Sacramento-area chain Chando's Tacos abruptly shuts all remaining locations
All Chando's Tacos locations were closed as of the lunch hour on Tuesday. Doors were locked at the West Sacramento location, and the North Sacramento location on Arden Way was dark.
The chain's social media presence was scrubbed as of Tuesday, with Chando's website also redirecting to the Google front page -- a sign that the site had been taken offline.
Owned by Lisandro "Chando" Madrigal, the chain once had locations all around the Sacramento region. Madrigal even got some national exposure when he competed on an episode of the Food Network TV show "Chopped" in 2021.
Madrigal confirmed to CBS Sacramento that he will be holding a press conference on the matter at 9 a.m. on Monday at his restaurant chain's Arden location.
Chando's popularity saw it expand beyond California at one point, with a brick-and-mortar location opening in Decatur, Georgia, near Atlanta in 2023. The Georgia location closed in 2024, however.
Only three locations were still in operation as recently as this past weekend: the original restaurant along Arden Way in Sacramento, one near Fruitridge and Power Inn roads, and the West Sacramento location.
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Newsweek
an hour ago
- Newsweek
Anne Burrell Food Network Announcement Branded 'Tone-Deaf' After Death
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. The Food Network is facing criticism online following its recent social media post featuring late chef Anne Burrell. Newsweek contacted a Food Network spokesperson via email for comment on Tuesday. The Context Burrell, 55—who was the longtime host of Food Network's Worst Cooks in America—was found dead at her home in Brooklyn, New York on June 17. A New York City Police Department spokesperson told Newsweek at the time that "EMS responded and pronounced the female deceased at the scene" following a 911 call alerting authorities of a possible cardiac arrest. The celebrity chef's cause of death was "suicide," according to the New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner. Chef Anne Burrell presents onstage during Food Network and Cooking Channel's New York City Wine and Food Festival at Pier 94 on October 13, 2018 in New York City. Chef Anne Burrell presents onstage during Food Network and Cooking Channel's New York City Wine and Food Festival at Pier 94 on October 13, 2018 in New York NYCWFF What To Know On Monday, the Food Network posted teaser photos with Burrell on Instagram to promote the latest episode of Worst Cooks in America. Fans argued, however, that the caption was "tone-deaf" for not mentioning the spunky television personality. "It's showtime! The recruits step up to the spotlight in the first-ever Boot Camp Culinary Pageant!" it reads. "Competing head-to-head, they show off their kitchen skills in hopes of being crowned Mister or Miss Boot Camp. Watch a new episode of #WorstCooks TONIGHT at 9|8c!" Season 29 of Worst Cooks in America debuted on July 28 and is Burrell's final season. She rose to fame as a sous chef on Iron Chef America, and hosted her own Emmy-nominated series Secrets of a Restaurant Chef. On Worst Cooks in America, the New York native mentored amateur cooks. What People Are Saying Instagram user @juliecordora wrote in a note with 917 likes: "If you are going to run the show, every caption should have a respectful note about the loss of Anne." @chlibby_823 said in a comment with 574 likes: "Another tone deaf post and still no tribute like she deserves. It's obvious you haven't listened to any of the thousands of posts from her fans. Very disappointing." @alyssalaurenarndt remarked in a response with 430 likes: "This is so distasteful. Have some care and decency for Anne and her family." @shannonekeeley said: "This is such an odd caption, in my opinion. At least acknowledge Anne and her legacy in the caption- this is not an 'everyday' type of season premiere and Food Network knows that." @kileydashiell stated in a note: "WORST CAPTION EVER." @markymarkntuc posted in a reply: "Wow who's running your social media? I'll apply for the job with zero experience and still do a better job. Have some class." @sherrieoh said: "It's shocking to see @foodnetwork air the final season without recognizing @chefanneburrell contributions. The omission in the caption is particularly notable. It's disappointing to say the least." Say Yes to the Dress star Randy Fenoli wrote: "I miss my friend." On Facebook, other fans defended the Food Network's decision to air the series. Melissa Thompson said in a post with 165 positive reactions: "It is bittersweet watching knowing Chef Anne is no longer here but I am enjoying seeing her doing what she loved one last time." Britani Joanne Lake shared: "I'll definitely be watching in honor of Anne. no need to cry about 'not watching it.' that's your prerogative." Eric Schlegel wrote: "I've never experienced this. Wanting so bad to see something and dreading it at the same time. To see this last gift Anne left us but knowing it's the last. No one will ever fill that void she left. We love you Anne." What Happens Next New episodes of Worst Cooks in America Season 29 with Burrell air Mondays at 9 p.m. ET on the Food Network. If you or someone you know is considering suicide, contact the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by dialing 988, text "988" to the Crisis Text Line at 741741 or go to
Eater
2 hours ago
- Eater
Mexican Asian Fusion Is One of North America's Signature Cuisines
In early 2009 in Los Angeles, there was no food experience more exciting than Roy Choi's Kogi truck. You'd wait in a long line in a dimly lit parking lot with a menagerie of trendy people, some of them drawn by the truck's latest Twitter post or Jonathan Gold's review in LA Weekly, others stumbling out of a nearby bar. Then you'd order too many tacos and stand next to your car to eat, perching your sagging paper trays of Korean Mexican fusion on the trunk. The truck felt new and surprising, and the big flavors demanded attention. The cheese oozing out the sides of the kimchi quesadilla rounded out the fermentation, while the salsa roja on top amplified the gochugaru. The blend of Korean and Mexican chiles in the salsa coaxed complementary flavors out of the punchy marinade on the kalbi. Funky one-off specials, like pork belly tteokbokki or the Kogi Hogi torta, constantly introduced new combinations. Leaning on the strengths of Mexican and Korean cuisines, Kogi probably would have worked if the food was only a novelty. But it also tasted definitively of Los Angeles. Choi (and his partner, Philippines-born, California-raised chef Mark Manguera) put many facets of his life into Kogi, including his training in fine dining, his rebellious spirit, and his Korean heritage, but most of all his experience growing up in LA, where Koreatown abuts several predominantly Mexican American neighborhoods. Choi's cooking prioritized innovation, but it still smacked of home. 'I think it became a voice for a certain part of Los Angeles and a certain part of immigration and a certain part of life that wasn't really out there in the universe. We all knew it, and we all grew up with it, and it was all around us, but the taco kind of pulled it together,' Choi told Terry Gross in a 2013 interview on Fresh Air. 'It was like a lint roller. It just kind of put everything onto one thing. And then when you ate it, it all of a sudden made sense, you know?' Kogi, parked in Venice, California, in 2010. Ted Soqui / Corbis / Getty Images Choi tapped into culinary histories that run deep in the American Southwest and California, where immigrants coming north from Mexico built lives alongside immigrants crossing the Pacific from Asia. (Kogi wasn't the first in the U.S. to serve food at this cultural intersection; spots like Avatar's, which has been serving Punjabi burritos in the Bay Area since 1989, are notable precursors.) But the truck marked a turning point for Mexican Asian fusion as an enduring cultural passion among interconnected communities. Over the last 16 years, Korean Mexican fusion has spread all over the country; in Portland, Oregon, and Austin, Texas, bulgogi burritos now seem as natural as coffee and chili, respectively. A legion of chefs have also popularized all kinds of Asian Mexican fusion, serving birria ramen, halal carne asada, and furikake esquites. Years before the term 'chaos cooking' entered the conversation, these restaurants created cuisine that was fun and different, blending foods from distinct cultures in ways that make emotional sense, even when they sound far out on paper. And chefs keep finding new ways to capture how Mexican and Asian foods crisscross in the U.S. and in diners' hearts. Asian immigrants have been forming communities in Mexico, from the La Chinesca neighborhood of Mexicali to Mexico City's Pequeño Seúl, for decades or in some cases centuries. Chefs in these areas naturally adapted their cuisines to local ingredients and dishes; in the process, they started unpacking some of the natural affinities across cuisines that would grease the wheels of fusion projects well into the future. To Cesar Hernandez, associate restaurant critic at the San Francisco Chronicle and a street food aficionado, it makes sense that items like tacos and burritos became go-to formats for fusion cooking over the years. 'They truly are blank canvases for whatever. They play well with other flavors,' he says. Hernandez also points to the common ingredients that unite Asian and Mexican cuisines. 'A lot of these cuisines love citrus. A lot of these cuisines love chiles. And when you can coax those flavors out with the other cuisines, that's when it really works.' For Rhea Patel Michel of Mexican Indian fusion restaurant Saucy Chick in Pasadena, California, the connection between these foodways is elemental. Her background is Gujarati Indian, and her husband Marcel Rene Michel is Mexican American. In combining their cuisines, they found a natural synergy in ingredients like cumin, citrus, rice, and legumes, but they also discovered a connectivity of spirit. 'It's generous, it's vibrant, it's dynamic, and we were really energized by what it could look like,' to bring their food together, Patel Michel says. The Picoso Roll at the Sushi-lito food truck in Tucson. Nick Oza/Eater When chefs in historic Asian communities in Mexico couldn't get access to ingredients from back home, they often developed fusion dishes out of necessity. But the clearest progenitor for many contemporary projects might be Sinaloan sushi, created in Culiacán, Mexico, not out of necessity but creative conversation within the restaurant community. Japanese immigrants to the area, in Mexico's Sinaloa state, started opening sushi restaurants around the late 1980s, often hiring Mexican chefs. But it wasn't until those chefs left to open their own spots, bringing their own ideas and style to sushi — and building on recent sushi inventions from the north, like the California roll — that the genre really developed its modern personality. One foundational operation, Sushi-Lo, brought sushi out to the streets in a cart, and introduced the modern classic, deep-fried mar y tierra (surf and turf) roll filled with carne asada and shrimp. Today, Sinaloan spots both in Mexico and the U.S., like Culichi Town, tend towards extravagance, incorporating aguachile, plantain, beans, melted cheese, jalapeños, or Hot Cheeto dust. And the cuisine only went further when it jumped from Sinaloa to neighboring Sonoroa, edging its way toward the U.S. 'Sonoran-style specialists are more like sushi bars attached to a Wingstop,' writes Bill Esparza, 'with menus touting fried chicken wings and fried potatoes covered in melted cheese alongside the calorie-rich sushi.' Alongside Culichi Town — which has 12 locations in the U.S., including in Dallas and Las Vegas — Sonoran sushi can be found all over the American West, but it especially thrives in Tucson, alongside terroir-defying, cross-cultural icons like the bacon-wrapped Sonoran dog. Unlike contemporary fusion restaurants of the '80s and '90s that became reviled for carelessly throwing together half-assed hybrid dishes and wearing culture as costume, the impetus for Sinaloan and Sonoran sushi wasn't colonial. Even as chefs tended toward monchoso, a sort of thrilling overindulgence, their fusion remained rooted in mutual respect and open collaboration. Neither culture was being absorbed or assimilated, trod on or lifted over the other. 'Mexican food is not fucking precious,' Hernandez says. 'People in Mexico are the first to break the rules. It's part of the tradition.' Roy Choi at work at his latest project, Taco Por Vida, in 2024. Rebecca Roland/Eater That spirit has persisted in Kogi and the projects that followed, even as restaurants spread beyond the Southwest, more Asian cuisines entered the conversation, and chefs developed all kinds of fusion. Almost immediately following Choi's success, chef Bo Kwon created Koi Fusion in Portland, Oregon, in 2009, bringing Pacific Northwest style, a lighter touch on sauces, and an eye for local vegetables to the cuisine. In 2010, Señor Sisig launched as a Filipino Mexican food truck with sisig burritos and tacos, citing Kogi as major inspiration. That same year, the Korilla food truck in New York pushed rice bowls alongside tacos and burritos, drawing winding lines and mostly stellar reviews. Along the way through the many mid-2010s pivots at Mission Cantina in New York, chef Danny Bowien served Mexican kimchi, avocado sashimi, and a Chinese burrito special featuring mapo tofu or kung pao pastrami. More recently, Taqueria Azteca in New York rolled out phở birria, Phở Vy in Oakland, California, unveiled bò kho quesabirria tacos, and Baysian in nearby San Leandro whipped up Filipino queso-adobo. Back in LA, Holy Basil offers Thai-style prawn aguachile, while New York-born Baar Baar serves birria-influenced tacos with Kashmiri duck and tostadas with tuna bhel. Hernandez is especially excited about chef Sincere Justice's Tacos Sincero pop-up, born in Oakland in 2022. The chef draws on his experience growing up in LA's San Gabriel Valley (which has large Mexican and Asian American populations) to create eclectic dishes like a konbini-style egg salad tostada, calamansi tinga, and a saag burrito. '[Justice is] a real student of 'I want to try different shit and present it in these formats,' using tortillas and tostadas,' Hernandez says. 'He and a couple other folks are keeping that [multicultural cooking] alive.' All of it is constantly evolving, even within individual restaurants. At Saucy Chick, the Michels are always creating new dishes, like birria de chivo that incorporates masala spices, halal carne asada marinated in amchur and coriander, and esquites amped up with fenugreek and turmeric. Along the way, something surprising has happened during all this R and D. '[I've been] digging deep with my mom and my dad, [asking,] 'How do we make this dal?' or 'How do we make aloo?'' Rhea says. 'I've found myself getting even closer to my culture.' 'Kogi came at that right moment,' Choi told Mashed in 2020. In the midst of the Great Recession, the truck offered accessible, boundary-pushing cooking. 'People couldn't afford to go out all the time. People were struggling, lost their jobs, looking for what their next meal could be. And then this funny little beat-up truck came along, serving this delicious little taco.' The team's creativity and hustle helped them nail the tenor of the early social media era. During Twitter's ascendance, the Kogi team tweeted their locations and specials in real time as the truck rolled around town, drawing mobs of fans wherever they went. 'It felt like a scavenger hunt when we needed some sort of positive direction,' Choi told Mashed. Online appeal has remained an important piece of Mexican Asian fusion, clear in dishes like birria ramen (or 'birriamen'). Generally said to have been invented by chef Antonio de Livier at the Mexico City restaurant Animo, birriamen builds on the internet popularity of the Tijuana-style stewed beef dish. It might be made with instant noodles or higher-grade stuff, ramen broth or consomé, stuffed into tacos or piled onto vampiros — but in almost every case, it's big and bold and attention-grabbing, making it ideal for social media feeds. Aguachile at Holy Basil in LA Wonho Frank Lee/Eater But in other ways, Mexican Asian fusion no longer resembles Kogi's scrappy street food operation, especially when it starts climbing into fine dining territory. At Michelin-starred Los Félix in Miami, the tétela is filled with Japanese sweet potato, the esquites get a hit of basil furikake, there's miso-grilled corn with fish, and corn dumplings come with scallions and trout roe. Anajak Thai Cuisine's Thai Taco Tuesday, a pandemic-born lark, grew into a signature experience; dishes like a carnitas taco and a sashimi-style yellowtail tostada with nam jim-salsa negra marisquera topped with papaya salad powered the restaurant to national acclaim. Today, fusion dishes show up at restaurants that are nominally neither Mexican nor Asian. Birria dumplings appear on the ever-changing menu at San Francisco icon State Bird Provisions, while Chicago restaurant Mfk serves suzuki crudo on a tostada with both guacamole and sambal. This cuisine is everywhere now. It's not uncommon to see culinary combinations at an airport, the Taco Bell Test Kitchen, or floating up beneath the gaze of social media's Eye of Sauron. It has been in the mainstream for more than 20 years, practically forever in the modern food era, fully engrained into the way we eat. Alongside other types of third-culture cooking, Mexican Asian cuisine has largely shed the stigma that fusion picked up in the '90s. Chefs once chafed if their food was labeled fusion. Now, the pendulum has largely swung back. For Hernandez, it's a generational thing; the old distaste has fallen by the wayside as new chefs and new diners have come into maturity. 'Fusion' is just a convenient shorthand for what so many are doing: transforming culinary building blocks, wherever they come from, to create something new — and awesome — from the parts. Hernandez brings it back to a conversation with Justice of Tacos Sincero. As much as the chef's food reflects his upbringing, the specific labels just aren't important anymore. 'Whatever people want to call it, it doesn't matter,' Hernandez says. 'It just has to bang.'
Eater
3 hours ago
- Eater
Paula Deen's Savannah Restaurants Shut Down Suddenly
is an editor of Eater's South region, covering Atlanta, Nashville, Miami, New Orleans, and the Carolinas. She has been writing about the food scene in the Carolinas and Savannah for 12 years. Erin has resided in Charleston, South Carolina, for the past 20 years. It's been some time since former Food Network star Paula Deen has been in the headlines, but on Friday, August 1, Deen announced that she and her sons were closing the Savannah flagship of the Lady & Sons and the Chicken Box. Deen wrote, 'Thank you for all the great memories and for your loyalty over the past 36 years. We have endless love and gratitude for every customer who has walked through our doors. We are equally grateful to our incredible staff—past and present—whose hard work, care, and hospitality made The Lady & Sons what it was.' The other outposts of the Lady & Sons will continue in Pigeon Forge, Myrtle Beach, Nashville, and Branson, Missouri. The Savannah location opened in 1996, following Deen's first restaurant, the Lady, and her catering business, the Bag Lady. Deen rose to fame with her Food Network show Paula's Home Cooking, which showcased Southern cooking with tons of butter and sugar. She drew controversy in 2012, when she announced that she had Type 2 diabetes and was teaming up with drug maker Novo Nordisk to promote a program called 'Diabetes in a New Light.' Many questioned if her food was to blame. In 2013, Deen was again in the spotlight when a former employee filed a lawsuit alleging racial discrimination and sexual harassment in Deen's restaurant, Uncle Bubba's Oyster House. During deposition, it came out that Deen used racial slurs. Food Network then decided not to renew her contract. According to a source interviewed by AP News, the Lady & Sons in Savannah was still a popular place for lunch, and the closure came as a surprise.
