Lincoln, California is a small suburban town outside of Sacramento, running parallel to Interstate-80 towards Reno and right off Hwy 65, which heads to Marysville, Yuba City and on its way to Chico, California.
Lincoln grew in leaps in bounds in the early 2000's with a housing boom, but when the recession hit and jobs were leaving Sacramento faster than a tsunami, Lincoln was equally affected. Foreclosures and short sales abound in this town of what was approximately 33,000 people, taking with it restaurants and cute little stores. A bypass is going in, which while alleviating traffic in its small little downtown area while heading into Wheatland and Marysville, it will take with it likely the remaining open stores and peoples livelihoods.
Having said all that, there are some great little restaurants here, which is why in this blog, I can just write about one.
We'll start with the fact that Lincoln has three Chinese restaurants in town, and depending on your favorite 'type' of Chinese there's something here for everyone. My personal favorite and those of my family is the aptly named, Lincoln Chinese.
Having grown up in the Silicon Valley, very near San Francisco and the world renowned Chinatown, I now excellent Chinese food, and I will say, outside of Chinatown, Lincoln Chinese is the best.
Lincoln Chinese is located at 489 F St, Lincoln, CA 95648 (Corner of 5th and F) and can be reached at (916) 645-9829. My entire family, (mother, sister - her husband and kids and my husband,) have been going to Lincoln Chinese since we relocated here from the Bay Area in 2006. The ladies who work here are so sweet. My young niece and nephew (now 5 and 7,) are always coddled to by the ladies. They just adore them. We always come as a large group, because we like to be able to each select an item off the menu and share it. We do this by ordering from the restaurants family option meals of Dinner B, which allows you to select from both Dinner A and B. Typically that means we order the following with some minor variations: Sesame Chicken (oh so delicious,) Mongolian Beef, Beef with Snow Peas or Orange Peel Beef, Lemon Chicken or Schewan Shrimp, Chicken Chown Mein, Potstickers, and extra fried prawns for the kids, who call them shrimpy chicken because for years they thought they were chicken nuggets! LOL.
The Dinner B combo comes with a set of appetizers, starting with egg drop soup. My niece just loves the soup there. There's now 5 years old and eats her father and brothers share, because they would rather fill up on everything else than soup. She'll have 2-3 cups of the soup and a couple of shrimp and she's a happy camper. My sister who refuses to eat beef, loves the sesame chicken. She'll eat everything but the beef. My husband, brother-in-law, mother and I all will eat everything else.
They offer seasonal options like asparagus, fresh fishes, etcetera. Just depends on what's the freshest available.
Lincoln Chinese is always packed. It's soo good, that my aunt and uncle who have relocated to Redding from San Jose and my cousin who lives in San Francisco always want to go to Lincoln Chinese when in town.
Casa Ramos Mexican Restaurant
Our next restaurant is Casa Ramos Mexican Restaurant. Lincoln has a strong hispanic community and therefor has its fair share of excellent taquerias. Casa Ramos is a family style restaurant which thankfully, took over the old Applebee's building which went out of business in 2009. Casa Ramos is a very popular location in Lincoln. Not only does it have a wonderful hispanic community, Lincoln's master plan included Sun City an over 55 community and Lincoln Crossing, a single-family community with new schools for young kids. As such, Casa Ramos has a variety of patrons that flood the place. On weekends the place is very busy. Thursday nights they bring in a live Mariachi band to play for its patrons, and on Cinco de Mayo, its THE PLACE to be! They open the patio up for appetizers and margaritas, hooray!!
Casa Ramos is actually a franchise location, with restaurants in Redding and Sacramento to name a few. The menu is vast and so far everything we've tried we really love. Specifically my husband LOVES their beef fajitas! The restaurant has a daily special and recently started a special item menu of 2 meals for $20 and includes an option of 4 different appetizers to start. My hubby and I like that menu a lot, not just for the price, (its a bonus in our minds!) but because of the options available on it. I personally love getting the cheese enchilada (sauce is light and not too sweet and the cheese plentiful,) with the shredded beef taco. The shredded beef is well seasoned but not overpowering. The plate comes with your choice of either spanish rice or white rice (peas and corn in the rice) and your choice of either refriend beans or cholesterol free rancho (pinto) beans. I love their white rice, so I go for that option. The fajitas are also on this menu, so my hubby is in love. For an appetizer, I highly suggest their tacquitos! They are cut into 6 decent sized pieces and comes with sour cream and guacamole.
The chips and salsa are free flowing, and the staff is outstanding. We have rarely waited longer than 10-15 minutes for our plate to come. I think even on their business night, its been pretty expedient!
Casa Ramos is located at 925 S State Highway 65, Lincoln, CA and by phone (916) 409-0766. Their website is available for your review as well as finding reviews for them all over the web: Foodspotting, UrbanSpoon, Google, Yelp, etc. Casa Ramos:
Until next time - Bon Appetito!
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