Second City Bistro - El Segundo

The dinner was great. unfortunately I don't remember my server name, but he was excellent!

Love the menu. Great place for a chatty lunch with a good friend. Service was terrific.

We love to support our local eateries. Plus, with it being New Year 's Eve, we wanted to find a nice place that we could walk to to avoid the crazies. Well. Second City Bistro seemed to fit the bill. The ambiance and decorations are great. Look at some of the pictures of the hanging holiday balls and lights from the ceiling along with the over-sized presents hanging on the walls. Definitely looks the part. We were greeted right away and our reservation for a specific table was fulfilled. Thank you. Our waiter was very good but, you could tell almost immediately, that the wait-staff was stressed. After observing for a while, I believe that they could have used one more person to help out and that became evident over the course of our meal. We brought our own wine as we have a New Year 's Eve favorite and the waiter addressed that quickly. Brought us glasses and uncorked it right away. But when we asked for water as well, that took a little longer. For the meal, they did offer both their main menu and three prix fixe meal options. We both decided for the $69 option which came with a soup AND salad, main course and a dessert. Th Caesar salad had a nice flavor to it but could have used just a little more zing if you know what I mean. The lobster bisque was served with carrot slices on top which I thought was odd. But, what was worse was that it was served lukewarm. That was a sign we should have paid attention too. This is where the wait-staff could have used one more person, a cleaner and/or fixer to pick up orders as soon as they were ready and to clean off dishes as soon as guests were done. We finished our soups and salads (both brought at the exact same time) and then...waited... It took quite a while for the main courses to arrive and, when they did, they were not hot. Prime rib, lamb, mac cheese...all, not hot and some, like the mac cheese was cool. Which tells me they were sitting for that extended period of time while we were waiting. Out of space.

Parking available in adjacent lot and garage; given choice of where to sit; server could have been more attentive as we had to flag her down to request bread, get drink refills and to get check even though there were only a few customers; ordered Caesar salad and the fish and chips and baby back ribs-food was very tasty and portions large enough for take home left-overs; good value for cost, taste and portion size.

Amazing service by Cesar and delicious food! The six of us all enjoyed the cheese boards and our meals immensely.