This Sacramento bakery — only open 16 hours a week — makes one of the best sandwiches in town
Moonbelly Bakery debuted to rave reviews last August, but owner Lucía Plumb-Reyes is still keeps it open only three days a week for less than 16 total hours. Getting in is hard, getting one of the best items even harder.
At 10:30 a.m. every Friday, Saturday and Sunday, Moonbelly sets out an array of simple seasonal sandwiches on housemade bread, usually baguettes or focaccia. These sandwiches aren’t listed on Moonbelly’s website; customers have to know to show up before they’re sold out.
The daily sandwich might include carrots with goat cheese and hot honey, mortadella with pickled onions or Salame Rosa (cooked salami similar to mortadella) with butter. There’s always a standard croque monsieur, or a vegetarian option that might feature cabbage with red pepper flakes, garlic kale, pumpkin or roasted red bell peppers in lieu of ham.
Sacramento is a working town, and sandwiches’ on-the-go convenience makes them the de facto lunch for everyone from construction workers reshaping the city’s skyline to state employees plugging away by Capitol Mall. But some of the region’s best sandwiches are one-offs from craft bakeries, not dedicated sandwich shops.
Not only is the bread fantastic – bakeries put great effort into their breads. They also want to wedge premium ingredients and flavor combinations between slices that make them shine.
“I don’t really consider us sandwich makers. It’s not something I built into the business plan for this bakery,” Plumb-Reyes said. “But making sandwiches is really very natural extension of the fact that we’re making bread.”
Upper Crust Bakery has featured sandwiches such as the Turkey Sunberry (roasted turkey, provolone, arugula, cranberry sauce and garlic aioli on whole grain sourdough flecked with cranberries and sunflower seeds) or Fancy BLT (candied bacon, roasted tomatoes, romaine lettuce and chipotle aioli on long-fermented country sourdough) at its new bakery in Winters.
Faria Bakery has slowly expanded its offerings in Oak Park and Folsom, and recently featured a special with braised and hand-pulled V. Miller Meats pork, red cabbage slaw and a housemade smoked date barbecue sauce on naturally-leavened Einkorn ciabatta. Slightly sweet, somewhat spicy and messy as all get-out, it’s as good a pulled pork sandwich as you’ll find around Sacramento.
And then it was gone, because Faria isn’t a barbecue joint. Fear not, though: V. Miller Meats’ thick, peppery pastrami with housemade kimchi slaw and Gruyere on marble rye remains on the standing menu, and makes for one heck of an alternative. You can even substitute cauliflower for the pastrami to make the sandwich vegetarian.
Bakery sandwiches can be hard to pin down, but the juice is often worth the squeeze. Sandwiches also give customers an idea of what to do with a loaf of bread once purchased and taken home.
“If we’re making this beautiful fresh bread, it makes sense for us to make some sandwiches,” Plumb-Reyes said. “It tastes delicious, but it also demonstrates to customers ways to use that bread. It’s not uncommon for us to hear from customers, ‘oh, what do I do with that bread?’ or ‘that’s a big loaf, I can’t eat it all.’”
What I’m Eating
You’ll find some of Placer County’s best sandwiches at Dominick’s Italian Restaurant & Deli in Granite Bay Village Shopping Center. Founded by Dominick and Raquel Bellizzi in 2003, then sold to David and Heather Galasso last year, it’s split between a more upscale dining room and a busy deli/market with only outdoor seating.
The Godfather Hero ($11 for a half sandwich, $18 for a full) is everything you’d want from an Italian sandwich. The salty capicola, soppressata and prosciutto cut through rich mozzarella and grilled eggplant, all nestled snugly in rustic Italian bread baked in-house daily.
Celebrating the Season 2 launch of “The Bear” last week? Try Dominick’s take on the Chicago Italian beef hero ($9/$16), jammed with hot peppers and served with an equally spicy rosemary au jus.
Tuna salad can often be ruined by heavy-handed scoops of mayonnaise, but Dominick’s terrific housemade rendition showed restraint there, adding flavor via lots of black pepper instead. You can get it in the tuna salad hero ($10/$17), or in a to-go container for $17/pound.
Dominick’s Italian Restaurant & Deli
Address: 8621 Auburn Folsom Road, Granite Bay.
Hours: 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 10 a.m.-8:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Sunday.
Phone number: (916) 786-3355.
Website: https://dominicksmarketdeli.com/
Drinks: Full bar in restaurant; wine, beer and soft drinks in the deli.
Animal-free options: A few, including a grilled eggplant/roasted peppers/mozzarella/sun-dried tomato sandwich, caprese panini or cheese pizzas in the deli.
Noise level: Medium-loud in deli, medium-quiet in restaurant.
Openings & Closings
Tack Room opened Saturday at 1624 J St. in midtown Sacramento. It’s a new horse derby-themed bar from the folks behind neighbor Goldfield Trading Post, with eye-catching cocktails and a strong whiskey selection.
Creamy’s by Cayla Jordan held its soft opening on June 16 in the El Dorado Hills Town Center. The new dessert shop at 2023 Vine St., Suite 106 marks the third location for Jordan’s mini cheesecakes and cookies, which are also sold in midtown Sacramento and Roseville.
Sumer Nights is Arden Arcade’s newest Middle Eastern restaurant, with everything from gyros and falafel burgers to barbecue plates centered around lamb liver. It replaced seafood boil spot Cajun Kraken at 2316 Watt Ave.
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