SacFoodies

Our Tips for Surviving the Hello Kitty Cafe Truck in Sacramento

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The Hello Kitty Café truck is an adorable hotspot that attracts hundreds of devoted – and even casual -Sanrio fans. Although this truck only stops at a select number of locations for a limited time, costume-clad visitors flock to these sites with friends in the hopes of finding coveted Hello Kitty treats and merchandise.

I had the pleasure of seeing one of these trucks last year just a few days after graduating college. Since the Hello Kitty Café truck can be quite the frenzy, I thought I would offer my tips for surviving your first trip:

  1. Arrive early!! I can’t emphasize to you enough how important this is. The lines at Hello Kitty Café trucks can be very long and I would highly recommend arriving early in the morning to reserve the best spots in line and have access to the best merch.
  2. Bring an umbrella and as much water as you can! Summer days waiting for the your turn at the truck are very hot and, because of this, you’ll need to stay hydrated and in a shady place to make your wait as comfortable as possible – especially if you show up later in the day.
  3. Bring company! Hello Kitty Café truck is a place of community that invite like-minded people to enjoy the same things you love. Spending time at the Hello Kitty Food Trucks is a great experience to share with people you know and going with company is much more fun than going alone.
  4. Dress up! I was not aware of this, but many Hello Kitty Café truck visitors dress as beloved Sanrio characters to embrace the spirit of Hello Kitty. I took so many pictures of these people and I wish I had the chance to enjoy myself with friends the way so many others did.

5. Check out this list to find out about the merch and treats that the truck offers, make a list of them. This way, your group can prepare to ask for exactly what they want when your time comes to treat yourself. Research is also important if you want to know where, when, and what time you should expect to see the trucks in your area.

Now that you know how to prepare for fun at the Hello Kitty Café truck, we would love to hear about your experiences! Share pictures and videos in the comments and let us know what the best part of your trip was.

Mahoroba Japanese Bakery: A Review

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Tired of visiting the same ol’ donut shop or bakery? Feeling in the mood for something new? Mahoroba Japanese Bakery in South Sacramento may give you just what you’re looking for!

Mahoroba Japanese Bakery lives in a tiny corner off Freeport Boulevard and offers visitors a sweet assortment of Japanese and American pastries. My first trip to the shop was a delight and I returned for the first time in a year to relive my experiences with these wonderful treats. I carefully selected some of their offerings – including the anpan, kobe cream delight, shoku pan, anpanman choco, and kobe green tea delight – to present my opinion of Mahoroba’s breads and encourage everyone to try something different and delicious!

Pro-Tip: Order online to reserve your favorites or make your trip first thing in the morning because these pastries sell out fast!

Here is a CliffNotes review of each treat I tried from Mahoroba:

Anpan

  • By far my favorite pastry from the bakery
  • Features a light and fluffy bread topped with black sesame seeds and a generous amount of subtly sweetened red bean paste
  • Perfect for those with less of a sweet tooth or who like more wholesome pastry filling
  • Highly recommend serving anpan with red bean taiyaki

Anpanman Choco

  • One of Mahoroba’s most popular pastries
  • Features an adorably painted face of chocolate
  • Pastry stuffed with dark chocolate paste
  • Bread is much puffier than average and makes the anpanman choco much more fun to eat and look at – after all, it has the cutest chubby cheeks
  • Perfect for pickier eaters or chocoholics!

Shoku Pan

  • Very similar to your classic white bread
  • Thick cut of shoku pan makes this bread even more delectable than what you can buy in a store
  • Offers a buttery crust
  • Softer and a touch sweeter than your store-bought white breads

Kobe Green Tea Delight

  • Great for green tea lovers
  • Paste is thick, airy, lightly sweetened, and spreads out with every bite
  • Crescent-shaped, smoothened dough makes for a satisfying eating experience

Kobe Cream Delight

  • Filled to the brim with custard
  • A variant on the kobe green tea delight with the same crescent-shaped dough
  • Indulgent and delicious flavor with a filling that’s perfect for custard lovers or sweet tooths in general

Sweet Cream Cheese

  • Presents very nicely with an almond topping
  • As promised, this pastry is filled with cream cheese
  • Cream cheese filling is sweet, subtly salty, and offers a nutty flavor
  • Features the softest, chewiest bread out of every pastry listed in this review
  • Also good for picky eaters

This bakery offers something delightful for the whole family, whether you enjoy traditional Japanese breads or something more conventional. I highly recommend this shop and we hope you’ll enjoy anything you try from Mahoroba and share your thoughts in the comments!

Pronunciation Key

Mahoroba: Mah-Ho-Roh-Bah

Anpan: On-Pawn

Shoku Pan: Sho-Koo Pawn

Anpanman Choco: On-Pawn-Mahn Cho-ko

Creme Caramel vs Creme Brulee

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Creme brulee is my absolute favorite dish and dessert to make in the whole world. The first time I tried it, I fell in love with its rich texture, heavy vanilla flavor, sugar crust that cracks with the tap of a spoon, and the almost soothing feeling I experience as I take in every bite. I can’t get enough of it and neither can my family. My sister and her boyfriend love it so much, in fact, that the day after they tried it, they asked me to make another serving for them and waited until midnight to dig into this creamy, beloved dessert. I have gone on to make it for my extended family on Thanksgiving and I am so excited to share this wonderful food with anyone who wants it.

Here are the aforementioned 13 creme brulee servings I made for my family on Thanksgiving! This was such a proud moment for me as a young cook and everything looks beautiful (if I do say so myself).

I normally visit a creme brulee recipe on Sally’s Baking Addiction to make the best custard and sugar topping I can, but while I was sifting through recipes to try for this blog post, I found Anna Olson’s renditions of creme brulee and creme caramel – and they are just as good as Sally’s version!

I had never heard of creme caramel until I watched Anna Olson’s videos, but given its similarities to the classic creme brulee, I figured it would be a great idea to make these dishes around the same time, taste them, and deliver my thoughts on both. Keep reading for a detailed review on Anna Olson’s sweet treats!
Disclaimer: I have made slight modifications to these recipes to make them easier to bake and save money on ingredients that can easily be substituted for others. Remember to always heat your creme brulee to an internal temperature of 170 degrees!

Anna Olson’s Creme Caramel

Anna Olson’s creme caramel is very easy to make. If directions are followed perfectly, the recipe yields a delightful, flan-like treat that resembles the look and taste of Japanese pudding. Here are some of the dish’s best qualities:
– It has an airy, refreshing taste and is delightfully sweet without tasting overwhelming
– It is chilled to perfection and every bite makes it the ideal dessert to have on a hot summer day
– Its texture and consistency are wonderfully jiggly, soft, and easy to chew
– It’s a great alternative if you want something potentially easier to make than creme brulee – or something different that’s just as easy!
– The instructions are very straightforward (just be mindful of cooking the creme caramel the way Anna Olson suggests in her video)
– The caramel topping is very simple to achieve – in fact, I used this method to make the topping of Anna Olson’s creme brulee. It’s easier than torching or broiling sugar and it offers the most satisfying crack I’ve ever seen when making and eating creme brulee
– It plates nicely and is crowd-pleasing

After my second attempt at Anna Olson’s creme caramel, I perfected the recipe! Pay mind to the skewer test when making this yourself – it WILL determine the quality of the dish. Follow her directions exactly and you will have a glossy, smooth, perfectly sweetened serving of this dessert!

Anna Olson’s Creme Brulee

Anna Olson’s creme brulee recipe is just as delicious and easy to follow as her creme caramel recipe. It delivers a satisfying serving of vanilla flavor and is even silkier and smoother in texture and consistency than the average creme brulee. Here are some of the rendition’s best qualities:
– It plates beautifully
– The addition of vanilla bean paste/fresh vanilla bean stalk makes the taste of Anna Olson’s recipe even more flavorful
– Olson’s method of including four egg yolks and one whole egg does indeed make the custard very silky and smooth. Every bite is very pleasant and does not feel too dense or rich as she explains in the video
– I could easily use her method of making caramel to create a creme brulee topping that’s even more fun to crack than the standard broiled/torched method! Check out this video to see how many taps of a spoon it took me to reach the custard. (For our more experienced readers, I obviously used too much sugar when making the crust, but it made such a cool candy shell regardless)!

This round of creme brulee is easily the best I’ve ever made. Not only is the sugar topping more glossy than any of my creme brulee attempts, the custard also offered the perfect amount of richness and vanilla flavor. I will definitely be using Anna Olson’s recipe as my go-to in the future!

If I had to choose between these two recipes, I have to say Anna Olson’s creme brulee is the best, as well as my favorite. Perhaps my bias for creme brulee is showing, but this is a dessert that just has to be shared once you master it. Who could ask for anything better than cracking through a sugar topping to unveil a beautifully chilled and sweet custard? Give it a try yourself and share with us your experience of making these creme caramel and creme brulee recipes! You might find yourself pleasantly surprised at how easy both are to make.

Food Literacy Center Celebrates Big Day of Giving

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Sacramento’s local non-profit, the Food Literacy Center, helps teach children in Sacramento communities the importance of nutrition by inspiring kids to eat their vegetables!

To help continue educating students on the importance of food literacy, FLC is celebrating Big Day of Giving THIS THURSDAY, May 5. Donations can inspire children to eat a daily serving of vegetables, learn to make a new recipe, and ask for healthier food at home. It costs $186 to provide food literacy education for a semester to one student.

Additionally, Green Acres Nursery and FleishmanHillard will match donations up to $2,000. To learn more about Food Literacy Center and how to donate, please visit www.bigdayofgiving.org/organization/foodliteracycenter

September is Food Literacy Month

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In 2012, The Food Literacy Center worked with the California legislature to declare September as Food Literacy Month. The goal was to raise awareness about cooking and nutrition education for kids.

Last year, The Food Literacy Center shifted its cooking and nutrition curriculum to online distance learning as schools closed and redirected to online learning. In addition, FLC started collaborating with other nonprofits to identify the most vulnerable families and began fresh produce distributions at the schools they serve.

This year, The Food Literacy Center is returning to in-person classes, in addition to distributing recipe kits to students and families so they can cook healthy meals at home together.

To help continue this program, donate today!

Donations allow FLC to continue to help build a healthy, sustainable community.