, it got me banned from following anyone or posting on Instagram! Either Instagram hates Blogspot or for some reason this blog has been dubbed obscene. Sigh, the modern world.

I'm listening to The Daily podcast, the NYT one, and they are talking about their in-depth article on Adidas and Kanye, and I love that Sac is in that pop culture pantheon for being the place he went on his 17 minute rant and canceled the tour. I will never forget booing so hard that I just about lost my voice the next day, and then how we left the arena fast enough to see his black SUV stop in the road, him pose with a fan, and speed off. And then how everyone was just roaming the streets, looking for somewhere to hang. I don't remember where we ended up. They mention him canceling but they don't mention how fucking late he started! And I remember folks going nuts when Kid Cudi joined him on the floating stage.

He sold so much merch that night, I just saw someone at Pizza Supreme rocking one of the long-sleeved tees the other day. 

Vollman talk

I am fasting for a "medical test" tomorrow (she's so discreet!) so you may be treated to a series of weak and increasingly unhinged posts. If you know me you know I usually never miss a meal!!!!!! 

True Anon podcast interviewed William Vollman. I had never listened to True Anon but I know of it as a well-known edgy podcast and the host Brace Belden is a friend of a friend. I knew of Brace who got a lot of news coverage a few years back when he went to fight in the Syrian civil war. 

Brace and Liz Franczak, the cohost, came to Sac recently to interview Vollman, who has a studio in a barbed wire compound in Alkali Flat.

Vollman says he heard a story that the first mayor of Sacramento was murdered by a homeless man in Alkali Flat but that he doesn't know for sure. The only reason that's a bit curious is that from my understanding of his nonfiction writing, he's done in-depth histories, so finding that out seems like no task for him, but maybe he prefers not to confirm. Googling reveals the first mayor was William Stout, who served 3 weeks. Where's Bill Burg when you need him?

Vollman's place has been broken into a lot, he's injured right now because of it, or maybe he also has had a car accident? I'm not clear on that. He mentions Loaves and Fishes, as a place that many people hate but I somewhat take issue with that. I think back in the day Loaves was a little more controversial but it's so obviously needed now. I'm sure he means businesses but businesses there have either been there forever and know the deal or who the hell would move a new business into that area not knowing what you are getting into?

They are ostensibly there to discuss his wonderful article in Harper's (please read!). It about homelessness and grief, and is set in Reno. I love it even more because he mostly interviewed the guys in the Cal-Neva, so I can picture the setting easily. Sadly, the Eggs McNeva do not make an appearance. 

The podcast interview is free-ranging and engrossing. I've only listened to part 1. I need to read some more Vollman, I've only read non-fiction short pieces, but of course he won the National Book Award for fiction (famously, the same night other Sacramentan Joan Didion was honored). But I have to finish fucking Middlemarch first!!!!!!

RIP Phil

RIP to a real one, Phil Isenberg. He died unexpectedly last week after a short illness. He and his wife Marilyn were and are my absolute role models for dynamic aging. In addition to his accomplished political career, he was a strong supporter of the arts, including Midtown Monthly. I met them through MidMo, and through my food writing. He was an early champion of Vampire Penguin and once gave me a gift certificate for it. Looking back through old emails and can see him sending me encouraging notes (like a "Good for you!" when I first wrote something for the Bee).

Until I just saw the  emails I had totally forgotten that I once met them to attend a UCB production of the play The Old Woman starring Baryshnikov and Willem Defoe. 

We dined out together, shared many amusing emails and would always chat at art openings, etc. We lost touch during the pandemic and never fully reestablished our hangouts, although I last saw him at Verge a few months ago.

 I remember one time, I think at the opening of Terminal B, which has an artwork that depicts cranes (you never see it because it's in international arrivals, which are rare in Sac, right?) and I mentioned I had never seen a sandhill crane. He responded with his typical bemused reaction, eyes sparkling, and recommended I make sure to slate in a viewing. Only later did I discover that the viewing area/reserve in Lodi is called the "Phil and Marilyn Isenberg Sandhill Crane Reserve". D'oh!

I absolutely loved running into them, just a wonderful, wonderful man. My thoughts are with Marilyn in her loss.

Where the chefs eat

The new Sactown mag has a fun cover story on where chefs eat. By the way, did you catch that Sactown bought Sacramento mag and then Sacramento went under? That's insane. I guess in the current publishing climate we can hardly expect to have 2 print publications on our dinky town but it was nice while it lasted. Quibble about quality, but I'm a fan of more writing (except sometimes in the case of fascist rag Inside East Sac, well and even then).

The chefs' top pick is Nixtaco (coincidentally to the last post) and after that Binchoyaki and Kru are neck and neck. Ravin Patel picks OBO lol.

It's interesting that Kelly McCown (who I interviewed in 2010 when he was chef of Ella before I learned the trick of ending pieces with a quote rather than a pat statement) picks Mother and also picks Bangkok Thai on 65th and Stockton saying he's almost reluctant to share it. I haven't really eaten any good Thai food since my Thailand trip; this looks like it might be another Thai/Lao place but hey, I love Lao food so I will try it.

Did you see my silly thing I wrote for Comstock's about all the businesses with "good" in the name? I still need to eat at Good Things To Eat Sacramento. I don't think Good Bottle is open in my hood yet. I think they are having some problems.