Frank Fat opened his namesake restaurant in 1939 calling it “Frank’s 806” (which you can see at the end of the awning).  Today, it’s Frank Fat’s and the oldest Sacramento restaurant exclusively owned by one family.  When Frank Fat began, he was very interested in feeding people quality food with great service and that has allowed him to open several other places with varying cuisine.  In 2013 he received a James Beard Foundation Classics Award, given to locally owned and operated restaurants. It has a reputation as a place where influential California politicians come to drink, dine and negotiate, which makes sense as its location is a short walk from the capital building.  Every California governor has been a customer since the restaurant opened.  It is a large place that runs several rooms deep, all with beautiful Chinese decorations.   The first room had stools around a bar counter and bench seating along the wall.  Further in bare dark brown wood tables appear.  They serve a large menu of old-school Chinese food and have specials for lunch, which are smaller versions of some of their more popular dishes.  The food was quite good and the service was friendly and efficient.  I would put this on your list, especially after taking a free tour of the California State Capital building.

Set-Up

 

Food

Kung Pao Chicken was made with a stir-fried chicken breast, red and green peppers, onions, water chestnuts, jalapenos and peanuts.  It was served with white rice (or you can choose brown rice).   The peanuts were crisp and the pepper pieces were lightly sweet.  The chili peppers gave it a slight spiciness.  It was good.

 

Mongolian Beef contained sliced beef, onions, mushrooms, and chilies and was served with white rice.  The sauce was quite good and the beef tender.  The mushrooms were thickly sliced and very flavorful as were the onions.  The rice was fairly sticky so easy to eat if you wanted to use chopsticks.

 

Honey Walnut prawns was made with lightly fried prawns glazed with honey sauce, walnuts, sesame seeds and served with white rice.  The good sized shrimp were perfectly cooked and coated for a light crisp on the exterior. The walnuts were equally well caramelized.  This one was not as saucy as the other two but had a fabulous flavor and was probably the favorite of the 3 we tried.

 

Banana cream pie has been on the menu since the 1940s and was inspired by the Chinese egg custard tarts, often seen on dim sum carts.  The thin crisp crust was piled with sliced fresh bananas that were covered with custard then topped with a mountain of sweetened whipped cream.  It had wonderful textures but was not overly sweet.  I could see why this one has won awards and they are known for it.  Yum!

 

They brought a fortune cookie with the bill.