Chipotle yellow fin tuna roll with wasabi tobiko, avocado, sesame chipotle rouille, $13. Surprisingly large amount for a small plate. Really get more than your money's worth.

Brunch is one of my favorite meals of the weekend. No rushing off to anywhere, you can drink as many brunch cocktails as you want and it’s all very leisurely and lovely. But I have four requirements for what constitutes a good brunch: 1) a wide variety of dishes from savory to sweet to choose from, 2) a selection of brunch cocktails, 3) quality coffee and 4) affordability.

So when I heard about Zengo‘s all-you-can-eat (and drink) brunch for $35 I was elated, and a bit skeptical. After all the Latin-Asian fusion restaurant located in the newishly renovated Santa Monica Place Dining Deck, seemed, well, touristy and mainstream. It has a patio terrace overlooking Third Street Promenade and Ed Hardy and Kitson across the way. I mistakenly assumed that chef Richard Sandoval’s restaurant was, like most eateries in popular tourist spots, meant to appeal to those far from home who want something comfortingly familiar and not too crazy. Yeah, even though it’s “Latin-Asian” cuisine.

But just checking in at the hostess stand gave it an air of exclusivity. Like, maybe cargo shorts and black socks won’t do here. There was no wide-open door located right by the escalator, rather we had to walk down a long, skinny open-air hallway to a large hostess stand. The hostess checked carefully to make sure we had reservations.

Once brought into the dining area, it actually felt like we were in a place other than Santa Monica. Somewhere almost tropical like a resort in Mexico. Unfortunately, on the day we went it was too chilly and windy to sit out on the terrace so we ducked inside instead.

Our waiter immediately attended to us, quick to offer suggestions, saying that on average people order about four or five dishes each. Since these were small plates, sharing is encouraged. So we started off easy with just five dishes and then ended up ordering another five when we felt we could eat more.

Hit the jump for the gallery of every single thing my bf and I had, including the cocktails which I didn’t finish but can assure you aren’t that strong anyway.

Suffice it to say, I loved this brunch. Every dish was so delicious with only one missing the mark for me, the bahn mi sliders which I couldn’t finish. Meh, pork gristle. But then again I’m not a bahn mi connoisseur, maybe gristly is how it’s done. The chipotle yellow fin tuna roll was a highlight with a long roll that seemed awfully affordable for the amount that we got.

Another fave was the Thai chicken empanadas. If anything I would have gladly placed another order of it. However, the omlettes are pricey for their small sizes at $8-$9; consider that a lox omlette (with onions, capers and boursin cheese) around the corner at Jinky’s Cafe costs about $13.

The cocktail selection was basic — mimosas, Marys, bellinis — and very morning-friendly since, as the waiter pointed out, not many people want to get blitzed for breakfast. Wuuut? Tell that to Eveleigh and Ray’s and The Stark Bar! But out of the drinks, I liked the bacon Bloody Mary the best since it tasted substantial. That’s just how I roll. And, yeah, the cocktail menu won’t be a real draw for those seeking variety, but at least the tourists (and moms) will be happy.

By the way, this was a hosted meal. I wasn’t even sure about this condition until the end when the waiter told us that it was. But before that I was perfectly up for paying the $35 a person since it was absolutely worth it. See, if you eat more than two dishes and drink more than two cocktails, you get your money’s worth right there considering dishes range in price from $7 to $12 and cocktails are in the $9-$10 range. This would be perfect to do with a group of friends. That way you can try more things, and divvying up the bill at the end of the meal would be a nonissue. We actually saw a large table of friends celebrating a birthday, a smart idea since there’s none of that “Heyy, I only had a salad and I have to pay $40?!” complications.

I would most certainly come back, maybe the next time my folks are in town or I get a group of buddies together. Hmm, birthday brunch?

By the way, there is a 2-hour table limit and, obviously, you can’t take your leftovers home.

Zengo Santa Monica
395 Santa Monica Place
Santa Monica, California 90401 (map)
(310) 899-1000
Twitter: @zengosm
Brunch hours: Saturday-Sunday 11:30am-4pm

Oversalted gnocchi. Return it or deal with it?

You’re at a nice restaurant and discover that your entree is not up to snuff. Maybe it’s missing the goat cheese that was listed in its description on the menu, maybe it’s supposed to be a hot dish and it arrives cold. Do you a) complain to the server and ask the kitchen to remake it or b) keep quiet and power through it?

As my foodie friends can attest, once you get in the habit of dining out a lot, you develop standards and then it just gets hard to suffer through a bad meal. We gotta say something. I’m not saying to complain just because you ended up ordering something you didn’t like, but rather if the dish is basically inedible.

“But what if the kitchen spits in my food because I complain?” you ask. I know, there was a time when I feared that, too, but then realized that the kitchen does not take these things personally and if you handle the situation right then chances are your redone dish will remain spittle free.

Mercantile refrigerated cases.

I found this out with blogger friends Esther, Lindsay and Maya at our dinner at The Mercantile in Hollywood. We were using of our Blackboard Eats code to score the $20 three-course prix fixe dinner.

Our first course, the endive salad with dates, watercress, smoked almonds and warm goat cheese was divine. Even though it was pretty salty it was balanced with the sweetness of the dates, the tang of the goat cheese, and the freshness of the endive and watercress.

However, our next course of gnocchi with mushrooms, peas and parmesan didn’t fair as well with all the salt. Since there was nothing to balance out that very pucker-inducing seasoning, each bite just got more and more salty. I could feel kidney stones developing, heh. “Maybe they want us to drink more wine,” I joked. But the girls weren’t having it. Finally Esther flagged down the server. We calmly and very nicely explained how we thought the dish was unusually salty. “It tastes like it has potential to be good but the salt just ruins it,” we pleaded our case to her.

She listened carefully with nary a trace of attitude or defensiveness and then asked if she could take one of our dishes, since we had all four ordered the gnocchi, and have the chef sample it. After a short while she came back to tell us that Executive Chef Kris Morningstar said he’d redo our dishes. So nice!

Well, turned out he didn’t after all but the “managing chef” did. “Now it seems like he undersalted it,” Lindsay said. I was about to agree because it seemed so after tasting the really salty gnocchi, but then I continued to pop the delicate pillows of gnocchi in my mouth and savor the mushrooms. No, it was much better. You could actually taste everything now. In the salad that saltiness was fine but here it had nothing to play with. There was no sauce in this dish, no greens.

Caramel corn and vanilla bourbon ice cream.

After scarfing down our entree we were relieved that we took a stand instead of just silently suffering through the meal and perhaps complaining about it in a blog later.

Bonus was that apparently Mercantile was so sorry that we were initially unhappy with our meal that they only charged us for two of our prix fixe dinners. Of course they didn’t have to do that but it was so nice that they did.

I used the extra money I saved to purchase an extra scoop of ice cream ($3) for dessert and a pint of vanilla bourbon ice cream ($7) to go, which by the way was sooo bourbony and delicious that I felt like I was cheating on my booze fast.

So what do you do when you’re not happy with your meal? Here are some tips. If you’ve got some of your own, feel free to voice them in the comments:

1) Don’t eat more than a quarter of your dish before you complain to the server. If you eat over that amount, you’re already committed to that dish. Let the server know asap that something’s wrong with your dish.

2) Be nice to your server, it’s not their fault after all. Tell them in a very calm and nonaccusatory way why you are not happy with your meal. The more specific you are the better since they will be able to address your issues more easily.

3) Do not act like you’re entitled to anything more than your dish getting redone. Don’t ask for a free dessert or a comped meal. If you don’t like your dish and they offer to redo it, that’s pretty fair.

4) Thank your server for taking care of this matter for you.

5) Be patient waiting for your dish, part II. If you want it done right, waiting for it is a small price to pay.

Now, we were lucky that our server at The Mercantile was very accommodating and friendly. Really great customer service in this instance. At other restaurants, that might not always be the case unfortunately.

At Capitol City in Hollywood when I had sent back a cocktail because it had more St. Germaine than Maker’s, my server came back with a drink that simply had a shot of Maker’s added which completely ruined the drink. But all one can do is be diplomatic. And if you still get bad service, i.e. the server is rude or refuses to remove the item from the bill even when the issue isn’t fixed, reflect that in the tip.

For more suggestions, check out this handy “foodie flick” about “How To Send Food Back at a Restaurant” on Slashfood.

The Mercantile
6600 West Sunset Boulevard
Hollywood, California 90028 (map)
(323) 962-8202