The Waterboy has been serving the cuisine of northern Italy and southern France since 1996. A native Sacramento Chef Rick Mahan was inspired by a trip he took to France and now creates European style food with local California ingredients. It’s a good sized place with an open ceiling two-story room decorated with lots of plants. Windows were on 2 sides, the back of the space was filled with a semi-circular bench seat, music was in the background, the small tables were covered with white cloths and a bar with stools faces a painted wall. There were also some tables outside on the patio. The menu was supplemented by a list of daily specials and breads that were made in house. The wine list had reasonable prices and the food servings on the large size. Service was friendly and efficient. The food was good and I hope you’ll give it a try when in Sacramento.
Set-Up
Food
We started by splitting an order of Veal Sweetbreads mixed with mushrooms, bacon, lemon, capers, Marsala and demi-glace. The capers were a key to making this dish pop. The sweetbreads were cut into thin slices which was different, but they were kept moist with a crisp exterior. The rich sauce was great with the sweetbreads but also the tasty mushrooms and tender gnocchi. It was quite good.
Rick’s Deluxe Burger was made with Richard’s Ranch grass-fed beef, cheddar cheese, lettuce, tomato, dill pickles, grilled onions and fries. The patty was a thick juicy piece of beef but the onions were slighly undercooked. The meat had tons of flavor and was very drippy. The balance of ingredients was excellent. The small cut fries were crispy and good.
A daily special was a sandwich made with smoked pastrami on a house rye bread with roasted cabbage, Dijon, pickles and served with fries. This was a huge sandwich filled with a ton of smoky pastrami, seasoned cabbage and a few pickle slices. The mustard sauce was quite good but the bread was slightly over-toasted. The fries were the same as with the burger – crisp and good. It was wonderful but way more than one person could eat and very messy but with wonderful flavor.
I was thinking I’d order the pastrami sandwich if I had your options. Too bad about the bread. I generally don’t like it toasted at all, but that’s not the kind of rye bread I’m used to.
What would the reaction be if you ordered cabbage on a Philly deli pastrami sandwich? ;^)
I was curious about the sandwich, too, but I think I probably would choose either the gnocchi or the risotto. Both sound very good.
Probably shouldn’t order cabbage on a Philly sandwich unless you’re trying to make a Reuben and then this missed that too. Maybe the risotto was a better option!