LoCoco's Cucina Rustica
117 Fourth St., Santa Rosa, CA
http://lococos.net/menus/lunch-menu/ 
Review date: August 2012

This well-established trattoria is no relation to the Lo Coco's in Oakland where we ate July 2012. There's a slight similarity in entrees and the modest size of both dining rooms, although Santa Rosa's LoCoco's has a much larger menu overall. 

The Railroad Square area is only half a mile from downtown Santa Rosa, separated by a large mall where Macy's anchors the stores. The owner, Joe LoCoco, has considerable experience in the restaurant business, and opened this restaurant six years ago.

The menu you receive in the restaurant is even more extensive than the one listed on the web. There's also a selection of half-a-dozen daily specials, and a stunningly long verbal list of desserts. Service is brisk and efficient, smilingly professional. 

We met our friends Steve and Laura here for lunch. They decided to try the prosciutto-fig crostini special. This was a generous serving of four crostini, spread with a soft blend of ricotta and mascarpone, with a quartered fresh black fig blanketed by a slice of good quality prosciutto. We all liked this, even Steve who is not normally fond of figs. My only caveat would be the bread was a little overtoasted. It should have a crispness to it, but it is not supposed to be a giant crouton with blackened edges. This was a B+; if they had been more careful with the bread it would have easily been an A.

All of us wanted the hearts of romaine with Gorgonzola cheese. We split two orders, and it was nice to find that LoCoco's doesn't charge for splits, as many restaurants do. The romaine was crisp and fresh. There was a very light drizzle of balsamic and EVOO with a judicious sprinkling of sea salt, and the Gorgonzola crumbles were generously applied. We liked this, although the amount of cheese was a bit over the top. But what the heck, we love Gorgonzola.

Carlos ordered the tortellini in brodo. If the menu hadn't listed chicken broth, a blindfold tasting would have concluded the liquid was salted water. It looked like chicken broth, but didn't taste anything like it. The ricotta tortellini were indifferent, no different than you get from refrigerator packages in the supermarkets. This was very poor, a C- at most.

Laura and Steve split the Philly cheese steak panini, which sounded good and even looked attractive, but unfortunately was too dry. The thin crisp fries on the side were well-executed.

I ordered the veal chop, which came with sautéed Swiss chard and some penne pasta in an acidic flat-tasting tomato sauce. The veal chop, which was moderately sized and nicely grilled, had been doused with an awful pan sauce tasting of nothing other than vinegar. I had to drain it off the plate to be able to taste the meat. It wasn't a great veal chop, but it wasn't too bad, once I disposed of the vinegar. The chard was good, but the penne deserved only to be forgotten, if not forgiven.

Carlos had the lone winner – the red sauce clams with linguine. This is a classic trattoria dish, yet is often poorly done. LoCoco's does a very good version, with a much better tomato sauce than used on my penne. If they were a little more generous with the clams, it would be a five-star dish. It was appreciated that when they ask if you want cheese, the waiter uses a fine-hole grater with a wedge of decent Parmigiano-Reggiano.

Each couple ordered dessert from a long list of recited choices. We were quite impressed that the waiter remembered every one! Steve and Laura chose the chocolate budino, similar to the now-ubiquituous "molten lava cake" – a la mode, of course. We picked the tiramisu, which is one of the few desserts that has escaped the a la mode-itis in which Americans have foisted ice cream upon every possible dessert, whether it needs it or not.

The budino was good, not great, with a nice chocolate flavor. The tiramisu had little if any alcohol that we could taste, but all the other ingredients were there in proper proportion: ladyfingers, espresso, mascarpone cream, and a generous dusting of cocoa powder. A commercial rendition, but a good one.

Regular coffee was good, so was the decaf. Strong and smooth, the way coffee should be.

This is a decent trattoria. If you happen to pick a dish they do well, like the clams and linguine, you'll think they're pretty good. But a number of dishes seem sloppily executed. Doing a few things well only works if you're going to pare down the menu to the bare essentials. 

LoCoco's Cucina Rustica needs to narrow down its menu and sharpen the execution. The mistakes they make are ones that anyone who actually tasted the food, would have caught. They don't use the highest quality ingredients, but good enough to be worth doing a better job. 

As the economy recovers, there's a growing amount of competition in the mid-priced stand-alone niche that LoCoco's is in. If a restaurateur wants to stand above the crowd, s/he needs to make certain that execution can keep up with creativity. Taking just a little more care would bump LoCoco's up another notch.

Four people, lunch: three starters, three entrees, six beverages with tip, was around $158; we split the tab.