ECCO Pizzeria and Bar
2937 Bristol St. #A103
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
I went to my list and picked ECCO as the restaurant for our last meal in 2013. I went to Open Table to see if they had any openings for 8PM on New Year's Eve. Yes, that's a little late for dinner, but Katie wanted to get her nails done, and for some reason, this takes about two hours. I will never understand why it takes this long, but it would keep us up later and give us more chances to be fully awake at midnight when the ball drops. We have not been awake for a while when the calendar changes to the new year (yes, we are getting old).
We were in luck. ECCO had openings for the time we wanted, so after Katie was done with her nail appointment, we made the trek up to The Camp in Costa Mesa. If you have been to this shopping center, you probably know the horrible parking situation here, but we were lucky and found quite a few spots available. We may be ending 2013 on a high note.
ECCO has been around for nearly three years and has won much praise from the OC food community. They were named one of the top 10 restaurants by Orange Coast Magazine. ECCO got its name when the owners of this restaurant were touring Italy and frequently heard the chef say the word ecco when they presented the food to the table. Ecco means, "Here it is, " and shows the chef's confidence.
We sat on the patio in the back of the restaurant, but luckily, thanks to the strategically placed heaters, the cold night air would not be an issue for us. Being on the patio also allowed us to talk with each other, as the inside of ECCO was pretty loud, with lots of activity going on. Lending to the hip, but not so over the top vibe here, was the young staff manning the restaurant. They had a special New Year's Eve menu offering, but they also had their regular menu to choose from, which is how we went. The menu is dominated by many pizzas, with a few starters, pasta dishes, entrees, and sides. After some perusing of the menu, we came up with this.
Wanting something warm to start us off, we selected the Homemade Meatballs ($6). These came three to an order and were served with marinara and grana padano, the cheese perched atop each meatball. Both Katie and I really enjoyed these. The meatball was fork tender without being too mushy, a tough balance to achieve. The marinara was very solid here as well. It was not too tangy and allowed the meatball to shine while adding a mild flavor.
Katie is crazy about Caprese Salad ($10), so it was no surprise that she got it. She also probably knows I'm not a fan, so she can have this all to herself. This is a traditional version of this salad. Big slices of tomato, fresh mozzarella, basil, olive oil, and sea salt. This was a generous size for just one person. According to Katie, the tomatoes had a beefy flavor, the salt and pepper helped cut some of the acidity, and the ingredients here were pretty fresh.
As much as Katie is into Caprese salads, I am likely more into Caesars ($9). This version at ECCO was good but could have been better. The salad was a classic Caesar, but they used an olive tapenade spread on top of a crostini. I would have liked the tapenade to have been mixed into the salad to make the saltiness a little more even. The dressing was good here, but I needed more of it. Just like the Caprese, this Caesar was good-sized.
Katie took what I was going to order, but it was New Year's Eve, so I did not put up too much of a fuss about it. She snagged the Orecchiette Salsiccia ($15) from me. This dish used orecchiette pasta, sausage, Swiss chard, crimini mushrooms, basil, and olive oil. This had some positives: the basil was fresh but did not overpower, the sausage had a nice, subtle spiciness to it, and the pasta was cooked to a lovely tenderness. What Katie did not like was that this was dry. It needed a sauce, more than what the olive oil could have supplied. It's okay, but this needed to be tweaked a little more.
It was my last meal of the year, so I went with steak. This Skirt Steak ($25) was cooked to a beautiful medium rare. The beef was tender, so it was no problem that I did not receive a steak knife with my meal. The sauce used on the basil pesto potatoes was heavenly. Luckily, there was enough of it here that I could use the excess to compliment the steak. Besides the basil pesto sauce, the sides were just okay. The asparagus was unreliable, being too bitter in some spots, and the potatoes needed to be cooked a little longer, as it was tough trying to cut them with my fork. Great steak and sauce, though.
We also took a chance on the Mac' n cheese ($7). Thanks to the cast iron skillet, it came out hot and stayed that way. The mac and cheese was light, with some nice pancetta hiding among the noodles. I am not too keen on shell pasta, which lends to an uneven coating, but this warmed us up on this chilly night.
A special dessert on their New Year's Eve menu was this Chocolate Budino ($7). Whenever we order budino, there is never enough for the both of us. This one had a nice smoothness to it, which was a little more sturdy than a traditional pudding. The whipped cream and chocolate flakes were a nice added touch.
We both really liked our time at ECCO. We look forward to returning soon and trying more of their menu, including their Neapolitan pizzas, with ingredients sourced directly from Italy. Their menu constantly changes with the seasons, so we look forward to what Executive Chef Carlos Abarca has in store for us on future visits. The service was spotty for us on this busy night. Our waiter took a while to check on us, but the food was ready promptly. ECCO was a great place to have our last meal of the year.
Out of five dolphins (because there's a video from the 90s about a time-traveling dolphin who battled aliens in the oceans, and the dolphin's name was Ecco), five being best and zero being worst, ECCO Pizzeria and Bar gets 3.5 dolphins.
For more information about ECCO Pizzeria and Bar, check out their website here: http://www.eccopizza.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment