by Steve LaRosa
photography by Dave Brooks

PLUM BLOSSOM

Asian fast-food takes a bow in midtown.What this town needs is more walk-around food: pizza by the slice, portable burritos, anything on a stick. (Come to think of it, we need good places to walk around.) It also needs good, quick food. Answering both challenges is a great new midtown spot that quickly has blossomed into a place with just plum good food. The name presently escapes me. Plum Blossom is a synergistic mixture of concepts. The place features an extensive steam table with numerous entrees for dining, cafeteria casual. There are three woks in the kitchen for ordering off the menu, and there’s also a bakery case full of Chinese baked goods, heavy on the baos, referred to here as buns.

While hot off the wok is the freshest, ordering from the steam bins isn’t much of a disadvantage, because they turn the food over pretty quickly. The entrees we tried were fresh and plentiful.

Plum Blossom features a lighter version of the Chinese staple known as General Tsao’s chicken. It’s lightly battered and briefly deep-fried, followed by a quick saute’ in the wok, resulting in a tasty but less heavy dish.

The cream-cheese won tons are creatively fashioned into star like concoctions and come with a sweet-and-sour sauce that’s not too thick, too sweet or too close to the color of Archie’s (from the comics) hair.

Paradise shrimp addresses that “plentiful” reference of earlier. Eighteen shrimp (it’s a Chinese good-luck number-count the windows in the restaurant’s tower) and assorted vegetables are steamed in chicken broth, then saute’ed in a light brown garlic sauce and stir-fried in oyster sauce. Very good.

Now to the bao. While you’re perusing the steam bins, periscope right. That would be the starboard bow. You’ll be viewing a case full of baos. These are the best we’ve had. We recommend the hot and spicy beef, the roast pork, the chicken and, believe it or not, the hot dog bao. The dough is soft and very fresh, they bake them throughout the day. In a word, bao-wow! Props to partners Perry Yuen, Stephen Xu and Nan Qi Mei. Take a bow, guys. No bun intended. (To regular readers of this column, apologies for the use of bao-wow and props.)

1830 J St., Sacramento; (916) 443-8882; Open 6 a.m.-midnight Monday-Wednesday, 6 a.m.-2 a.m. Thursday and Friday, 9:30 a.m.-2 a.m. Saturday, 9:30 a.m. - 9 p.m. Sunday.

Look for Steve LaRosa’s restaurant reviews the first Friday of every month at 11 a.m. on "News10 Midday".