Elizabeth Lascheid
Google
We have been to other Uovo's and found their food to be quite good and the service pretty good. And then we walked into the Twilight Zone of bad host, bad cooks, pre-made food, and just okay service.
We parked and got in line, they do not take reservations at all and were told it would be at least a 15 minute wait to eat outside. All that is offered inside is counter space. Not wanting to wait, we decided for the counter. We were told to wait for him to seat us at the counter, standing the whole time which anyone can see is not something I can do for long and he, the host, said he would seat us right away. He did not. He made us stand there for over 10 minutes for a counter seat (there were plenty of them) while he waited on those who came after us, still not seated, and we had to ask him to take care of us. He told us rudely to wait. He was just dealing with the line and taking names. He finally sat us and it was cold and the seats are just so uncomfortable. We asked to be moved and we would wait for the outside. We were rudely, told, "You have already been seated, you will now have to go outside to the back of the line and start again!." We asked if these people in this long line had reservations and he lied and said a few did. They don't take reservations. We should have left right then, but because the other Uovo that we had been to before was good we decided to deal with the cold and uncomfortable wooden seats and hope for the best. I have never dealt with such a crude host.
A server came by and gave us menus and napkins. He wanted to know if we were ready to order. Now, he had just delivered to us the menu. But really he wanted to go home. After waiting another 10 minutes I told him we are ready to order. He looked at us and said that here, this person will take care of you. I saw him take off his apron and walk out the door.
Another server came and she was nice.
We had the Crema di Parmigiano, which is handmade meat tortellini (contains pork) in a cream of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. It was nothing like what I had at the Santa Monica store. It was just some pasta with fettuccini sauce, you know, like what you can get at Olive Garden or from a jar. The one I had at the Santa Monica store was great. It was yellow sauce because of the great spices they used and was made fresh. This, like every other dish they "make" is pre made and is in pots on the stove or in drawers under the counter. It is already all cooked. They just heat it up for a minute, toss on a pre made sauce ( all in big bowls) and that is it. It was not good at all.
My husband had Yellowtail Crudo and he did very much enjoy that. He also had broccolini which was good, not great. Their Tiramisu was good, again not great.
The real problem with this place beyond the cafeteria style of cooking, the cold, the rude host, the not great or even close to it pre-made food is the hygiene. I will only address the worst offense I saw. The main cook, sadly ours, clearly has a cold. Though out the entire time we were there, over an hour, he was constantly wiping his nose on his sleeve with his gloves on and going back to work (and doing this while he was cooking). He did this about once a minute. It was disgusting. He then took off his gloves, stuck his thumb up his nose and wiped it on his shirt. He put on another pair of gloves, never washed his hands and continued with the getting the drip of mucus off his nose, most on the gloves, some on this shirt. There was no sanitizer in sight and I did not see a place for him to wash up. Had a Health Department employee seen this they would have gone nuts. It was just gross. I was not at all comfortable eating what he cooked. My husband ate most of it as there was nothing to eat at home and all this was over priced for what you get.
He also enjoyed checking his phone that was in his pocket and continuing to cook.