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Dining News: 'Best New Restaurant in Sacramento'

Empress

Sacramento's paper of record has made it official: Empress Tavern is "the best new restaurant in Sacramento." Here's a snippet from Bee dining critic Carla Meyer's review:

Before Empress, moments of marveling occurred three times, max, at any one restaurant. At Empress, the majority of dishes I tasted had this effect...

I ate turkey six times in the weeks just before ordering Empress’ free-range turkey – a choice about which my similarly poultry-logged companions were not excited. Thiemann’s version reignited our enthusiasm.

Equally tender white and dark meat seems to soak up the reduced poultry stock – which Thiemann thickens with a bit of gravy – covering it. Cranberry sauce offsets the gravy’s slight saltiness, with green onion adding snap.

One anticipates, when eating any type of meat at a restaurant, to hit at least one dry and/or tough patch – an expectation born not from pessimism but experience. Such patches did not exist at Empress, where the “honey hot” fried chicken was as consistently tender as the walnut-crusted rack of lamb and smoked prime rib.

Read the entire review in the Sac Bee.

Empress Tavern is located at 1031 K Street, and can be found online at http://empresstavern.com/.

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