Flavor in Abundance

In Italy, part of a trattoria’s charm is eating outdoors on the sidewalk. Pulcinella Trattoria, located on a drab commercial stretch of Ventura Boulevard, does have a handful of patio tables facing the street, but you probably won’t want to sit there until spring.

That’s owner Pietro Forte in the rimless glasses and starched kitchen whites stopping by your table for an assessment of his work.

Chances are you won’t have much to complain about. Forte’s cooking isn’t exactly brilliant, but it is flavorful and abundant.

On being seated, you get a basket of puffy Italian bread hot from the oven, with a dish of minced garlic in olive oil. It almost makes the short pizza list redundant (but if it doesn’t, the best of them is a gooey quattro formaggi).

The antipasto list is short and sweet. There’s a rather bland, salty salmon carpaccio served with a mound of arugula in the middle. Good, thinly sliced prosciutto can be ordered either with bufala mozzarella or sliced cantaloupe (go with the cheese).

Antipasto della mamma, meanwhile, is a plate of marinated grilled eggplant and sweet peppers. It comes with more bufala mozzarella, in this case warm. The only soup I’ve tried was a watery pasta and fagioli, made with just a few strands of angel hair pasta in the bean broth.

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All pastas are prepared nicely al dente. The only homemade pasta is the daily-changing ravioli di Angelo. I had them with an airy filling of spinach and ricotta under a creamy blanket of pink sauce. They were delicious.

Penne delle mamma combines penne with eggplant, basil, peppery little meatballs and a first-rate marinara sauce. Even better is linguine with calamari, a dish where pasta, peas and tomato sauce provide a pleasant backdrop for rings of exquisitely tender baby calamari.

The main dishes are all reasonably well done. I liked the roast pork tenderloin (medaglione di maiale) topped with a rosemary-scented reduction of meat juices. Another reliable choice is the osso buco; the veal shank I got was brimming with marrow and surrounded by a moat of peas, mushrooms, carrots and sauce.

For once, here’s a dessert list not restricted to tiramisu. It includes a wonderful homemade torta della nonna, or grandmother’s cake, filled with lemony custard and dusted with sugar and pine nuts.

The cheesecake is creamy and light, and there is also a mandarin orange sorbet, served bitingly cold inside a hollowed-out tangerine. Another reason to eat indoors in this weather, of course.

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BE THERE

Pulcinella Trattoria, 19563 Ventura Blvd., Tarzana. Open 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Monday-Friday, 5-10 p.m. Sunday-Thursday, 5-11 p.m. Friday-Saturday. Street parking. Beer and wine only. American Express, MasterCard and Visa. Suggested dishes: antipasto della mamma, $6.50; linguine with calamari, $10.50; ravioli di Angelo, $9.95; medaglione di maiale, $13.95. Call (818) 996-8008.