Oh, Water Grill. I’ve only been there twice, but what two awesomely lovely meals they were. Every restaurant should strive to be described as “awesomely lovely,” and Water Grill lives up to this term that I just coined.

This downtown mainstay is classic, elegant dining at its best, but without the pretentiousness that can easily accompany such a description. So what you get is a consistently great meal with an inviting, friendly atmosphere that’s hard to beat.

My first meal at Water Grill took place a couple of years ago in the form of a business lunch (‘cuz that’s how I roll). I remember having a vegetarian dish with eggplant, and while it probably wasn’t what I was “supposed” to order at a place that specializes in seafood, it was delicious. I cleaned my plate!

This second trip to Water Grill came at the invitation of the restaurant to try out its Sunday clam bake dinner. Based on my first experience, I expected great things, and I wasn’t disappointed.

First off, as soon as we sat down, our white napkins were whisked away and replaced with black ones. Huge points for this! Not only is it nicer not to see your food on your napkin after you use it, it’s also nicer not to have white lint all over your dark clothing.

We (Lindsay of LAist, Esther of e*starLA and Caroline of Caroline on Crack) started off with cocktails despite knowing we’d be getting wine pairings with our meal because, well, you have to try the cocktails, right? I really liked my whiskey sour, which was made with rye and a house-made sour mix. Not too sweet and just the right amount of tang.

Whiskey sour (left)

We were then presented with an amuse bouche of smoked salmon (sometimes it’s made with tuna; it just depends on what’s fresh that day), Japanese cucumber, grapefruit, hearts of palm puree, diced mango, garlic, ginger and Thai chili topped with micro cilantro, wasabi creme fraiche and black sesame. It was zingy, to borrow a word from Lindsay, and a great way to start off our epic seafood meal.

Next we couldn’t resist the restaurant’s raw selection, even though it wasn’t part of the clam bake meal. Prawns, lobster, scallops, sea urchin, two kinds of oysters — oh, my! I’m not a big raw seafood kind of person (though I do enjoy sushi), but this was an excellent selection put together by our very capable and helpful server, John. He’s the man! (He also chose great wines to pair with our food. Knowledgeable staff is a huge plus.)

And now for the start of our clam bake dinner. You get a choice between two salads: black river gorgonzola cheese and sugar pumpkin salad or mixed greens with shaved tiny vegetables. We all opted for the pumpkin. It was tasty. For the spring 2010 menu, the restaurant plans to use apricots instead of pumpkins.

And now for the best part: a whole quarter-pound lobster (one for each person!) and a casserole dish filled with clams, mussels, potatoes, carrots and linguica served family style. There’s also a bowl of sweet corn, cooked to perfection, that arrives at the table, too. The lobster meat was juicy and sweet, and the clarified butter that is served with it tastes like almost like it’s caramelized. Executive sous chef Ted Hopson told us that the only special thing they do to the unsalted butter is cook out the whey instead of straining it when the butter is clarified.

Lobster claw meat, whole!

All the other clam bake goodies are underneath.

Caroline going for it. This is huge, as she's afraid of alien-like sea creatures.

For our third part of the clam bake dinner, we had a choice between two desserts: a gala apple crisp with vanilla ice cream, or a root beer float. The root beer is made in-house. For the spring 2010 menu, peaches will be served in place of the apples in the crisp. I had the apple crisp, and it was another winner. Despite being totally stuffed, I somehow found room in my belly to finish this dish. Not sure how that happened…

Gala apple crisp with vanilla ice cream

Root beer float

And just when we thought we were done, a plate of adorable little confections was presented to us. Pistachio macarons, and strawberry-pineapple and lemon-poppy seed gelees were a nice way to end the meal.

Pistachio macarons (top), strawberry-pineapple gelee (center), lemon-poppy seed gelee (bottom)

The Sunday clam bake dinner is $55 per person, which may seem like a lot, but if you think about the amount and quality of the food, and the superb service, it’s really a great deal. This would still be a splurge for me, but one well worth the money. This was a truly enjoyable meal. Take someone special for a special occasion; you won’t be disappointed.

Note: I’ve been playing with Picnik.com to edit my photos, so if the lighting on these look a little wonky, that’s why. I hope to get better at this.

Casa del Mar, a 1920s Santa Monica hotel with beautiful unobstructed views of the beach, recently introduced a $29 Sunday brunch, with your choice of an appetizer, entree and all-you-can-eat dessert buffet. Sounds great, right? I thought so, too, so I invited a bunch of my friends to try it out yesterday. Boy, were we disappointed.

It wasn’t so much the food, which was fine for the most part, though some of it had its problems, too. It was the extremely slow service that really got us. Since I made the reservation for the meal, my experience with the hotel started before anyone else’s, and it didn’t start off well.

When I called a week ago to make a reservation, I was told that there were two other large groups (we had eight people) that had already made reservations for my preferred day and time and that the restaurant couldn’t fit us in. Really? I found this hard to believe that in this economy any restaurant (with very few exceptions) wouldn’t accommodate a group of people who want to give their business. So after I asked about availability for the following week, the woman on the other end, after checking with the manager, came back on the line to tell me that they would “squeeze” us in after all. OK, great.

Then the restaurant called me back the night before our reservation to confirm. I confirmed. Then I realized that a restaurant with a different name had called to confirm my reservation. I thought we were eating at The Veranda, but Catch called me. So I called back to reconfirm. By this time, Catch was closed so I was transferred to the hotel’s concierge. I explained why I was calling, saying I just wanted to make sure my reservation was made for the dining area that I wanted. The concierge said, “Well, if you’re having brunch, you’re in Catch.” OK, I wanted to confirm since your Web site is kind of confusing, I said, which was greeted with silence on the other end of the line (take a look at the links above: two different venues with different brunch menus). That was pretty much the end of that conversation.

So I was a little apprehensive when we showed up the next day for brunch, but there were no problems getting us seated in the right place. But there were problems with getting our food. It took 20 minutes before our drink orders were taken and another 15 to 20 minutes before our food orders were taken. I ordered a roasted beet salad to start and a lobster club sandwich for my entree. I was then served eggs Benedict for my appetizer. That was sent back, and I got my beet salad, which was good, with red and golden beets topped with goat cheese and frisee. Other people ordered the seafood salad, which they described as tasting like a seafood Caesar with avocado.

Bellini

Bloody Mary

Roasted beet salad

Seafood salad

Then we got our entrees. My lobster club was OK. The bread was on the thin side and grilled like a panini, which was nice, since sometimes too-thick bread makes a sandwich hard to eat. But the rest of it — the lobster, avocado, tomato and lettuce — didn’t have a lot of flavor. The tomato on one half of my sandwich was looking more than a little worse for wear: not only was I given the “butt” of the tomato, the other piece was a mealy mess. And my potato chips were not warm, as the menu said they would be.

Lobster club

Tomato butt and mealy mess (above)

Oh, and remember that eggs Benedict? Two other people at the table had ordered that dish, and it obviously came back because one was cold. That one was replaced with a new one that the manager swore was made 3 minutes ago right before his eyes. And someone else was displeased with her steak frites; she said the steak was unremarkable and was cooked more than she had asked for.

Eggs Benedict

The saving grace of the meal was the dessert buffet, which offered all sorts of sweets, including puddings, cakes, cupcakes, ice cream, tiramisu, crepes and creme brulee. I had butterscotch pudding, which was good (I actually had this first thing since it took so long to get our real food, and just about everyone else at the table ate dessert first, too). I also had some strawberry ice cream with gummy bears (so sophisticated, I know). The ice cream was OK, but the gummy bears were nice and soft. Tara of When Tara Met Blog said that she thought the mini cupcakes came from nearby Vanilla Bake Shop, and I believe her because she’s the cupcake goddess. I didn’t taste any though, because I was somehow stuffed despite not finishing my entree. Perhaps I was stuffed with displeasure?

Butterscotch (left) and chocolate (right) puddings

Mini cupcakes

Tiramisu

Creme brulee (tart?)

And then we got the check, 2 hours and 15 minutes after we had initially sat down for our meal. I had put 2 hours and 17 minutes on the meter where I parked my car, so I was sure I would get a parking ticket. Thankfully, I didn’t. But there was a kicker — we were charged $27 for three bottles of Evian. When we were asked “sparkling or flat,” we said flat, thinking it was tap. I guess we should have realized when our water came in Evian bottles, but none of us did. The server should have asked if we wanted Evian or tap water after we said we wanted flat, but tap wasn’t even offered. The irony is we all got free booze because of a text-message promotion. Casa del Mar: Where booze is free, but water costs $9 a bottle.

The manager seemed to be the only person who was on the ball. We saw him actively directing the wait staff, and he came by more than once to make sure we were OK. And while our server was pleasant, he never apologized for the wait. Well, I’m not apologizing for this post, either.