The exclusive preview tasting at Ten 22 on Wednesday, Sept. 2 found myself, fellow Sacramento Press reporter Jonathan Mendick, and members of our local media peers Sactown Magazine, Capitol Public Radio and Sacramento News & Review happily sipping on sweet, summery cocktails on the balcony of a posh loft above the skeletal framework of the soon-to-be restaurant and bar in Old Sac. Conversation and laughs were exchanged as owner and host extraordinaire Terry Harvego gave us a preview of the tasteful upholstery of the restaurant's interior. But how did we get here?

The evening started out innocently enough as Harvego led our party of eight into the cluttered expanse of what will be the restaurant’s main room.

“This place will be 6,900 square feet,” Harvego, who also owns The Firehouse, said. “There will be seating for 16 to 18 at the bar alone. We’re also trying to get seating outside on the boardwalk, but Old Sac does not allow that at this time.”

Ten 22’s bar will be the focal point for passersby on the street.

“It’s tough to see inside the stores from the street, so we’re hoping that people will walk by and see activity in the front area of the restaurant,” Harvego said. “But if we didn’t have the thin, tall doors, we wouldn’t be part of Old Sac.”

As for the bar’s focus, it is mostly beer.

“There will be 24 beers on tap,” Harvego said. “And aside from your standard choices, most of them are local or from Northern California.”

The same goes for the wine, too, but Ten 22’s quantity of tap beers alone already rivals or completely decimates every other bar in the area.

Harvego also decided to put in a 55-person banquet room. The secret behind that number, he said, is that tour buses hold that many people. In terms of seating, it seems Ten 22 is ready for anything.

This all brings us back to the reason we were really there: free food and drink.

We retreated from the humid Sacramento air and finished our cocktails in the climate controlled dining area of the as-yet-unrented apartment that doubled as party central for the night.

Harvego’s consulting executive chef, Irie Gengler (also from The Firehouse), brought in a few bowls of freshly roasted assorted nuts, and the two asked us whether this should be a permanent substitution in lieu of bread. Opinions differed on that subject, but everyone agreed that the nuts themselves were well-prepared and excellent. The saltiness was just the right compliment to the aforementioned sugar-dipped cocktails we were greeted with, called Vanilla Slides.

As we sat around the table and looked over the evening’s menu, Gengler disappeared and Harvego produced an array of bottles from the refrigerator, one of which was a 22-ouncer of Rubicon IPA. Harvego graciously poured each person’s desired wine and beer, and we soon received our first course, baby spinach salad with roasted pecans and Granny Smith apples.

The dressing was noted as “seeming simple but quite complex in taste” by a few of the guests. The tangy juices of the apples meshed with the sweetness and the pecans added a hearty crunch to each bite. Small clumps of bleu cheese dotted the plate, rounding out a great beginning to a meal.

Our next course was a beef au jus sandwich, the aroma of which had everyone’s immediate attention. The texture of the beef was superb, just tender enough to chew easily but thick enough to be a “man pleaser,” as one of our constituents called it. A quick soak of the bread in the au jus before each bite made the dish a definite hit, and the portions were perfect for a quick but filling lunch for a worker on the move.

For our final entrée, we were treated to coriander-dusted halibut in a light leek sauce. The fish sat on top of a generous helping of mashed potatoes, which helped absorb the sauce for extra flavor. Everything was prepared to perfection and loading up my fork with a hunk of halibut, a dollop of spuds and a little dab of sauce was a joyful endeavor that combined a beautiful spectrum of flavors.

Every sip (or rather, gulp) of my beer was a joy. I’m a huge fan of IPA and the spicy hops they assault one's taste buds with, and Rubicon’s take on the style is no exception. To say it has a hop presence is an understatement. It doesn’t so much taste of the flower as it does coil a few shoots of it around a bat and whollop you over the head with it. And it’s got a finish like the Sahara. If these sound like unwanted characteristics, you probably aren’t a hophead, much like the people in the test groups before us who voted against the inclusion of Pliny the Elder on the beer list. Russian River’s flagship beer is a complex double IPA and is, in this humble beer nerd’s opinion, the finest in its class.

Nine o’clock rolled around and we realized that we had been eating, drinking and talking for an hour past the evening’s initial end-time, definitely a good sign. We piled in the elevator and headed out on the quiet boardwalk, all a little warmer and certainly more full than when we had arrived. Ten 22 is slated to open its doors on (when else?) Oct. 22, and if you want to do your part in helping our city’s burgeoning restaurant scene along, head over to 1022 Second St. and welcome another great eatery to the family.

Photo credits to Jonathan Mendick.