By Paul Dale Roberts, HPI General Manager www.hpiparanormal.net May 26, 2011, Thursday. It's a weeknight, but Shannon McCabe talked me into a strange night that consisted of a candlelight party at her home and later a Blues and Burlesque Night out-on-the-town at the Crescent Club aka Cafe Americain Americana in Old Sacramento. Shannon served up cheese, chicken nuggets, Sangria, crackers while the host of this candlelight party showed us various fragrances of candles. They had all of these romantic themed candles and I only could wish for candles with a more manly touch, such as fresh cut grass candle, motor oil candle, Chevron diesel candle, BP Oil Spill candle or maybe candles that deal

Café Americain is celebrating summer with three bashes next month. The Old Sacramento restaurant is throwing parties for Bastille Day on July 10, the grand opening of Sacramento's first "speakeasy" on July 16 and a Summer Bohemian Ball on July 17. Owners Mike and Natalya Wahba said they want to turn their champagne and caviar house at 1023 Front St. into the place for Sacramentans to revel in fine food, decadent drink and all things passionate. "It's all about passion for life, for arts, for food, for entertainment," Mike Wahba said. "That's the standard we want to set." Fire dancers, the Sacramento Opera, Corti Brothers' owner Darrell Corti and the owners of Sterling Caviar will join

Another thing to put on your list of new reasons to visit Old Sacramento: Café Americain and its new courtyard. Sacramento's only champagne and caviar house —which also features raw food cuisine — was created to capture the elegance and allure of a legendary restaurant once run by a notorious Bay Area madam. The owners, Mike and Natalya Wahba, are hosting a grand opening for their lunchtime courtyard this weekend. The restaurant opened for dinner in December. Starting Saturday, the brick patio courtyard behind the historic Booth Building will be open for lunch four days a week. Executive Chef Heather David will oversee preparation of innovative raw food dishes, while chef James Clark se