support , technical assistance , and access to mentors and workshops .
The Street Food Sacramento grant offered Mak & Grille “ our chance to show the city what Southeast Asian fusion food could look like ,” says Ashlee . She and her husband , Hong Mak , and his brothers Minh and Yen ( who are Chinese and Vietnamese ) planted the seeds of their business in 2020 with a hot sauce inspired in equal parts by American barbecue and Southeast Asian sambal . Once sold through Instagram drops , their sauce is now available at their farmers market booth , along with Chinese , Vietnamese and Iu Mien hybrids like banh mi-style sausage dogs , chicken sliders scented with lemongrass , and vegan egg rolls like those Hong ’ s mother makes every year for Lunar New Year . Though optimized for farmers-market eating , the core recipes carry memories of temple ceremonies and family barbecues .
‘ Truly authentic to Sacramento ’
Emily Baime Michaels , executive director of the Midtown Association , says that the lack of Iu Mien restaurants in Sacramento was one of the reasons that the grant committee chose Mak & Grille ; all three grantees serve regional cuisines that are not yet represented in Midtown . Other factors included compelling stories and the business owners ’ efforts to create what she calls an “ authentic voice of Sacramento .” A native of San Diego , a city with a robust and longstanding street food culture , Michaels has seen what street vendors can achieve for themselves and their city when they scale .
“ My hope is that this begins to model that you can have a street food culture in a way that ’ s appropriately regulated , but it ’ s truly authentic to Sacramento ,” she says . “ It doesn ’ t have to be the same bacon-wrapped hot dog that you eat outside of every nightclub . It can be beautiful homemade tortillas , it can be smoked beef cheek ; it can be all of those things that are very real to the folks that are part of Sacramento .”
Grantee Fernando Ponce began his street food career among those ubiquitous hot dog vendors . Beginning in 2019 , he ran a taco stand at the corner of 20th and K streets that did its best business between the hours of 1:30 and 2:30 a . m ., when partygoers would spill from the nightclubs . “ There were like 20 hot dog stands , and then I was the only one doing tacos , so I used to have good sales ,” he says . “ Then COVID started , and I stopped doing that .”
Instead , he opened his own restaurant . Ponce ’ s Chido Restaurant in Northgate focuses on Mexico City-style seafood — think tostadas piled with ceviche , head-on prawns tossed with biting chile piquin and Parmesan cheese , and cacophonic cocktails of chilled shellfish with names like “ vuelve a la vida ” ( come back to life ). These are the kinds of dishes one might find at Mexico City ’ s sprawling La Viga seafood market , where Ponce worked at his father ’ s fish processing business before he immigrated to the United States . The restaurant soon acquired fans at the Sacramento Hispanic Chamber of Commerce , who encouraged him to apply for the grant .
At the Midtown Farmers Market — on the same intersection where he once hawked carnitas to clubbers — Ponce serves shrimp , octopus and fish tacos cooked to order , finished with splashes of smoked chipotle salsa that sizzle on the grill . He sold out of everything half an hour
Grantee Fernando Ponce , owner of Chido ’ s , has a background as a late-night street food vendor , and now owns a brick-and-mortar restaurant in Natomas .
before the market closed at his first event in April . “ It feels great when somebody tells you your food is great ,” he says . “ You don ’ t hear that much when you ’ re doing it by a nightclub and everybody ’ s already drunk .” His market presence is already driving traffic to his restaurant , where he hopes to introduce Sacramento to more regionspecific Mexican cuisine than is currently available in town .
‘ Nothing really quite like ours ’
Not far from Ponce ’ s tent , fellow grantee Geronimo Escobar of Steady Smokin ’ BBQ is turning out tacos from a far divergent branch of Mexican cuisine . A cloud of mesquite smoke wafts from his Texas-style smoker , sweet as cinnamon , blending with Ponce ’ s volatilized chipotle . The smoke permeates the brisket and beef cheeks that Escobar mounds on handmade corn and wheat tortillas . The latter , made with tallow rendered from the smoked beef in place of the traditional lard , also carry the scent of mesquite .
Escobar and his girlfriend Stephanie Rios , who makes the tortillas , were both born in Sacramento but have roots in New Mexico , home to a centuries-old taco
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