Restaurant Review:

One of the reasons I don’t like chain restaurants is there is little flexibility when it comes to ordering.

When I go out I enjoy trying items with different combinations or different side dishes, just to mix it up and get a more distinguished dining experience.

I don’t want more, just equal amounts of a couple of side orders. If they have six or seven options, I might want two or three to try.

This is especially true with sauces at Italian restaurants. I like deviating from the menu with a given sauce and maybe trying something they don’t put on the menu.

Some places get this and it is not a problem, but it seems like the chains have a problem grasping the concept.

When I saw multiple pastas and sauces available at Gina’s Pizzeria and Family Style Pastaria I was eager to try a couple of them.

The restaurant offers a build-your-own pasta dish with four pastas — spaghetti, whole wheat spaghetti, penne and rotelle.

With those choices come four sauce options — marinara, creamy pesto, meat sauce and Bellalinda, a creamy marinara.

I wanted half whole wheat pasta and half rotelle with meat sauce and Bellalinda on the side.

That doesn’t sound that difficult, but the 20-something guy behind the counter looked at me like I just asked him to divide Pi by the circumference of an atom.

Listen, this isn’t the two trains leaving the station at different times and speeds math problem that we all couldn’t figure out in high school.

But he’s looking at me with the “that isn’t going to happen stare.”

Polite persistence is the key and after explaining it a couple of times, he figured out that I wasn’t giving in and acquiesced, though I did hear him apologize to the cook when he told him my order.

I didn’t care, I was happy to be able to mix and match.

The rotelle pasta is cooked a little north of al dente.

It had a nice firmness to it and grabbed both the meat sauce and the Bellalinda.

Of the two sauces, I liked the meat sauce more. It was filled with pebbles of ground beef in a slightly sweet marinara sauce.

The Bellalinda was a little runnier than I would have liked.

I did like the taste, though, and the bits of onion in it added to the flavor.

The sausage I ordered on the side for the pasta was between spicy and mild, and I really liked it.

They also serve garlic bread with the entrée, and the French roll was brushed with a surprisingly sufficient amount of garlic.

The pizza is not for all tastes, and I would order it only if you like thick crust.

This isn’t Chicago deep dish, but it is doughy and a little heavy on sauce and light on cheese.

I do like that they offer it by the slice and I did like the crust, which was not too chewy and had a nice mellow flavor.

I would recommend coming in for lunch rather than dinner.

This would also be a perfect place to order a pizza, and they do deliver to a limited area.

Gina’s Pizza and Family Style Pastaria

Address: 2701 Harbor Blvd., Costa Mesa

Phone: (714)434-1311

Website: www.ginaspizza.com

Cuisine: Italian

Specialty dish: Pizza

Alcohol served: Beer and wine

Entrée price range: $7.49 to $24.99

Family friendly: Yes

Credit cards accepted: American Express, MasterCard and Visa

Rating: ***

JOHN REGER reviews local restaurants and may be contacted at [email protected] or P.O. Box 2984, Seal Beach, CA 90740.