MARY FURR -- DINING OUT

You feel like you’ve just arrived at a party when you enter BJ’s

Restaurant and Brewery, at Beach Boulevard and Edinger Street in

Huntington Beach.

The music is lively, the hostess is smiling, the beer’s cold, and the

pizza’s hot. This place is fun!

One of the larger BJ’s, it has an expanded menu that offers

sandwiches, salads, pizzas (of course), pasta, giant stuffed potatoes and

“pizookie,” a dessert to end all desserts.

To the left is a peaked ceiling dining area with a dark red wood bar

and four big vats that dispense original beers brewed at other BJ’s

locations with on-site breweries, General Manager David Willett said.

Booths and clothed tables fill this dining area.

There’s a cozy room nearby with a fireplace and, to the right, another

area with windows overlooking a lagoon with ducks and swans paddling by

to the delight of diners with children.

We ordered BJ’S favorite specialty pizza ($6.85 to $18.95) that has

everything -- it’s Chicago deep-dish style with a thick bakery crust

overloaded with meatballs, pepperoni, Italian sausage, mushrooms, green

peppers, black olives and white onions -- sizzling hot. It has a

spiciness from the sausage that’s just right.

There are 20 toppings, some unusual, such as artichoke hearts, a

vegetarian variety or gourmet tri-pepper sausage -- a choice that’s a

real challenge to your originality.

For a more complete meal, try a pasta with a soup or salad (dinner

$7.45 to $9.95, lunch $1 less). Choose clam chowder in a bread bowl for a

great beginning. Our server said she had it as a complete lunch. A

carved-out loaf of sourdough bread is filled with big pieces of clams,

potatoes, onions and New England-style creamy chowder (a la carte $5.95).

It is rare to have a soup like this as part of a dinner.

Meat lasagna ($8.95) is a good entree choice. Baked in a small

casserole, the pasta is less thick than most, layered with ground beef,

Italian sausage, pebbly ricotta and topped with mozzarella and Parmesan

cheese. Kitchen manager Jerry Vargas puts together an excellent blend of

tastes and textures.

For another visit, it was rotelli noodles with a vegetarian marinara

sauce of thick zucchini slices, broccoli and great hunks of fresh tomato

that clung to the spiral pasta. However, it was not heated up to par and

was sent back to the kitchen for extra warming. The round ravioli ($8.95)

was especially good, fat with a combination of Romano and Parmesan cheese

in a lightly seasoned, creamy tomato sauce.

This larger BJ’s serves ribs, New York steak, roasted chicken and our

choice, fresh salmon fillet (lunch $9.95, dinner $12.95), broiled with

drawn butter, vegetables and rice. It was deliciously moist, flaky but

firm with a crusty surface.

BJ’s has an original desert called pizookie ($3.95) -- it’s a freshly

baked, hot-out-of-the-oven cookie topped with vanilla bean ice cream and

served in its own deep dish. You can choose a chocolate chunk, macadamia,

peanut nut butter or oatmeal raisin cookie for this creation -- just

avoid the scales for a day or two.

Started in 1978 by Ohio natives Michael Phillips, a marketing

director, and his friend Bill Cunningham, a stock broker, BJ’s is the

kind of comfortable “down home” place that, as Willet says, has something

for everyone.

Though it’s said you can’t be all things to all people, BJ’s

Restaurant and Brewery is sure going to give it a try.

* MARY FURR is the Independent restaurant critic. If you have comments

or suggestions for her, call (562) 493-5062.

FYI

o7 BJ’s Restaurant and Breweryf7

* ADDRESS: 16060 Beach Blvd., Huntington Beach

* PHONE: (714) 842-9242

* HOURS: 11 a.m. to midnight Sunday through Thursday; 11 a.m. to 1

a.m. Friday and Saturday. Happy Hour 4 to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday,

10 p.m. until closing Sunday through Thursday in the bar only.