DINING OUT -- MARY FURR

It’s no secret what Fountain Valley residents like for lunch and

dinner or where they’re going to get it. It’s wood-fired pizza from ovens

of the newly opened Sammy’s at Brookhurst Street and Ellis Avenue in the

Fountain Valley Ralphs Center.

It’s a classy high-energy restaurant with floor to ceiling glazed

sienna-colored, tile walls hung with shining brass plates and ceramic

potted real flowers. Window-side booths and tables fill the large room

with an eight-stool counter facing the 500-degree ovens. It’s here that

busy cooks, directed by kitchen manager Ajoni Tartagen, are turning out

21 kinds of pizza -- everything from grilled artichoke to zucchini and

egg plant.

We decided on New York style pizza ($10.50) with a firm, tissue-thin

crust brushed with a puree of tomato sauce, soaked with mozzarella cheese

and topped with mushrooms, pepperoni, salami and spicy crumbled sausage.

The rolled edge is chewy -- the whole pie excellent -- and with six

slices, a good sharing dish for two. Add the house salad (large $9.95

small $6.50) and you have a pretty balanced lunch.

Sammy’s salads are huge -- the large is mixing-bowl size -- enough for

four diners, full of a variety of greens, tomato, Kalamata olives slick

with a thick dark vinaigrette. There are nine other salad choices ($6.50

to $12.50) with grilled chicken and shrimp, and Chinese, Greek and Thai

variations.

But man can’t live on pizza alone, and Sammy’s offers fish and meat

selections worthy of a gourmet restaurant. Norwegian salmon ($14.95)

filet, oak roasted and marinated in lemon and pepper, flakes at the touch

of a fork. It’s served with a combination of slender sauteed bright green

beans and slices of mushrooms and real garlic with a big mound of

wonderful seasoned mashed potatoes flecked with bits of carrot.

Another selection from the eight specializes, something you don’t

often find at a pizza place, is grilled lamb chops ($16.95) from New

Zealand -- five medium-sized, varying in thickness, are arranged like a

tepee over the seasoned mashed potatoes. They are tender, blackened from

grilling and crusty -- the kind that just have to be picked up and eaten

from the slender bone -- they are “steak house” quality from this

surprising pizza place.

Fanciful desserts are the big kind you come by for after a movie, and

one to remember is the nutty fudge sundae ($6.75). A nearly foot-tall

goblet is filled with vanilla ice cream, toasted coconut and chocolate

syrup that overflows and pools in the saucer that holds cube-sized walnut

brownies. It’s Sammy’s signature dessert, one to haunt any chocolate

lover.

And there really is a Sammy -- Sammy Ladeki, who began in La Jolla and

chose Fountain Valley as the first location in Orange County because the

people here are so friendly and the neighborhoods are so attractive.

And from the looks of the diners pouring into Sammy’s Woodfired Pizza,

hungry too.

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

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

SAMMY’S WOODFIRED PIZZA

* WHERE: 18315 Brookhurst St., Fountain Valley

* PHONE: (714) 593-5800

* HOURS: 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, 11:30 a.m. to

11 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

* MISC.: Credit cards accepted. Reservations required for parties of

six or more.