Oswald - Santa Cruz

A consistently wonderful experience! From kitchen to cocktails!

I was with a party of 5. Service was its normal excellent standard. However, the dishes were a disappointment. The duck was nowhere near pink and one of my fellow diners thought it looked like the colour of my pork tenderloin. I know that diners view the degree of cooking differently but I ate the duck a week earlier at the restaurant and it had been cooked to perfection. i suspect it lay on the pass for too long. Mac and cheese is a staple of US cooking but in this instance my fellow diner felt that it had suffered from a bad case of being 'chef 'd ' . Less is more. Keep it simple. Both my clams and pork tenderloin dishes were great as was the shirt steak cooked to perfection and delicious. So much so that my fellow diner took a doggy bag and had it for lunch the day after. Would I return to Oswalds again in the future? Yes absolutely but I 'll take time speaking to my server about how i would want my dishes cooked.

I expected rally fabulous food. I had the duck with chorizo and cornbread stuffing . Duck was perfectly cooked; the stuffing was crumbly and dry and overpowered the duck. My dinner companions were happy enough with their choices. While the server was really great, fun and helpful, the food came out of the kitchen super slow, and, since we didn 't order appetizers, we sat drinking for much too long.

The portions are great and the service is always kind and quick. The chocolate soufflé is a longtime favorite. ; Hope they bring back the duck cassoulet!

Our host, and food server provided warm and friendly customer service. Thank you Shannon for your engaging service style! Our meal portions were perfect, delivered in a very timely fashion, and, delicious. We greatly enjoyed celebrating our anniversary dinner at Oswald’s!