A couple three weeks ago, my wife and I had the chance to get out and try a new restaurant in Davenport, one that specialized in seafood with a Mexican twist. The place had been open since last summer, but with COVID-19 protocols in place we just didn't feel comfortable going out to restaurants like we normally do. Now that things have settled down a bit, we decided to do a date night and have dinner at Costa del Mar Mariscos.
The corner of N. Brady St. and E. Kimberly Road in Davenport (see map) has always been a busy intersection in the city. I've lived in the Quad Cities for nearly 30 years and the building on the southwest corner of the intersection has been a series of restaurants over the years. The first one I remember was a Ground Round, a casual American-style dining restaurant chain that was popular in the 80's and 90's. It has housed a number of Mexican restaurants over the years, most recently it was the home of a place by the name of Casa Maguey, and before that it was a Los Agaves location. None of the restaurants were bad - in fact, nearly all of them have been very popular over the years. But none of them have ever lasted more than a few years.
In 2019, Casa Maguey closed its doors with the promise of a new and improved Mexican restaurant taking over the spot. A large semi-trailer had been sitting in the parking lot for quite some time and I could tell there was construction going on in and around the building. It looked like things were coming along nicely for a springtime 2020 opening, but then that little thing called COVID-19 came around. Restaurants were shut down for a number of weeks before the State of Iowa allowed some to reopen at reduced capacity. Costa del Mar Mariscos (which roughly translates into "Seacoast Seafood") opened in July of last year.
Since Brady Street is a one-way northbound, and there's no left turn access off of westbound E. Kimberly Road, there's only two access points into the parking lot at Costa del Mar Mariscos - a left turn from northbound N. Brady or a right turn off of eastbound E. Kimberly Road. We were sort of surprised to see a number of cars in the parking lot when we pulled in, but we knew the restaurant was large enough to have people spread out for seating.
There's two dining areas in Costa del Mar - the original dining area that dated back to the Ground Round days is to your right as you walk in. It still has the atrium seating up front that was a signature of Ground Round restaurants in the past. To the left is the cantina area that features a number of high-backed booths along with wooden tables and chairs, similar to the other dining area on the other side of the restaurant. A large mural of the sea was on the wall on the far end of the cantina. I have to say that the decor in previous restaurants probably hadn't been spruced up for a number of years and I remember remarking to my wife not long before Cafe Maguey closed in 2019 that the place looked rather tired. But the remodeling project by Costa del Mar Mariscos management really sparked some life into the restaurant.
The cantina area was completely redesigned from the previous bar/cantina area in previous restaurants. Before, the bar was rectangular situated in the middle of the room with seating on all four sides. The new design moved the bar back into a corner of the cantina area taking away two sides of seating. I've been noticing that some of the newer Mexican restaurants that have bar areas have a number of flatscreen televisions around the bar. Costa del Mar was no exception.
We were seated in one of the high-back booths in the cantina and were given a couple menus to look over. My wife decided she didn't want to get a margarita that evening, but I ended up getting a Sol. Later on, she decided that she wanted a Sol along with her dinner which was surprising since she very rarely drinks beer any more.
Chips and a red salsa, the prerequisite for any Mexican meal served in a restaurant like Costa del Mar, came out to the table. I asked our server if she had any of the green chile salsa. She brought out a large bowl of the salsa verde not long after. It was actually very good - not as salty as we've found many green chile salsas to be - and it had a bit of a spicy bite on the back end.
The menu at Costa del Mar Mariscos featured the usual Mexican favorites - burritos, enchiladas, quesadillas, fajitas and chimichangas. But the back part of the menu featured a number of seafood dishes along with steaks. They had oysters on the half shell, shrimp and octopus cocktails, ceviche, seafood soups, and entrees with fish, shrimp or lobster. They also had a number of shareable platters with various seafood offerings consisting of shrimp, octopus, mussels, oysters, crab legs and scallops. The Paella del Mar featured both peeled and head-on shrimp, mussels, octopus, clams, and scallops all sautéed and mixed in with crab legs and rice. You could get most of the sharable plates as single dinner selections, as well.
My wife wasn't all that hungry and I wasn't either for some reason. I can't remember if we had a big lunch earlier in the day, but I just remember that I didn't feel like getting much. I ended up getting the pork chile verde - slow-roasted pork sautéed in a green chile salsa and spices, then served with Mexican rice and refried beans. Tortillas came with the pork chile verde. The pork was tender and flavorful with the green chile salsa. I just love good salsa verde and what they had at Costa del Mar was very good.
My wife went with the carne asada quesadilla - chunks of flank steak folded in a flour tortilla shell with cheese, grilled onions and cilantro, then lightly grilled. Mexican rice and refried beans came on the side along with pico de gallo and sour cream served in a tortilla bowl. The was worried that the quesadilla would be big, but she was happy to see that it was manageable for her. While she didn't eat the whole thing, she was very happy with her choice.
For our first foray into the menu at Costa del Mar Mariscos, we were pretty impressed with what they had to offer and with what we ordered that evening. My pork chile verde was very good and my wife really liked her carne asada quesadilla. Our server that evening was attentive and friendly, and the decor was very nice after an extensive sprucing up that new management did before opening last year. While we didn't try any of Costa del Mar's seafood offerings on our first trip, we made mental notes of what they offered for seafood dishes and made plans to go back at some point and try some of their shrimp dishes, the grilled octopus and some of their oysters-on-the-halfshell.
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