Culver City Beat

I happened to drop by Ugo in downtown Culver City for lunch on accident because my intended lunch restaurant was closed for the day.  I had gone once before for breakfast, which I did not enjoy and once for dinner, which was just okay, so I didn't have high hopes for lunch.  Considering it took them almost 20 minutes to 'cook' me up an almost raw (and I LOVE runny eggs) sunny side up egg when I went for breakfast, I was just hoping that lunch would be edible.

I ordered a grilled shrimp and scallop salad with artichoke hearts off their specials menu.  Considering a salad is mostly raw ingredients, I figured it would be easy for them.

When the salad came, I was pleasantly surprised.  Here's to setting low expectations.  The scallops were grilled perfectly with neat char marks outside and tender scallop inside.  It wasn't overdone at all. Bravo to them.  The shrimp was cooked just as well, but oversalted, which was a disappointment. The copius amount of salt on the shrimp overpowered any sweetness it had.

The actual vegetables in the salad ranged from okay (the artichoke hearts) to just plain bad (the underripe tomatoes).  The greens were a typical mixed green salad mix and the dressing was tangy with lemon. I still have a bad taste in my mouth from the tomatoes though. I wish chefs would just leave bad tomatoes off a dish instead of trying to serve them. They don't even look good as garnish.

As a whole, even though the salad was better than I expected, Ugo was as mediocre as I remembered. Giving them three chances to make good is about as generous as I can get.  The decor is nice and judging from the customers eating there, it doesn't seem like they're hurting for customers so I'm sure they won't miss little ol' me swearing them off.

Ugo
3865 Cardiff Ave
Culver City, CA‎
(310) 474-4482‎