[Hole in the Wall] Eat/Chow/Love

This is how you can enjoy a four-course meal for a tad more than $20 at Eat Chow, a bistro that occupies a side space of the Costa Mesa hipster haven the Closet:

Order an appetizer. The list is small, but what’s available is inventive, delicious and around $4. A trio of fried green tomatoes comes with a sweet crust that looks like the skin of a catfish; it encapsulates thick cuts of the fruit, while a dollop of chilied sour cream tops each one. Onion rings glimmer with oil, taste subtle, and go great with an accompanying tartar sauce and ketchup (spike the tartar with Tabasco to open your palate). The only hummus better than the white-bean spread Eat Chow prepares is the one spiked with meat, pine nuts and chili powder at Kareem’s Restaurant in Anaheim. It might seem strange that tortilla chips accompany the hummus instead of pita or another flatbread, but the clash of cultures works: salty, hearty, wonderful.

Order another appetizer. In most restaurants, chefs usually treat appetizers as afterthoughts by trotting out the same tired standards at exorbitant prices, but Eat Chow’s entries can pass as full-on entrées. Even those fried green tomatoes fill your stomach and senses. Honestly, two Eat Chow small plates qualify as a full meal—but being gluttonous Americans, we demand more. So . . .

Order the soup of the day. For $4, out comes something bigger than a cup, smaller than a bowl and absolutely satiating. The white-bean soup is as rich as a cassoulet, flecked with green strips of some herb or other that lends bite. And the turkey chili is actually memorable instead of a glop.

Finish with dessert. Once this restaurant truly takes off, expect more choices than chocolate cake, strawberry shortcake and bread pudding. In the meantime, enjoy a silky bread pudding, tart shortcake and a chocolate cake I can no longer eat lest the chocolate overload render me more of a babbling fool than I currently am.

Oh, yeah: As for the actual entrées, Eat Chow’s burger, though pricey at $8.50, is a bargain in the world of gourmet burgers. This is one of the better choices, coming with a brioche bun, fresh Thousand Island dressing and a patty packing spice (not in the caliente sense, but in its literal meaning). Steak and fish filets do their job, with homemade sauces topping each. And while the breakfast is also delicious, you can order buttermilk pancakes for dinner—be warned, Roscoe’s.

Eat Chow at 1802 Newport Blvd., Costa Mesa, (949) 650-CHOW.

garellano@ocweekly.com