Friday Night With Special Friends

Tonight we had our long awaited dinner with good friends Jeff and Cookie. Everyone's so busy we had to wait three weeks to get together with them. It was worth the wait, as the restaurant, and the company was first class.

We went to the new Pizza Nova in San Marcos (http://www.pizzanova.net/). It is unlike either the Hillcrest or Solana Beach location in look, but the food is the same. The San Marcos location is very contemporary, soft lighting and comfortable booths inside, and a big patio outside. During the summer they show Betty Boop cartoons when the sun goes down, which makes it a big attraction for families. I don't usually write about chain restaurants, but Pizza Nova is a very small chain, the food is very good and I think worth writing about.

While perusing the menu and making our decision on what to eat, we were served delicious little pizza dough rolls, baked and topped with garlic and butter. We started our meal with the chopped salad, a mixture of chicken, cheese, salami, tomatoes and lettuce in a vinegrette dressing. Plenty of salad for the four of us to share. Then we had a huge plate of bruschetta (chopped tomatoes and basil in a vinegrette) with toasted bread. Delicious. Next, we had a dish of cheesy, creamy macaroni and cheese and a large pizza called pizza nova. It was topped with nova lox, red onion and capers in addition to cheese. The crust was delicious and the pizza was an excellent combination of ingredients.

Other items that I can recommend are the Chinese chicken salad, fettuccine alfredo, lasagna, and an excellent house salad. This was the perfect restaurant to dine in with Cookie and Jeff. They're so much fun to be with, but finding a restaurant they'll be happy with is a challenge. She doesn't like one thing, he doesn't like another. We've got to go someplace with lots of choices. Pizza Nova was the right place to go. We all left happy, our stomachs satisfied, laughing at Ron's silly jokes all the way home.