Pasta

Since our last visit to the Italian restaurant Romeo Cucina, it has had a touch up and so has the menu. The capacious room has a warm and inviting ambiance with its wood-burning oven as a focal point. The space is nicely lit and has an uncrowded feeling. A few booths have been added and the walls are painted a pleasant Etruscan red. There's a lively bar toward the rear and an eat-in-bar surrounding the glowing brick pizza oven. Diners may also enjoy eating on the small outdoor patio facing the street.

Luggatti?s Italian Grill is an old-fashioned red-sauce Italian restaurant without the checked tablecloths and the Chianti bottles dripping with candle wax, combined with the conviviality of a neighborhood hangout. This buzzy and crowded spot has a casual atmosphere with old brick walls, a fireplace and an exposed ceiling. The noise level is high because the place is always packed with people coming in for the old-world style, slow-cooked sauces and open-flame grilled specialties from the extensive menu.

DINING OUT It is special restaurants such as Lino's Italian Cuisine, on Edwards Street next to Blockbuster Video, that make Surf City a destination out of season. Here, owner Nicolino "Nick" Radogna and his wife, Liz, have created the warmth of a family kitchen where 17 blue double-clothed tables fill the dining area and friendly conversation skips from table to table. Our server, Michelle Neal, is quick to bring a menu crowded with pasta preparations starting from the familiar spaghetti, (lunch $6.65, dinner $9.75)

Mary Furr Huntington Beach is a cluster of many neighborhoods within the boundaries of a city -- each different and each exciting in its own way. One -- the Seagate Plaza at Bolsa Chica and Edinger -- has Giovanni's. It's a family owned restaurant with some great pastas and sauces from the kitchen of owners Naomi George and her late husband Floyd. They grew up together just seven houses apart in Iowa City, Iowa, eating from recipes they now serve at Giovanni's.

o7 Baci f7 (Italian for kiss) may be your romantic choice for Valentine's Day. The eye-catching restaurant on Beach Boulevard between between Garfield Avenue and Ellis Street, Huntington Beach, was designed and painted by Franco Masci, an artist brought from Italy by owner/chef Angelo Juliano to re-create the streets of an Italian village. Inside, the illusion continues as you pass through arches to intimate dining areas -- ours hado7 Langolo degli innamoratief7 -- "lover's corner" scrolled on the wall.

DINING OUT Toscany, the Italian cafe in the long strip mall between Beach Boulevard and Gothard Avenue, across from the old Huntington Beach Mall, has had a checkered past. Joseph Andrew is its most recent owner, but kitchen manager Jose Hernandez has been there for nine years. The most recent addition is Ryan Barnett, a cordon bleu-trained executive chef from Oregon. It is he who has made a big difference in creating a varied menu of pastas and pizza.

DINING OUT Remember that little Italian deli you used to go to after school for a great submarine sandwich and a soft drink? It's not gone, it's only hiding in the 7-11 strip mall on the corner of Bushard Street and Garfield Avenue. It's called Pulcini's and it's owned by Huntington Beach residents Wayne and Kay Pulcini. It's a tiny, seven-table place where friendly owners know their customers' names and have pictures of all their cousins and nephews hanging on the wall along with ones of Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack.

Since our last visit to the Italian restaurant Romeo Cucina, it has had a touch up and so has the menu. The capacious room has a warm and inviting ambiance with its wood-burning oven as a focal point. The space is nicely lit and has an uncrowded feeling. A few booths have been added and the walls are painted a pleasant Etruscan red. There's a lively bar toward the rear and an eat-in-bar surrounding the glowing brick pizza oven. Diners may also enjoy eating on the small outdoor patio facing the street.

In response to the recent tsunami and earthquake in Japan, Marinello Schools of Beauty is holding a Japan Relief Cut-A-Thon in Huntington Beach through Saturday. The school will offer $5 haircuts; all proceeds will be donated to the American Red Cross for relief efforts in Japan. Since 1905, Marinello Schools of Beauty has offered beauty education and affordable spa and salon services performed by student stylists under the supervision of licensed instructors. Marinello is at 19022 Brookhurst St. in Huntington Beach.

Walking into Canaletto, we were reminded of an Italian brasserie in Venice. Once inside this large Fashion Island restaurant, you actually feel you’re about to mangiare mangiare in Italia. The white marble counter tops, the rich brown woods, the barrel-vaulted ceiling and white napery feel authentic. The menu also has a genuine ring to it, perhaps because Executive Chef Maurizio Mazzon was born and trained in Venice. The vast room is divided into the bar, dining rooms, outdoor eating areas and the salumeria, which is a small bar where you can eat while watching the chef serve up freshly sliced cured meats.

It is not often I am surprised when I eat out. I usually know what I am going to get. While there is comfort in knowledge, I do enjoy the occasional joy in being amazed at the food I am eating. Bella Roma managed to accomplish this. When I went with a guest recently, I was expecting another family-run Italian restaurant serving the same spaghetti and meat sauce and doughy pizza. But this restaurant blew me away. When I arrived at Bella Roma, I looked at the outside of the small restaurant and thought this was primarily a carryout place.

Luggatti?s Italian Grill is an old-fashioned red-sauce Italian restaurant without the checked tablecloths and the Chianti bottles dripping with candle wax, combined with the conviviality of a neighborhood hangout. This buzzy and crowded spot has a casual atmosphere with old brick walls, a fireplace and an exposed ceiling. The noise level is high because the place is always packed with people coming in for the old-world style, slow-cooked sauces and open-flame grilled specialties from the extensive menu.

John Volo Last week our brood of four rendezvoused with friends Tod and Cindy and their two boys for an early dinner of Italian specialties at Mangia Mangia restaurant. Cindy steered us to Mangia Mangia while Tod requested the early start time (perhaps he wanted to ensure arriving home in time for the finale of "Dancing with the Stars"). Once seated in the nondescript dining room, I fixated on the wall-mounted plasma television that was showing a tour video of Italy.

Mary Furr It's a frosty post-holiday day and the place we head for is the Westbay Cafe, which welcomes us with the busy comfort of home -- just to sit and collect ourselves is a pleasure here. Opened in 1996 by the Buettner brothers -- John, Scott, Brad and Jay -- it was a location they often talked about with their dad, Bud, as the perfect spot for a cafe. There's a big, color photo of the whole family on one wall of the bright and busy cafe with its pitched ceiling, beams and wraparound windows.

DINING OUT It's Auld Lang Syne to 2003 and welcome to 2004 as you climb the steps of the Huntington Beach Beer Company to celebrate the double holiday of New Year's eve and day. A mug of Huntington Beach Blond comes from the big steel brew vats facing you as you enter Peter Andriet's second-story bar and grill to find a place on the balcony, heated by tall lamps and alive with conversation. But the Beer Company is more. From the balcony, past a small bar is a long dining room offering pizzas and burgers, salads and pastas from a kitchen run by chefs Pedro Espanza and Pablo Gutierrez since it opened in 1992.

DINING OUT Toscany, the Italian cafe in the long strip mall between Beach Boulevard and Gothard Avenue, across from the old Huntington Beach Mall, has had a checkered past. Joseph Andrew is its most recent owner, but kitchen manager Jose Hernandez has been there for nine years. The most recent addition is Ryan Barnett, a cordon bleu-trained executive chef from Oregon. It is he who has made a big difference in creating a varied menu of pastas and pizza.