Author: Leilani Marie Labong

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Going Green

Midtown’s Block Butcher Bar is getting a vegetarian conversion. Meet the meatless Love Child, featuring a vegan Double-Double, maitake mushroom “steak” and spicy soyrizo.
Leilani Marie Labong,

Home Plates

Inspired by her mom’s Vietnamese feasts, a local restaurateur brings a taste of home to midtown with the launch of Saigon Alley Kitchen & Bar.
Leilani Marie Labong,

Live Work Create

In 2015, a visionary young developer heeded the call to create an urban sanctuary for local artists to live, work and create all under one roof. Five years later, the Warehouse Artist Lofts is a kaleidoscope of creatives—from fashion designers to fire dancers—with one common truth among them: Home is where the art is.
Leilani Marie Labong,

Fever Pitch

Are you ready for some major league fútbol? MLS has finally tapped Sacramento to join its very exclusive club. Here’s an in-depth look at the new stadium and how it will raise the game for both soccer fans and our city.
Leilani Marie Labong,

Fowl Play

The boozy bird’s the word at Bawk, R Street’s new finger-licking-good restaurant. A bucket of vodka-battered fried chicken with a bottle of Dom Pérignon? Oui, please.
Leilani Marie Labong,

Radio Activation

Over the next year, the visionaries behind a new downtown headquarters for Capital Public Radio will transform a long-empty mid-century building into a living, breathing physical manifestation of the station’s news-and-music format. Behold the ultimate audiovisual room.
Leilani Marie Labong,

Super Bowls

Kru chef-owner Billy Ngo goes underground to serve up hearty heaps of authentic ramen at his new downtown basement restaurant Kodaiko.
Leilani Marie Labong,

A Rockin’ Jewish Deli

Solomon’s Delicatessen opens downtown at the former site of a Tower Records store, dishing out classic and neoclassic food like lava salt bagels, thick-cut pastrami on rye, vegan Reubens and schmaltz fries that’s music to our taste buds.
Leilani Marie Labong,

The Boy with the Dragon Tattoo

The list of his regulars reads like a Rolodex of Sacramento’s culinary elite. Randall Selland. Molly Hawks. Ginger Elizabeth. Now, two years after opening the sophisticated expansion of his celebrated restaurant Kru—known for its exquisitely crafted sushi—top chef Billy Ngo is going underground, literally, for a new venture with a concept as unpretentious as he is: a basement ramen bar. How did a boy born in a Hong Kong refugee camp become a thirtysomething star of Japanese cuisine in Sacramento? The story, it turns out, is written in ink. On his skin. And luckily, for those who haven’t seen him naked, it’s also told in the pages that follow.
Leilani Marie Labong,

Opposites Attract

The buzzy new Beast & Bounty draws diners on both ends of the food spectrum with a smoking-hot menu that is as veggie friendly as it is meat forward.
Leilani Marie Labong,

The Scene Setter

If dining out is a theatrical experience, then Sacramento interior designer Whitney Johnson may be the city’s leading set designer, crafting visual feasts to complement the edible art on our plates. From the Shady Lady Saloon’s lush Gold Rush bordello look to Hook & Ladder’s hipster-historic vibe and Kru’s Tokyo-inspired elevated elegance, she’s curating the culinary environment for some of the city’s most accomplished chefs and bar masters. And she’s just getting started. With a bevy of savory new projects about to be launched, the 31-year-old Rocklin native is more poised than ever to design and conquer.
Leilani Marie Labong,

The New B Hive

B Street Theatre—led by co-founder Buck Busfield—has finally moved from its humble warehouse space outside East Sacramento to splashy new digs in the heart of midtown. Enter, stage left: The Sofia.
Leilani Marie Labong,

Modern Classics

With a new landmark study, Sacramento is officially recognizing the mid-century modern structures that define a critical period in our city’s architectural history. Here are five retro-cool gems—from Gunther’s to Eichlers—that deserve a deeper look into what makes them both time-specific and timeless.
Leilani Marie Labong,

Homecoming Queen

Greta Gerwig proves that you can indeed go home again with her stunning directorial debut Lady Bird, a semi-autobiographical story about the Sacramento native’s senior year in high school. In her “love letter” to the River City, she fills the screen with nostalgia-soaked scenes of local landmarks and neighborhoods, revisiting her youth with the thoughtful perspective that only time can bring. And if growing Oscar buzz for the film is any indication, this is just the beginning for the first-time auteur and newly crowned Hollywood royalty. Long may she reign.
Leilani Marie Labong,

Eat Drink Play Love

If you think you know Napa and Sonoma, think again. We’ve got the skinny on the region’s newest hot spots (and updates on a few old favorites), just in time to celebrate the harvest season. Discover the movie mogul’s swimming pool where you can make a splash, the glampground where you can sleep in a yurt, the fried chicken shack where you can sample a Michelin-starred chef’s finger-lickin’ fare and, of course, the coolest watering holes, from a bike-themed tasting room to an organic cider house that rules. Scroll down, and get ready to wine and unwind.
Hillary Louise Johnson, Leilani Marie Labong, Photography by Jeremy Sykes,

Greener Acres

Longing for more breathing room, the co-creator of "Yard Crashers" and his wife, who owns Karen’s Bakery in Folsom, built a modern Orangevale oasis that lets the outside in.
Leilani Marie Labong,

Culture Club

ArtStreet, the hotly anticipated follow-up to Art Hotel, is just the next step in M5Arts’ master plan to transform Sacramento into a creative mecca
Leilani Marie Labong,

The Artful Lodger

A prominent Sacramento gallerist converted an old auto repair shop into an urban oasis brimming with vibrant paintings and bold sculptures. For Pamela Skinner, home is where the art is.
Leilani Marie Labong,