2009 March 5 - Harry's Café (Sacramento)

2009 March 5 - Harry's Café (Sacramento)

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Today I pick up Gobo and Patti and drive us over to Elsa's. Grandma is driving straight to Elsa's. Elsa will be driving her Honda Pilot to Sacramento today.
Where in the heck is the middle seat belt?????????????
Elsa lives in a suburban, rural area that once was a long way from Stockton. But the town has expanded closer to her now. Her neighborhood still has a bucolic look to it though.
We head over to Hwy 99 the old north-south mother road of California. We pass right through Lodi on our way to Sacramento.
We arrive some 45 minutes later just past 11:00 AM at Harry's Café. After a couple of round trips around the block we find a suitable parking space just up the block and across the street from Harry's. You can see Harry's green awning on the far right center of this pic.
Harry's is an honest to goodness hole-in-the-wall restaurant. There are only 6 tables inside and a few outdoors.
This is how small the inside is.

We are here especially to eat the item #85 - Harry's Ox Tail Stew Over Rice (Wed, Thurs only).
You should have heard the groans from five Senior Citizens when Harry announced that they were sold out of the Ox Tails................. It seems that the Wednesday customers had wiped out the entire supply.

So we all had to look over the enormous menu to find an alternative.
Patti settled on the Eggplant. But she thought that it was going to be sauteed, not breaded and deep fried, so her dish was not completely satisfactory.
Gobo had the Chicken Fried Steak. A staple in this Chinese/Vietnamese restaurant. :-)
Elsa and Grandma both wanted the spareribs in black bean sauce, but they were undecided on having it over rice or over noodles. So they ordered one each and split and shared the two.

I had a staple of Chinese-American restaurants when I grew up. Scrambled eggs with peas and Chinese roast pork over rice. But they forgot the peas.

Next door was a tiny Chinese market where Grandma got ripped off on her Garlic peanuts. The sign said each bag was $1.20, but the clerk charged her $2.40. I would not have paid, for sure.

It was just a little after Noon. So we headed over to the Café Rolle for dessert.


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We finally got the rear center seat belt figured out. Grandma was assigned that seat since she had lost so much weight in the past year.

The Café Rolle is another hole in the wall way out in east Sacramento. Point B on the map.
Decorated like the tiny French Bistro {well it really was a tiny French Bistro}.
The dessert special of the day was the Raspberry Brulée. Since I had eggs for lunch I decided that more egg yolks would not be good for me, so I had the Chocolate Mousse. :-)
The desserts were wonderful. And I ordered a Chive smoked salmon sandwich to go for my dinner later that evening.
Notice the refrigerated display case that had patés and foi grois as well as cooked smoked salmon, smoked salmon and gravlaks salmon.
Our waiter took this picture of our whole Lunch Bunch.
Café Rolle's web site

After dessert we headed to the European Bakery - Ettores in Fair Oaks. Yeah more pastries. :-)
Point C on the map.


Patti and I grabbed a loaf of bread each.
Elsa bought a lemon cake and other goodies which she said were for her husband... Right..
Ettore's European Cakes photo gallery


Returning home we had to pass through Lodi again.

Elsa's man-in-the-tree to welcome us home.
Unpacking our stuff that we bought and heading home.

Another Lunch Bunch trip in the books.

Postscript:
The chive, smoked salmon sandwich was awesome. I could only eat half, too much dessert. The following are photos of the other half that will be tonight's dinner. :-)

On an European baguette.


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