By admin 
At 11 a.m. on July 27, Michael Dennis received an exhilarating email. He had just been notified that he was one of the handful of entrants selected in the random drawing for a pair of tickets to Sacramento’s Tower Bridge Dinner. His partner Will Crews was taking a nap.
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“(I felt) great excitement; I could barely wait to tell him,” Dennis said.
“Yeah, he could have woke me up and told me, but no, he was very nice and let me sleep,” Crews replied.
Each year, Visit Sacramento’s Tower Bridge Dinner unites dozens of local chefs to showcase the area’s culinary talents before an exclusive crowd of a few hundred diners. Most tickets are snapped up by the event’s sponsors, but Visit Sacramento reserves a few for the general public.
Because they are so in demand, the tickets are put in a random drawing. Applicants, if selected, are committed to paying the $300 per ticket price.
Dennis and Crews had tried to obtain tickets numerous times before, to no avail.
Not having been to the dinner before, the couple was filled with a mix of excitement tinged with apprehension.
“Sometimes you go to those things and you can’t get to the food to try it because it’s just a massive crowd, so I was a little nervous about that,” Dennis said.
“We’ve done the State Fair wine competition things, and you can never get to the table. You can never get any food, and this was the complete opposite,” Crews confirmed.
For the couple, the opportunity to sample multiple appetizers was the highlight.
“The Majka (Pizzeria) appetizer was the best thing I’ve ever put in my mouth,” said Dennis, referring to chef Alexander Sherr’s semolina baguette toast topped with tonnato sauce and heirloom tomato. t
Sampling bites also provided an opportunity for the two to discover new-to-them places they want to explore.
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“The empanadas from Buenos Aires Grill food truck, we totally need to go find them,” said Dennis. “And the chicken bites from Origami Asian Grill. The chicken was formed and then perfectly cut to fit on the bread, and everything was in one bite, and it was delicious.”
As for the mains, Crews called out chef Joe Pruner of Bocce Ristorante’s Filipino-inspired dish of adobo quail, crispy garlic rice, marinated tomatoes and cucumbers, and lettuce and fresh herbs.
“I haven’t had quail since I lived in Dixon, so that was fun,” he said.
Dennis fondly remembers the first two entrees as well.
“The mushroom ricotta rotolo with the linguica ragu (from chef Francisco Rivera of Hawks Public House), that was so good. The albacore tuna tataki (from chef Giancarlo Zapata of Chicha Peruvian Kitchen) was really good,” he said.
The couple was seated at a table of fellow drawing recipients — including one who had been selected three times. The spirit of camaraderie got the better of them.
“We were sitting and talking with our table for so long. We only got to try a couple desserts. That’s how we got drunk. Desserts were a blur,” Crews said.
Dennis did manage to recall enjoying chef LaQueanya Henry of Sugar Coated Cupcakes’s fig honey-vanilla cheesecake, layered with almond shortbread crumble, Black Mission fig compote, honey mascarpone and pistachio praline crunch.
For the couple, being in the company of others who had been selected felt like winning the lottery.
“It was all people that won it for the first time, and everybody was so excited,” Crews said.
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