Nuevo Southwest Grill, Santa Cruz
The address is 2-1490 E. Cliff Drive. This is the restaurant Jane Baker recommended (this link is broken but Jane still loves the place and so do we) a couple of weeks ago. Finding it was a bit of a challenge. We tried to program the address into Mollie (our GPS) but the dash in the address did not show up. We found East Cliff Drive alright and drove all the way to where East Cliff becomes Seabright but no 2-1490, so we rang the restaurant to ask for directions. We told them where we were on Seabright and Murray and they told us they were on East Cliff and 15th Avenue but couldn’t tell us how to reach them from where we were. We went back to Mollie and put in 15th Avenue and eventually, with a few more wrong turns, we arrived at our destination.
The Nuevo Southwest Grill opens for brunch at 9 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday. It was 9.15 when we arrived and were the first customers of the day. As the name suggests, it is a Mexican restaurant and we were greeted at the door by Mexican music. Tom needed a newspaper to read but there were no stands outside. He asked where he could find a newspaper to buy and was given a personal copy of the Santa Cruz Sentinel by one of the servers, which was extremely kind of her.
A first glance at the menu convinced me I wasn’t going to find any oatmeal and said as much to Tom. His reply was ‘What do you expect in a Mexican restaurant?” On closer inspection though I was surprised to see that they do, in fact, offer oatmeal – served with brown sugar and cinnamon – for $3.95. I also ordered toast ($1.50). Tom was gong to order from the menu but changed his mind when the server went through the specials. He finally ordered Chili Verde, eggs, beans and flour tortilla for $8.95.
The restaurant itself is a bright and cheery place. It is fairly large with a lower section and a slightly higher section. There are no booths at all, mostly wooden, Formica topped tables with wooden chairs with the exception of one wrought iron round table with four matching chairs just inside the restaurant.
Outside there is a small patio with three tables. The site is screened with a vine colored trellis and lined with little lights covered with orange, yellow and beige plastic covers. In daylight they don’t look too pretty but Tom assures me that at night they will give off an attractive glow.
On the walls inside there are a selection of canvasses, four of them framed, mostly of beach and coastal views but some of flowers and gardens. One of the framed paintings is very unusual. The frame itself is much larger than the picture inside and is a picture itself of a mountain and desert scene. Hanging from the ceiling are large bunches of dried hot chili peppers.
Now for the food. My oatmeal was served in a small, round deep bowl with the sugar already on the top. The bowl was on a round plate with a doily. Cinnamon had been sprinkled on top of the oatmeal and all over the plate and doily. I had to ask for some milk. The toast came without butter and jam and I also had to ask for them. The server was happy to get it but the portions, when they arrived in two, small, stainless steel bowls, were meager to say the least. At first the oatmeal appeared watery but it tasted very good. The toast was white – I normally have wheat toast but was not offered a choice – and very crisp. Even though it was difficult to stretch the butter and jam between the four slices of toast, the taste was excellent.
Tom’s chili verde came with two eggs, large cubes of pork covered in the chili verde sauce, pinto beans, a tortilla and salsa. His verdict on it – very good verging on fantastic.
Last, but not least, the restroom. After our last visit to a Mexican restaurant and their appalling restroom, I was a bit dubious but this one was vastly different. As soon as I opened the door I caught the welcome smell of potpourri. I’m guessing it came from the dried arrangement of grasses and seed heads in an urn on the wall. There were two flower pictures in there plus a flowering plant in a pot on a side table and, yes, it was a real plant and not artificial. The only criticism I have is that the water is no where near warm enough.
All in all, we enjoyed our visit to the Nuevo Southwest Grill. We can recommend the service and food and the surroundings were very pleasant.
Jane also mentioned the Farmers Market which is held just across the road on the Sunday so of course we paid a visit there as well. We took a walk round and sampled the pluots and blueberries (the first were a bit sharp but the blueberries were scrumptious). We did buy some fresh fish there – Coho salmon from Alaska – so we were very happy. Thank you Jane for your recommendation.
Related posts:
- Seabreeze Cafe, Santa Cruz
- Santa Cruz Diner, Santa Cruz
- Gazos Grill, San Mateo Coast
- Cafe Brasil, Santa Cruz
- Zachary’s, Santa Cruz
August 10 2008 05:07 pm | Breakfast Log
Zig Dirkos on 27 Jun 2009 at 6:18 pm #
Where’s the restaurants website? Why isn’t it on Yelp?
Margaret and Tom on 27 Jun 2009 at 7:18 pm #
The answer is we don’t know to both your questions.
The link mentioned in the comment isn’t up anymore and it’s very surprising that a restaurant doesn’t have a website these days. It received good reviews both here and here.
Tom