Spaghetti and Meatballs Have the Starring Roles at La Scala

It has become so common to open an Italian menu and find a listing for angel hair pasta with sun-dried tomatoes, virgin olive oil and fresh basil that it comes almost as a shock to scan a list and read a mention of spaghetti with meatballs.

Dishes of that sort used to supply the raison d’etre of most local Italian restaurants--and not so very long ago at that. In the San Diego of 1980, pasta almost invariably arrived in red sauce, except at the “Continental” eateries that made a production of tossing fettuccine Alfredo at table as a costly first course “prepared for a minimum of two,” as the menus always noted. Any restaurant-goers who can’t remember those days moved here after the Padres took the pennant.

Spaghetti with meatballs can be a lyrical dish, especially on a moody day, but only if the sauce shows a modicum of finesse and only if the hands that shaped the meatballs molded them lightly, so that they seem airy and insubstantial and almost like dumplings. Meatballs whose heft and texture suggests that they might be miniature cannon balls most emphatically do not make the grade.

All of which brings us to La Scala, a long-running Point Loma favorite whose kitchen has yet to acknowledge the existence of sun-dried tomatoes, radicchio lettuce or buckwheat pasta adorned with flash-grilled baby vegetables. The menu instead is the sort that ran for decades as the definitive list, back in the days when the vernacular described basic Italian restaurants as spaghetti houses.

Spaghetti in several simple presentations does play a central role at La Scala. Also of some importance are mostaciolli baked with layerings of mozzarella cheese (the relatively austere forebear of America’s macaroni and cheese), cannelloni and lasagna. Veal and chicken appear in all the usual guises-- alla Marsala, piccata , parmigiana--and a fairly extensive seafood list offers a good selection of shrimp, squid, clam and mussel preparations. Like most of San Diego’s old-style Italian houses with pizza ovens, La Scala also offers calzone, in this case stuffed simply with ricotta and mozzarella.

The appetizer list does go so far as a dish of mussels and clams steamed in seasoned white wine, but otherwise contents itself with a plate of prosciutto, Provolone and roasted peppers, and a more elaborate appetizer of cheeses, salami, olives, lettuce and the pungent, salty, pickled vegetable mix called giardiniera . This platter is portioned so generously that a small order will more than satisfy three guests and quite possibly overwhelm a party of two.

Formal entrees include a dinner salad--redundant at tables that have indulged in an antipasto--that is so basic in its components as to seem the definition of ordinariness.

Slightly unusual pasta offerings include baked gnocchi in meat sauce and shell-shaped macaroni with broccoli, a dish that, whatever its merits, has little chance of being served to the current occupants of the White House. Otherwise, the list is quite in the mainstream, and the tomato sauce that washes across much of it has the fragrance and flavor that, no matter what length of time has intervened since one’s last acquaintance, always seem instantly familiar. A guest who ordered this sauce enriched with fresh mushrooms and poured over an immense platter of spaghetti pronounced himself thoroughly pleased. On a different occasion, the tomato sauce was equally happy over rigatoni, but the meatballs ordered as garnish belonged to the cannonball school. These tough little orbs had been packed, squashed, man-handled and cooked until they were dry, hard and mean, which is not much of a recommendation for a meatball.

Many of the descriptions tacked on to the entree listings mention “spices” among the ingredients. This term, usually used in tandem with herbs on both menus and packaged food labels, typically means black pepper, with the herb in question normally nothing fancier than parsley. A server was incapable of defining just what the spices involved in the veal piccata might be, but there did seem some curious undertones of flavor in this likable presentation. It also varied from the norm in including egg yolk in the sauce, so that it seemed a sort of light but unctuous Italian hollandaise.

The menu also specifies fresh oregano for the veal pizzaiola , a seasoning not employed everywhere but one that certainly would give the dish a new life. A more generous inclusion of meat in the veal and eggplant Sorrentino, meanwhile, might have added a little life to this sorry preparation, which consisted mostly of soggy, heavily breaded eggplant slices stewing under pools of tomato sauce and melted cheese.

There are flashes of originality on the chicken list; one dish tucks a boneless breast and several shrimp under a coverlet of white sauce. The most unusual may be the saltimbocca Riccardo, a most unusual variation on the veal saltimbocca theme that teams baked chicken and prosciutto with tortellini in cheese sauce.

The menu also mentions calamari parmigiana for those who like this style of preparation but shun meat (or really like squid), and the rather more dressy squid steak alla nunzia , which is sauteed with garlic and mushrooms and finished with a deglazing sauce of sherry and lemon juice. The frutti di mare alla Luigi combines various shellfish with marinara sauce and more of those mysterious spices, while the scampi pesto contents itself with the pungent, familiar basil sauce, in this case tossed with angel hair pasta. La Scala recently made a good pesto, but the shrimp seemed a little long in the tooth.

The choice of desserts includes a fairly stiff zabaglione, or egg-Marsala custard, and rather nice cannoli in which the identity of the spice is by no means a mystery. The ricotta cheese filling is highly seasoned with cinnamon and very pleasing because of it.

This casual but comfortable eatery is far from new, and moved to its present premises at Scott and Canon streets some five years ago. The restaurant’s nearness to Shelter Island and the yacht basins ensures that on many nights the clientele will be a lively mix of neighborhood residents and boating enthusiasts.

LA SCALA

1101 Scott St.

224-2272

Lunch and dinner daily.

Credit cards accepted.

Dinner for two, including a glass of wine each, tax and tip, $25 to $50.