By admin 
Sunday’s Tower Bridge Dinner showcased the best and brightest culinary talent in the Sacramento region. Over the course of several hours, a kaleidoscopic array of appetizers, mains and desserts were paraded out for the hundreds of guests wearing their Sunday finery.
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I was privileged to attend this year, and came into the event with a reasonably clear picture of what would be in store, having sampled the main dishes in advance and reported on what else would be served.
I wish I could say I tried everything at the dinner, but even for anyone not taking a GLP-1 drug, it would have been impossible. Still, of the things I did manage to taste, there were more than a few standouts.
It’s worth noting that the logistics of putting on an event like this are fairly mind-blowing. Unlike tasting events held in spaces with kitchens attached, Tower Bridge Dinner has commissary tents on the West Sacramento side of the bridge, with limited cooking and prep options. Most of the cooking must be done in advance, off site, then finished and plated in the moment.
Appetizers were presented at tasting stations along the south edge of the bridge during the opening happy hour. Looking to put their best feet forward to kick things off, many chefs aimed for luxurious ingredients for their opening volley.
Case in point, chef Galice Ryan of Historic Star Lounge did what he does best: Contemporary French. His “vol-au-vent Lyonnaise” featured a puff pastry cup filled with Boursin cheese, which manages to be both bougie and accessible, with bacon and frisée. Basically, it was a tiny deconstructed salad in a crisp pastry cup.
I appreciated plant-based chef Nina Curtis’s bite simply for its contrast against everything else on offer. Whereas most other appetizers were rich and often served on bread (so much bread), her stuffed cucumber cups with hearts of palm ceviche, featuring sweet peppers, Vidalia onion, fresh cilantro, habanero and freshly squeezed lime. They were crisp, light and totally refreshing on the palate, especially in the warm afternoon sun.
Mains were served family-style at tables. Four lead chefs designed the mains, which they presented to media back in August. Each dish was meant to convey a story about the cultural and culinary contributions of immigrant farmers to the Sacramento region. I had the opportunity to taste the mains at that event, so I had a sense of what we were in for.
This is where the rubber meets the road, culinarily. Serving this many diners simultaneously, maintaining the quality of the cook and the temperature, is a Herculean feat.
The first dish, crafted by chef Giancarlo Zapata of Chicha Peruvian Kitchen, was a ceviche of albacore tuna tataki with toasted quinoa and sesame crust, rocoto and gypsy pepper leche de tigre and fresh cucumber chalaca with cilantro oil served with root vegetable chips. It was undeniably delicious, the brightness of all ingredients standing independently yet harmonizing.
However, I would also say it was the safest of the mains. Ceviche is Zapata’s bread and butter, to mix food metaphors, and as ceviche is typically served cool or room temperature, it required the least imagination to get from kitchen to table.
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Chef Francisco Rivera of Hawks Public House’s dish felt like a much bigger swing, serving mushroom and ricotta rotolo, a free-standing rolled lasagna, with a linguiça ragu. To my mind, this dish absolutely knocked it out of the park.
Anyone who has worked with fresh pasta knows the line between al dente and flabby noodles is infinitesimally fine. These could have arrived as sad, deflated piles. They did not. They stood proud, and the ragu was rich without being greasy from the sausage’s fat.
Chef Joe Pruner of Bocce Ristorante had perhaps the most ambitious take, with Filipino-inspired adobo quail, crispy garlic rice, marinated tomatoes and cucumbers, and lettuce and fresh herbs.
Quail can go chalky and dry in a heartbeat. Pruner’s remained tender, and the glaze added a warming sweetness. Even the best-cooked quail is a tad difficult to eat, however. Still, it was delicious, especially with the aromatic crispy rice and zingy, piquant cucumbers.
The last main was a miss for me. When I tasted chef Kate Sutherland of The Waterboy’s riff on a chile verde at the preview, I was excited. She made roulades of pork belly cooked tender, then sliced crosswise and seared on the cut sides. The result was crisp and almost bacon-like.
The pork that made it to our table had either not been seared or the crust had lost its luster in transit, leaving the whole roulade too soft. However, the braised heirloom beans on the side were cooked to perfection, tender with a pleasant tooth, and the spicy pickled peppers paired beautifully with them.
By the time we had finished our mains, many of the other tables had already gotten up to descend on the desserts, and somehow after all this food, they had the stamina to strip the tables nearly clean. Still, I didn’t go without.
Table blinking with twinkle lights, chef LaQueanya Henry of Sugar Coated Cupcakes served tiny cups (with tinier spoons) of fig honey-vanilla cheesecake, layered with almond shortbread crumble, Black Mission fig compote, honey mascarpone and pistachio praline crunch. It was fluffy, tangy and uplifting, not dense or heavy as cheesecake can be sometimes.
Finally, chef Kate Canepa from Mulvaney’s B&L had a perfect bite with her caramel corn macarons. Chewy macarons were split and filled with Brentwood corn pastry cream and a caramel jam; the macarons were bruleed on top to look like toasted marshmallows.
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