RESTAURANTS : Mama Crivello Serves Up Pizazz at Ciao, a Family Eatery in the Truest Sense

SANTA ANA —  Ciao looks like one of those indistinct little neighborhood restaurants you drive past a hundred times without noticing--just another dark storefront in a supermarket-based shopping mall.

Inside, a different scenario emerges. You walk into a room decorated trattoria -style with red-and-white-checked tablecloths, straw bottles of Chianti hanging from rafters and a partially exposed kitchen. The smell of smoke rises from a wood-fired oven, and the crackle of basil and garlic sizzle in white-hot pans.

This is a family restaurant in the truest sense, run by a Sicilian mater familias and her five sons. John Patrick Shanley, who wrote the screenplay for “Moonstruck,” couldn’t have dreamed up a more colorful cast of characters than the Crivello family.

Bina Crivello, the mother, is from Palermo, Sicily, and it shows in her cuisine. Well over half of her dishes come smothered in various tomato-based sauces, sauces that have all but disappeared from the menus of many trend-seeking local Italian restaurants. You will want to order much from her small but self-assured menu.

Another point in the restaurant’s favor is that it is fun. Ciao is the kind of place where college students come to whoop it up on pizza and pitchers of beer, a place where serious cooking does not affect the general good cheer. At night, Bina’s sons do most of the cooking and wait tables in animated bursts of Italian and English. Eating here feels as if you’ve accidently walked into a television show about a restaurant in the Bronx. Expect a noisy exuberance, and prepare to let loose.

Pizza, southern Italian style, is given the red carpet treatment. Pizza Napoletana is a thin-crusted masterpiece fashioned out of fresh tomato, whole-milk mozzarella, anchovy and heaps of oregano. It is served bubbling on a large ceramic platter, just as salty and provocative as the ones you can eat outdoors on a piazza overlooking the Mediterranean. If anchovies are too powerful a taste, try the pizza alla Siciliana , top-heavy with grilled eggplant, roasted red pepper and sauteed onions, or choose your own toppings. Of course, all pizzas have Bina’s rich tomato sauce.

A giant helping of tender steamed clams is served in a broth with olive oil, parsley and garlic. It makes for a delicious soup. Far better, in fact, than either of the two soups featured on the menu. The house minestrone, for instance, has fresh, chunky vegetables but is overpowered by a bland, tomato-based stock. Clam chowder Italian-style fares no better, running aground on marinara sauce and an abundance of salt.

A small variety of appetizers may suit you. Mozzarella caprese , is delicate poached mozzarella in extra virgin olive oil with fresh basil and ripe tomato. Eggplant parmigiana , hearty enough for main course status, comes in a heavy blanket of marinara sauce and melted cheese. The house antipasto seems to be an afterthought: good salami, baked ham, cheese cubes, pepperoncini , marinated artichoke hearts and some oily breaded eggplant. Save your appetite. You’ll need it.

Pastas are huge, served with an excellent garlic bread and a good house salad. The homemade dressing on the salad, creamy Italian, is particularly scrumptious. Spaghetti frutti di mare is the pride and joy here. It’s a huge platter of pasta al dente with clams, calamari , shrimp, mussel and sauce marinara. Fettuccine al ragu , flat noodles in a meat sauce, is good too. I would pass on the lasagna, a lazy version with ricotta oozing out in all directions that is positively flooded with Bina’s thick sauce. It looks as if the dish were assembled right on the plate, without ever having seen the inside of a casserole dish.

If you still need more sustenance, there is a wide selection of veal, chicken and shrimp dishes. You’ll be on safe ground if you stick to the red ones: veal pizzaiola , scampi fra diavolo , sausage alla Calabrese . As for the piccata, Marsala and Alfredo sauces, they are not half bad, although perhaps better left to the experts. (Namely, the chefs of Lombardy and Tuscany, absent in Mama Crivello’s kitchen.)

By all means leave room for dessert. Cappuccino is especially frothy, and I thought I had experienced the best tirami su until I tasted the one at Ciao. Its flavor is intense.

Every morning Bina assembles her own cannoli , the cream-cheese-raisin-filled pastry logs with the bubbly outside crust. They are exemplary. I’ve never had ones with a lighter filling or a more delicate aftertaste.

Ciao is inexpensive, particularly if pizzas and appetizers are ordered. The generously portioned antipasti are $5.25 to $5.95. Soups are $2.25 to $2.75. Salads are $2.95 to $5.25. Menu pizzas are $5.45 to $7.95, with larger sizes available for takeout priced according to specifications. Pastas are $6.85 to $8.50. Main dishes are $10.95 to $14.75.

FOR THE RECORD: In my March 2 column titled “Second Helpings,” I incorrectly reported that the breads and desserts served at Gustav Anders restaurant in South Coast Plaza Village were made by Piret’s of San Diego. Gustav Anders makes all its own breads and desserts, and I regret the error.

CIAO

1730 E. 17th St., Santa Ana

(714) 972-3101

Open Monday through Friday 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m, Saturday 4:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.

MasterCard and Visa accepted.

Second location at 33585 Del Obispo St., Dana Point

(714) 496-0992